JANUARY. 



FOX-HUNTING OUTSIDE THE 



SHIRES. 



By H. H. S. Pearse. 



In England there are a hundred hunts or more that can only be 

 described as unfashionable in a relative sense. The habitual 

 followers of every pack among them may be numbered by scores, 

 or in many cases by hundreds, and as each affords sport enough 

 for the amusement of lords and squires and ladies of high degree, 

 they lack not the attraction that a certain air of fashion gives, 

 though none of them can pretend to vie with the more distinguished 

 shires. For some other packs, however, not so much can be said. 

 Their followers make no pretence to being the arbiters of fashion 

 in any sense. On the contrary, they treat conventionality in 

 matters of costume with a freedom that would have made Beau 

 Brummel shudder, and have shocked the artistic susceptibiUties 

 of a Hammond, a Tautz, or a Bartley in their most fastidious days. 

 In such countries a man's claims to consideration are not 

 estimated by the correct cut of a coat, the faultless fit of breeches, 

 the exact height of a polished boot, or the way in which a bow is 

 tied above the tops. The tailor does not make the man there, nor 

 does anybody care one jot about the colour of his neighbour's 



c 



