BEATERS AND STOPS 215 
as is the servant question in other departments of 
modern households. Still, the subject of beaters has 
needed consideration of late years. In some kinds 
of shooting the employment of dogs instead of 
human beaters is all very well; indeed, dogs are 
infinitely superior to men in certain conditions. But 
in the usual circumstances of modern shooting, men, 
and plenty of them, too, are indispensable. Time 
was when people either shot over their own land or 
that of their friends and acquaintance, on which an 
annual crop of young beaters appeared with more 
regularity than game. And so, when a day was 
fixed for shooting, all that was necessary was to 
name the number of beaters required, and the whole 
army was forthcoming from the estate, supplemented 
by men out of work, and, on the more important 
days, by hands gladly lent by tenant-farmers. The 
majority of these beaters knew their work: each 
ride and track through the woods; each field by 
name and its current crop; each hedgerow and dell ; 
the fences, ponds, trees, and many other very useful 
landmarks, familiarity with which saves time, and 
tends to avoid annoying mistakes on shooting-days. 
But the beaters a keeper must nowadays rely on 
—and often be thankful to secure at all—are mostly 
mere mercenary outsiders, men who possess little 
interest in the estate, its shooting, or the bag— 
beyond lunch and wages. Lucky is the keeper who 
can command a few trusty, experienced men to 
