220 MR. SPONGE'S SPOBTING TOUR. 



chests, strong loins, straight legs, round feet, with plenty of bone all 

 over. I hate a weedy animal ; a small hound, light of bone, is 

 only fit to hunt a Icat in a kitchen. 



" I shall also ivant a couple of ivhips — not fellows like ivaiters 

 from Crawley's hotel, but light, active men, not boys. I'll have 

 nothin' to do with boys ; every boy requires a man to look arter him. 

 No ; a couple of short, light, active men — say from five-and-hventy 

 to thirty, with bow-legs and good cheery voices, as nearly of the same 

 make as you can find them. I shall not give them large ivage, you 

 know ; but they will have opportunities of improving themselves 

 under me, and qualifying themselves for high places. But mind, 

 they must be steady — I'll keep no unsteady servants ; the first 

 act of drunkenness, with me, is the last. 



" / shall also want a second horseman ; and here I wouldn't 

 mind a mute boy who could keep his elbows doivn and never touch 

 the curb ; but he must be bred in the line ; a huntsman's second 

 horseman is a critical article, and the sporting world must not be 

 put in mourning for Dick Bragg. The lad will have to clean my 

 boots, and wait at table ivhen I have company — yourself, for 

 instance. 



" This is only a poor, rough, ungentlemanly sort of shire, as far 

 as I have seen of it ; and however they got on with the things I 

 found that theg called hounds I can't for the life of me imagine. I 

 understand they went stringing over the country like a flock of wild 

 geese. However, I have rectified that in a manner by knocking all 

 the fast 'uns and slow 'tins on the head ; and I shall require at 

 least twenty couple before I can take the field. In your official 

 report of what your old file puts back, you 11 have the kindness to 

 cobble us up good long pedigrees, and carry Imlf of them at least back 

 to the Beaufort Justice. My man has got a crochet into his head 

 about that hound, and I'm dimmed if he doesn't think half the 

 hounds in England are descended from the Beaufort Justice. These 

 hounds are at present called the Mangeysternes, a very proper title, I 

 should say, from all I've seen and heard. That, however, must be 

 c/ianged ; and we must have a button struck, instead of the plain 

 pewter plates tlie men have been in the habit of hunting in. 



" As to horses, Pm sure I don't know what tve are to do in that 

 line. Our pastrycook seems to think that a hunter, like one of his 

 pa's pies, can be made and baked in a day. He talks of going over 

 to Rowdedow Fair, and picking some up himself; but I should say 

 a gentleman demeans himself sadly ivho interferes with the just 

 prerogative of the groom. It has never been allowed I know in any 

 place I have lived ; nor do I think servants do justice to themselves 

 or their order tvho submit to it. Howsomever, the crittur has 

 what Mr. Cobden ivould call the * rata material ' for sport — that 

 is to say, plenty of money — and I must see and apply it in such a 



