260 SPORTING FOR MEN OF MODERATE MEANS 



their fox as twilight fell. Their soul was in sport, 

 and we love to talk and hear about the grand, 

 generous, though illiterate old squires of a hundred 

 and fifty years ago. Men who always stirred their 

 ale with a sprig of rosemary, and drank posset 

 before going to bed ; dined at one o'clock when 

 they were at home ; smoked their " yard of clay," 

 wore topboots, buckskins, and a blue coat with brass 

 buttons — regular Squire Westerns, but perhaps a 

 little more refined than that worthy was. But 

 education — and that wonderful thing, " steam," 

 which enables us to travel from one end of the 

 kingdom to another in the course of a few hours — 

 soon stamped the old country gentleman out. 

 What should we think if we now saw the queer- 

 fashioned coach, with its four long-tailed black 

 horses, doing about five miles an hour ? Some of 

 our London swells, who cannot stoop to pick an 

 umbrella up, would fall down in a fit, especially if 

 the inmates of the said coach were any friends or 

 relations of theirs. 



Yes, the good old days are gone by — passed for 

 ever. Men now smoke their cigars, hunt and shoot 

 for a couple of hours, and look with horror on the 

 portraits of their ancestors with a pigtail, and whisp 

 of white cambric round their necks. 



Many, very many country gentlemen of a cen- 



