'79 



CHAPTER X 



SOME ENGLISH COURSING CLUES 

 BY CHARLES RICHARDSON ('KING COB'). 



CLUBS have at all times played an important part in the history 

 of coursing, and the earliest records of the sport show that for 

 many years the public meetings were all promoted by one or 

 other of the existing clubs, which, according to historians of 

 the leash, differed very widely in their rules, constitution, and 

 method of conducting their fixtures. The early history of the 

 clubs is so much mixed up with the early history of coursing, 

 and so many once important associations have so long ceased 

 to exist, that I shall pass over the historical part of the subject 

 as quickly as possible, and shall deal almost exclusively with 

 the clubs which are in existence to-day, as in writing of 

 these I am able to trust my own experience instead of search- 

 ing the badly kept records of bygone generations. I have 

 made some attempts to obtain particulars of the early doings of 

 existing clubs ; but, except in a few instances, so little record 

 has been kept, and so little is really known, that a successful 

 issue of the investigations was quite out of the question, 

 and with secretaries in office who had had innumerable pre- 

 decessors, I was referred from one to another, and then back 

 again, until I found the utter impossibility of getting correct 

 information. 



To revert, however, for a moment to earlier times, the 

 Swaffham Club in Norfolk, founded by Lord Orford in 1776, 

 was the first association of coursers of which there is any 

 record, and four years later the Ashdown Park Club was 



N 2 



