80 



£600, and now I am quite certain £650 a day does not cover all the 

 expenses of foxhunting a country. Staghounds can be kept for £550 

 a day, as they have fewer incidental expenses, though the deer cost a 

 great deal. Harriers can be kept for £200 a day. Hunts in the field 

 three or five days a week are proportionately more expensive than 

 those hunting four or six days. 



To foxhunt a country in the style Lord Waterford did the 

 Curraghmore, or as his father-in-law, the Duke of Beaufort, does 

 the Badminton, would cost annually, at the least, a thousand pounds 

 a day for each day a week they hunt. 



According to the returns given for 1890, the packs of hounds and 

 the number of days per week they hunt are as stated in the 

 following 



Table showing the Cost of Hunting the various Countries in 

 THE United Kingdom, including that of the Master. 



This makes the annual cost of 332 Hunts to be £414,850. Let us 

 call them in round numbers 330 packs. Each Hunt has an average 

 field of, say, 100 hunting men, each of whom has, say, three horses 

 in his stable. That gives us 99,000 hunters. These cost fifteen 

 shillings a week per annum to keep, which amounts to a total of 

 £3,861,000. We can, therefore, put down the bare cost of maintain- 

 ing the Hunts and keeping the hunters of the United Kingdom at 

 over four millions and a quarter per annum ; and this prodigious 

 sum includes none of the " extras " contingent upon hunting, such 

 as mansions and houses taken for the hunting season, entertaining 

 friends, covert hacks, and carriage horses, travelling expenses, red 

 coats, top-boots and breeches, or the many gratuities which render 

 the generosity of hunting men proverbial. 



To make a correct valuation of hunting establishments is a task 



