undertake the work; when, in want of any one better, the

subscribers hire his services as those of an upper
servant; when, in fact, the hunt is at a low ebb, and is

struggling for existence. Mr. Jorrocks with his carpet-bag then
makes his appearance, driving the hardest bargain that he can,

purposing to do the country at the lowest possible figure,
followed by a short train of most undesirable nags, with

reference to which the wonder is that Mr. Jorrocks should be able
to induce any hunting servant to trust his neck to their custody.

Mr. Jorrocks knows his work, and is generally a most laborious
man. Hunting is his profession, but it is one by which he can

barely exist. He hopes to sell a horse or two during the season,
and in this way adds something of the trade of a dealer to his

other trade. But his office is thankless, ill-paid, closely
watched, and subject to all manner of indignities. Men suspect

him, and the best of those who ride with him will hardly treat
him as their equal. He is accepted as a disagreeable necessity,

and is dismissed as soon as the country can do better for itself.
Any hunt that has subjected itself to Mr. Jorrocks knows that it

is in disgrace, and will pass its itinerant master on to some
other district as soon as it can suit itself with a proper master

of the good old English sort.
It is of such a master as this, a master of the good old English

sort, and not of an itinerant contractor for hunting, that I
here intend to speak. Such a master is usually an old resident in

the county which he hunts; one of those country noblemen or
gentlemen whose parks are the glory of our English landscape, and

whose names are to be found in the pages of our county records;
or if not that, he is one who, with a view to hunting, has

brought his family and fortune into a new district, and has found
a ready place as a country gentleman among new neighbours. It has

been said that no one should become a member of Parliament unless
he be a man of fortune. I hold such a rule to be much more true

with reference to a master of hounds. For his own sake this
should be so, and much more so for the sake of those over whom he

has to preside. It is a position in which no man can be popular
without wealth, and it is a position which no man should seek to

fill unless he be prepared to spend his money for the
gratification of others. It has been said of masters of hounds

that they must always have their hands in their pockets, and must
always have a guinea to find there; and nothing can be truer than

this if successful hunting is to be expected. Men have hunted
countries, doubtless, on economical principles, and the sport has

been carried on from year to year; but under such circumstances
it is ever dwindling and becoming frightfully less. The foxes

disappear, and when found almost instantly sink below ground.
Distant coverts, which are ever the best because less frequently

drawn, are deserted, for distance of course adds greatly to
expense. The farmers round the centre of the county become

sullen, and those beyond are indifferent; and so, from bad to
worse, the famine goes on till the hunt has perished of atrophy.

Grease to the wheels, plentifulgrease to the wheels, is needed
in all machinery; but I know of no machinery in which everrunning

grease is so necessary as in the machinery of hunting.
Of such masters as I am now describing there are two sorts, of

which, however, the one is going rapidly and, I think, happily
out of fashion. There is the master of hounds who takes a

subscription, and the master who takes none. Of the latter class
of sportsman, of the imperial head of a country who looks upon

the coverts of all his neighbours as being almost his own
property, there are, I believe, but few left. Nor is such

imperialism fitted for the present age. In the days of old of
which we read so often, the days of Squire Western, when fox-

hunting was still young among us, this was the fashion in which
all hunts were maintained. Any country gentleman who liked the

sport kept a small pack of hounds, and rode over his own lands or
the lands of such of his neighbours as had no similar

establishments of their own. We never hear of Squire Western that
he hunted the county, or that he went far afield to his meets.

His tenants joined him, and by degrees men came to his hunt from
greater distances around him. As the necessity for space

increased, increasing from increase of huntingambition, the
richer and more ambitioussquires began to undertake the

management of wider areas, and so our hunting districts were
formed. But with such extension of area there came, of course,

necessity of extendedexpenditure, and so the fashion of
subscription lists arose. There have remained some few great

Nimrods who have chosen to be magnanimous and to pay for
everything, despising the contributions of their followers. Such

a one was the late Earl Fitzhardinge, and after such manner in,
as I believe, the Berkeley hunt still conducted. But it need

hardly be explained, that as hunting is now conducted in England,
such a system is neither fair nor palatable. It is not fair that

so great a cost for the amusement of other men should fall upon
any one man's pocket; nor is it palatable to others that such

unlimited power should be placed in any one man's hands. The
ordinary master of subscription hounds is no doubt autocratic,

but he is not autocratic with all the power of tyranny which
belongs to the despot who rules without taxation. I doubt whether

any master of a subscription pack would advertise his meets for
eleven, with an understanding that the hounds were never to move

till twelve, when he intended to be present in person. Such was
the case with Lord Fitzhardinge, and I do not know that it was

generally thought that he carried his power too far. And I think,
too, that gentlemen feel that they ride with more pleasure when

they themselves contribute to the cost of their own amusement.
Our master of hounds shall be a country gentleman who takes a

subscription, and who therefore, on becoming autocratic, makes
himself answerable to certain general rules for the management of

his autocracy. He shall hunt not less, let us say, than three
days a week; but though not less, it will be expected probably

that he will hunt oftener. That is, he will advertise three days
and throw a byeday in for the benefit of his own immediate

neighbourhood; and these byedays, it must be known, are the cream
of hunting, for there is no crowd, and the foxes break sooner and

run straighter. And he will be punctual to his time, giving
quarter to none and asking none himself. He will draw fairly

through the day, and indulge no caprices as to coverts. The laws,
indeed, are never written, but they exist and are understood; and

when they be too recklessly disobeyed, the master of hounds falls
from his high place and retires into private life, generally

with a broken heart. In the hunting field, as in all other
communities, republics, and governments, the power of the purse

is everything. As long as that be retained, the despotism of the
master is tempered and his rule will be beneficent.

Five hundred pounds a day is about the sum which a master should
demand for hunting an average country, that is, so many times

five hundred pounds a year as he may hunt days in the week. If
four days a week be required of him, two thousand a year will be

little enough. But as a rule, I think masters are generally
supposed to charge only for the advertised days, and to give the

byedays out of their own pocket. Nor must it be thought that the
money so subscribed will leave the master free of expense. As I

have said before, he should be a rich man. Whatever be the
subscription paid to him, he must go beyond it, very much beyond

it, or there will grow up against him a feeling that he is mean,
and that feeling will rob him of all his comfort. Hunting men in

England wish to pay for their own amusement; but they desire that