411 



destroy foxes to save a few head of game. This is alike deplorable and 

 unnatural. If a man is a sportsman he will admire not alone every 

 branch, but every bough and offshoot of sport, and will sustain them. 

 If a man will countenance only the particular branch he himself 

 happens to prefer, and does injury to others, assuredly he is not a 

 sportsman. He is a selfish, miserable creature, and man's constitution 

 has no characteristic lower than selfishness. 



On the other hand the prince of sportsmen is the man who from 

 ioability or disinclination does not take active part in it, yet maintains 

 Sport in all its branches so as to emible others to do so. That is the man 

 who has the right to take the chair at all meetings of sportsmen. 



So it is with regard to the man who is afflicted with weak nerve. 

 If he rides hard and straight, although in a funk when going at stiff 

 and dangerous fences, he is far away a more plucky fellow than he 

 who is possessed of nerve that knows not fear. 



Nothing under the sun is self-supporting ; everything requires 

 assistance from without. In nothing is this axiom more exemplified 

 and demonstrated than in the sports of our country. To sustain and 

 maintain them in the high position they hold in the kingdom all must 

 pull together with harmonious combination. There cannot be any 

 friction. Those who may not, perhaps, derive any very great benefit 

 directly from sport, or its consequent circulation of money, should not 

 be so short-sighted as not to lend a hand in promoting our sports and 

 pastimes. When we come to think of the many, many millions of 

 money which I have shown are spent annually upon sport, percolating 

 as that money does through so many channels, and re-circulating 

 through countless rivulets, we must come to the undeniable conclusion 

 that some portion finds its way, in a greater or less degree, everywhere, 

 except back into the pockets of the original spenders. They get none of 

 it hack I 



To maintain sport sportsman should give and take. They should 

 constitute " a happy family " and work in unison for the common good. 

 So long as the subject pertains to sport, it should have the sanction of 

 all, and be sustained, quite irrespective of a man's individual predilec- 

 tion. Sport is sport, be it hunting a rat in a ditch with a terrier or a fox 

 o'er the billowy grass. The hunters in both cases are imbued with the 

 same object, and ofttimes the rat-hunter is the purer sportsman. 



The man who cannot aff'ord a shooting or fishing, but, with every 

 instinct of the sportsman, loves a day with rod or gun should be given 

 occasional leave over preserved land and water ; and, if he can ride, the 

 horseless foxhunter should at times be given a mount by rich friends. 



Many is the hunt, small race-meeting, boating, fishing, and football 

 club, together with other sporting associations, which are sorely in want 

 of funds. If to them a fiver was sent occasionally by some of the many 

 of our rich men, the members could carry on without difficulty, while 

 no appreciable loss could accrue to the donors. 



If by these means, in true friendship, a sportsman's brotherhood was 



