82 



Some people may, perhaps, accept the return as incorrect, but 

 again I defy anyone to prove one single item to be over the mark. 

 However, as I want this subject to be thoroughly understood, and 

 my readers and the public to have confidence in the correctness of 

 the returns, I will give a simple example, the accuracy of which any- 

 one can test, and by consulting a Master of Hounds or Hunt secretary 

 it is very easy to find out whether I am correct or not in my other 

 figures. 



All dogs the size of a foxhound, if kept in kennel and properly fed 

 for hard work, will cost about Is. 6d. a week to feed (I don't allude 

 to one or two dogs, which may be fed very well and conditioned on 

 the refuse of the kitchen, which but for them would be given away 

 or thrown into the manure pit). Now, 9,467 couple means 18,934 

 hounds — say ] 8,900 for the sake of simplicity ; these, at Is. 6d. each, 

 cost just £1,417 a week to feed. Xearly £73,700 a year for only 

 feeding our hounds ! Again, the man who keeps an account of all 

 his hunting expenses knows that each day he goes out with the 

 hounds costs him about £3, and to keep the cost at that figure he 

 must hunt each horse he has pretty nearly three days a fortnight. 

 If he has to go long distances by train, that sum must be increased 

 proportionately. I know I am jDrolix on this subject, hut I want to 

 impress these important fcicts upon the inihlic. 



We are able to invest this vast amount of money in hunting, and 

 to keep the annual cost in steady circulation ; and we shall be able 

 to do so for generations to come if the farmers will continue to us 

 their permission to hunt over their lands, their forbearance in respect 

 to damage done, their assistance in preserving foxes and hares, and — 

 a requisite as important as any — if they will give up the use of wire 

 on their fences J and as palings. 



The farmers and yeomen of England are as fine specimens of 

 manhood as can be found in any land, and so are the farmers of 

 Ireland if let alone. Farmers are nearly all born sportsmen, not with 

 an outward veneering like many of those who think themselves 

 higher up in the social scale, but with true, innate, and deep-seated 

 love of sport. 



Of course there are some without that inheritance, who, from selfish 

 motives or warped conceptions of what is for the general good, do 

 not approve of hunting or of any sport ; but, thank heaven, they are 

 in the very, very small minority. But even they must admit the 

 fact that of the colossal sums I have quoted nearly every shilling 

 Hnds its way, directly or indirectly, into the jmckets of the farminrf 

 class ; and that upon the little red rover of the hazel eye and russet- 

 brown brush they must look as the sole representative of more 

 sport than all the other wild beasts, birds, and fishes of the world 

 put together. Yes, it is the fox, with the assistance of the hare and 

 the deer, that calls forth all this vast yearly exi)enditure of money. 



