i8o COURSING 



brought into existence. Swaffham and Ashdovvn were both 

 very powerful associations in bygone days, and among the 

 rules of the former it is stated that the number of members 

 was confined to the letters of the alphabet, each member 

 taking a letter and also a colour. What the colour was used 

 for is not shown, but each member was bound to use the parti- 

 cular letter allotted to him in naming his dogs. The running 

 consisted almost entirely of matches, and, curiously enough, 

 everyone chose his own judge, the two judges for each match 

 appointing an arbiter, who was to decide when they disagreed. 

 At Swaffham, a 50/. cup was run for by sixteen greyhounds 

 once a year, but stakes were the exception and matches the 

 rule. Malton Club was founded in 1781, one year after Ash- 

 down, with a membership limited to twenty, and two meetings 

 annually, in November and February. The immortal Snowball 

 won the cup twice, and in 1828 the list of members embraced 

 such well-known names as those of the Duke of Gordon, 

 Lord Macdonald, Sir John V. B. Johnstone, Sir Bellingham 

 Graham, Messrs. Lowther, Best, Vansittart, and Bower. 



A coursing club was founded at Louth, in Lincolnshire, in 

 1806, and in the same year the association at Ilsley, in Berk- 

 shire, was established by Lord Rivers, one of the leading 

 figures in early public coursing. About this time, too, the 

 Newmarket Coursing Society sprang into existence, and in 

 18 1 2 Berkshire was again to the fore, with an association at 

 Newbury, under the patronage of Lord Carnarvon. In 1814, 

 Mr. Goodlake formed a club to course on his estate of Letcombe 

 Bowers, in Dorset, and one year later the Morfe Club was estab- 

 lished by Mr. Davenport, already a member of the Swaffham, 

 Ilsley, and Ashdown. This last sentence may not seem of 

 much importance at first glance, but it shows that gentlemen 

 were in the habit of taking their dogs long distances by road, 

 years before railways had come into existence, and thus we 

 find Mr. Davenport a member of clubs which are more than 

 150 miles apart. The next few years witnessed the establish- 

 ment of several other coursing associations or clubs, but all, with- 



