PRESIDENT-THE EARL OE CLARENDON. 
13 
the baby in arms crows with delight as the pageant of the chase 
sweeps through our country villages ? Why the death-bed request 
of the famous huntsman that he might once more and for the last 
time hear the maddening “view holloa” which proclaims a fox on 
foot ? It is that the spirit of the chase is nascent in the one, and 
has never been lulled to rest in the other. It is because we in this 
nineteenth century are just as ardent worshippers at the shrine of 
Diana as those of old, and because love of the pastime is part of the 
national character. It is because there is romance in the stride of 
the gallant horse, poetry in the impetus of the fleeting hound. It 
is the pluck, nerve, dash, and endurance which are requisite to 
surmount the obstacles to be encountered; it is the strategic skill, 
the knowledge of the craft, the opposing forces of man’s mind and 
the brute’s instinct, and the friendly rivalry between man and his 
brother man, to which the ecstasy of the fox-hunter owes its birth. 
It is not only humane feelings and unwillingness to deal death and 
destruction amongst the pack as it crosses the railway which causes 
the engine-driver to stop his train, but it is partly a desire that he 
also may be a witness of the chase, which he regards with longing, 
wistful eyes as it sweeps out of his sight. Take again the well- 
known case of the ploughman at the plough, who, unable to resist 
the attraction, and regardless of the consequences, unyoked one of 
his horses and joined in the mad revel! Let us hope that he did 
not unduly suffer for yielding to an impulse which was inborn and 
stronger than he could bear. 
In this world cause and effect regulate all things. Effect is, 
ipso facto, a change from the status quo. It follows, therefore, that 
a pursuit conducted as this, con amove , must have some effect, 
beneficial or the reverse. It cannot be that the freemasonry of 
the hunting-field, the health-giving, health-restoring occupation, 
and the employment of labour where as much integrity, applica¬ 
tion, skill, and enthusiasm is practised as in other careers, can 
have a baneful effect, either on mind or body ; but in this as in all 
other things there must be moderation. Drones there are as well 
as bees. Yirgil tells us truly that there exist “ fruges consumers 
natif those that are born to consume and not to produce the 
fruits of the earth; but with the butterflies of existence who devote 
their whole lives to sport or pleasure and who neglect the more 
serious duties which must fall to the lot of every man, we have 
not to deal, and my remarks refer only to those who renovate and 
restore, by occasional relaxation, the energies which thought or 
