CHAPTER I 



THE WATERLOO CUP 



Mention of public coursing is to be found as far back as the 

 middle of the seventeenth century, but it is only in compara- 

 tively recent years that public stakes have become a sporting 

 institution. In an admirable article by that sterling authority, 

 ' Robin Hood,' in the ' Field Quarterly M^gazme and Review ' 

 of February 1870— an article to which I am indebted for much 

 valuable information on the coursing of the past — the writer 

 estimates that at least 50,000/. was run for in stakes in the 

 preceding year. This was in the palmy days of Lords Sefton, 

 Craven, Lurgan, Grey de Wilton, and a host of others, for the 

 sport was then a thoroughly popular one, and was supported 

 by the highest in the land. We have already spoken of the 

 origin of coursing. For a long while greyhounds were used 

 as a means of catching hares, apart from relative merit, and a 

 dog that ran cunning and could account for fur with unfailing 

 regularity was regarded as a real friend, instead of being 

 promptly put out of the way— a fate that generally overtakes 

 rogues since stakes were instituted By-and-by owners would 

 match their dogs against each other ; but for a long time the 



