HUNTING.
Gentlemen residing in the country, and keeping a stable, are generally ready to join the hunt club. We are gradually falling into the English sports and pastimes. Cricket, boxing, and hunting, are being more and more practiced every year, and our horsemen and pugilists aspire to conquer those of Britain, when a few years back, to attempt such a thing would have been considered folly. In this country the organization of hunt-clubs is made as much to rid the country of the foxes as to enjoy the sport. We differ much from the Britons in our hunting; we have often a hilly dangerous country, with high worm and post-and-rail fences crossing it, deep streams with precipitous sides and stony ground to ride over. We hunt in cold weather when the ground is frozen hard, and we take everything as it is, hills, fences, streams, and hedges, risking our necks innumerable times in a hunt. In England the hunters have a flat country, fences which do not compare to ours in height, and they hunt after a frost when the ground is soft.
Our hunting field at the “meet” does not show the gaudy equipment and top-boots of England, but the plain dress of the gentleman farmer, sometimes a blue coat and jockey-cap, but oftener the every-day coat and felt hat, but the etiquette of our hunting field is more observed than in England. There any one joins the meet, if it is a large one, but here no one enters the field unless acquainted with one or more of the gentlemen on the ground. The rules in the hunt are few and simple. Never attempt to hunt unless you have a fine seat in the saddle and a good horse, and never accept the loan of a friend’s horse, still less an enemy’s, unless you ride very well. A man may forgive you for breaking his daughter’s heart but never for breaking his hunter’s neck. Another point is, always to be quiet at a meet, and never join one unless acquainted with some one in the field. Pluck, skill, and a good horse are essentials in hunting. Never talk of your achievements, avoid enthusiastic shouting when you break cover, and do not ride over the hounds. Keep a firm hand, a quick eye, an easy, calm frame of mind, and a good, firm seat on the saddle. Watch the country you are going over, be always ready to help a friend who may “come to grief,” and with the rules and the quiet demeanor you will soon be a favorite in the field.