SOME ENGLISH COURSING CLUBS 225 



where the trials are of a most legitimate character. This 

 turnip driving is worked in small beats, the village school- 

 boys being employed to the number of about sixty, each boy 

 carrying a small yellow flag. The little army is ' dressed ' up 

 in close rank, and with the rioise they make, and the waving 

 of the flags, it is 100 to i on all the hares going forward. 

 The moment game is on foot the captain calls a halt, the 

 flanking horsemen ride forward, and generally succeed in 

 sending puss where she is wanted. Mr. Ward is particularly 

 clever at this riding hares out, and as a natural consequence of 

 the pains he takes with the beating arrangements, it is always 

 possible to run off about sixty courses or more between ten 

 and five o'clock — really good work for the open ! The fences 

 are mostly small, and on the Quarrington Side I have seen 

 Mr Hedley jump at least half a dozen when following a 

 course of exceptional length. 



THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND CLUB 



Coursers on the south-western side of the metropolis used to 

 be cared for some thirty years ago by a couple of clubs- -the 

 Amicable and the Spelthorne — both of which used the same 

 ground, viz. the home park at Hampton Court. It was, how- 

 ever, found that the members of one mostly belonged to the 

 other club, and therefore the two were joined together under 

 the title of South of England. The membership of the joint 

 venture some few years ago was sixty-four strong, but the num- 

 bers have fallen off of late, and now the list is only of half the 

 strength it used to be. It is exceedingly probable that the 

 Ground Game Act is responsible for the decline, for now the 

 club has to go much further a-field for its sport, and last year 

 the meetings were held at Stockbridge in Hampshire and 

 Amesbury in Wiltshire, both first-rate coursing grounds but by 

 no means so easy of access as Hampton Court had been a 

 few years before. Newmarket, too, has been frequently visited 

 by the South of England, but hares are woefully short on 



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