COURSING. 291 



But the year 1876 was marked by the introduction of quite a 

 new feature in coursing history, and one which it is impossible to 

 leave unnoticed here. I refer, of course, to " enclosed " coursing 

 meetings. It has been said, I know not with what truth, that the 

 idea of the Plumpton enclosure, the earliest made, was suggested 

 by the anticipation of the Hares and Rabbits Bill, and the 

 consequent decrease in the supply of hares that was foreseen. 

 This Bill has been the death-blow to many meetings, but that the 

 enclosed meetings were no wise alternative is seen from the fact 

 that Plumpton, Gosforth, and all the others are riumbered with the 

 past, excepting, I believe, two, one of which is Haydock, the 

 scene of Fullerton's early laurels. The objection to coursing in 

 an enclosure rests on two grounds, sentimental and practical. 

 Sentimental, because there is something in the very idea of crowd- 

 ing hares together in a patch of covert and then letting them out 

 one by one to be hunted between wire walls, however wide apart, 

 that is opposed to the breezy spirit of true sport ; and practical 

 because, being always over the same change of ground, and 

 always on the whole in one direction, it taught the dogs to run 

 cunning and develop too much calculation. As against this it has, 

 no doubt, tended to give the Greyhound of to-day a finer turn of 

 speed. In the old days — in quite the old days — speed was every- 

 thing. The dog that first caught the hare won. But there was to 

 come a time when reflection showed that if there was one incident 

 more than another in a course that turned on chance, it was the 

 kill, and thus they came to reckoning points. And of these 

 points, as Mr. Thacker says, "a go-bye, a cote, a turn, a wrench, 

 a tripping, a jerking, or a kill of merit may be called the 

 fundamental ones," and so they may be to-day, excepting that 



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