at Newcastle-upon- Tyne. 
105 
the holding of the show under the rules and conditions which 
governed it at Newcastle in January. The debate, which 
followed the presentation of the report, showed that there was not 
complete unanimity as to details, for a minority advocated limit- 
ing the premiums to 50/. each. All, however, were agreed as to 
the necessity of doing something in the endeavour to give an 
impetus to horse-breeding, and the endeavour at last took the form 
recommended by the Committee, viz., the offering of five equal 
premiums of 200/. each, and a special gold medal for thorough- 
bred stallions (3 years old and upwards) suitable for getting 
hunters and other half-bred horses, subject to the condition and 
restriction that each stallion winning a premium should serve 
not less than 50 half-bred mares, if required, during the season 
of 1887, and should stand or travel (at the owner's option) in 
such parts of Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, and 
Westmoreland, as should be specified, at a fee not exceeding 
5O5. for each mare, except to members of the Society, to whom 
the fee would be 21. 
A better division of England, (the ordinary division of the 
Society for this year's Country Meeting) or a better place than 
Newcastle, could not have been fixed upon for the inauguration 
of the experiment. Wherever bricks and mortar, or the exi- 
gencies of the great industries of the North do not render hunt- 
ing impossible, there is the fox pursued with a vigour which 
is exceeded in no portion of England. It would have been 
difficult, too, to have selected any other quarter where such an 
enormous crowd could have been attracted as filled that portion 
of the Exhibition buildings devoted to the purpose of the show. 
An audience can always be secured when a competition for 
jumping prizes is the inducement to come ; but it is only in an 
essentially sporting district that men will come in thousands to see 
fiity thoroughbreds walked round and examined. This, alter all, 
is the relic, or the revival, of the old enthusiasm for horse- 
breeding which once had fast hold on the men of the North. 
The counties in which the five winners are to stand have one and 
all a horse-breeding history to tell. Northumbrians assert that, 
until within the last GO years, the county of Northumberland 
not only bred all the hunters required for home use, but sold 
large numbers to the dealers who were wont to repair with 
unfailing regularity to the fair on Cow Hill, or to the breeders' 
homes, in the certain hope of finding something worth bringing 
away. Among the hunter-sires that made a name for them- 
selves in Northumberland may be mentioned " McOrville," 
by " Orville," a horse that was almost deemed worthy, by 
Northumbrian breeders, of being shod with gold, and it is 
due to this horse that so many grey hairs are observed even to 
