CHAPTER XXXVI.
Hunting then, and now—Hunting near the Metropolis—The Epping Hunt—Fishing—Shooting then, and now—Guns—Methods of proving gun barrels—Big charges—Introduction of the Percussion Cap—Size of bags—Colonel Thornton’s bet.
OF COURSE there was Hunting, both Fox and Stag, but it was not carried out on the same principles then as now. A man, then, kept a pack of hounds for his own amusement, that of his friends, and the neighbourhood generally. A meet, then, was a great social gathering of neighbours, at which, for the time, all were on a courteous equality, engendered by similarity of taste, and cemented by means of the Master, who, at some great expense, kept the pack for others’ use. Now, “the old order changes, yielding place to new;” the probability is that it is a subscription pack—with the subscriptions not too well paid, and the Master frequently changing, owing to his quarrels with his masters, the subscribers, who carp at his doings, and try to dictate their own views. The railway brings down the “London Contingent”—sporting stockbrokers, solicitors, tailors, and publicans—in fact, all who can scrape together the necessary money to hire the “hunter,” and pay its fare to the nearest station to the meet. These people have no sympathy with the farmers, no relations with the county, spend no money, because they return to London at night, care nought for the damage they do, which, probably, is done in ignorance; and it is no wonder that, nowadays, hunting is not so popular among tenant farmers as it might be—and it is pretty safe to prophesy, that in many districts, before many more years, it will be reckoned as a thing of the past.
FOX-HUNTING BREAKFAST.
Then, however, there was never heard a whisper of the scarcity of foxes. A fox found poisoned, or shot, would have been considered as an indelible disgrace to the district. The word vulpecide was not coined, because the crime had not been committed. No farmer ever sent in a claim to the Hunt, and only old women, cottagers, ever wanted compensation for the gander, or the two or three hens that they had lost; as to warning off land, it had never been dreamt of, much less practised.
In other ways, too, hunting was different—both horses, and hounds were heavier, and slower then; it was not the pace of the run that was discussed at night, but its length, and the behaviour of both hounds, and horses. Fox hunting began much earlier in the morning than it does now; and a good solid meal of cold meat, washed down with a tankard of home brewed, was vastly superior to a modern “lawn meet” breakfast, with its wines and liqueurs, to “steady the nerves,” to say nothing of the flask of “jumping powder.” Sport, too, was found much nearer the Metropolis then than now. Morning Post, August 14, 1805: “To Sportsmen and others.—A Deputation to be granted of the very extensive Manors of Hornsey and Finchley, in the County of Middlesex, with the liberty of Hunting and Shooting over, and upon, the said Manors, abounding with game,” &c.
PERCH-FISHING—1804.
The Epping Hunt, too, where the citizens[54] annually met on Easter Monday, to vindicate their right to hunt in the Forest, was not the farce it afterwards became. Most men, then, were accustomed to horseback, and could manage to stick on somehow.
Fishing and shooting were, of course, as popular as now. Of the former we have had little to learn since Isaac Walton’s time, and the illustration shows us that the “Contemplative Man,” in the early part of this century, knew how to combine his “Recreation” with the charms of female society.
AFTER A DAY’S SHOOTING—1809.
Shooting, like hunting, was a totally different thing, in the first ten years of the century, to what it is now. There were no battues, no hot, and elaborate, luncheons, no being posted in “warm corners,” no army of beaters, no breech-loaders, and two attendants to load for you, and, at the end of a day’s sport, no waggon-loads of slain to be sent off to market to help pay, in some part, the expenses of breeding, and keeping, such a head of game. Then, a man went out, preferably with a friend or two, soon after an early breakfast, accompanied by Don and Ponto, who were his constant companions in his walks, and whose education he had personally superintended; to watch their intelligent movements was in itself one of the pleasures of the day. When a covey rose, not a shot was wasted, if possible, for, by the time the gun was reloaded, the birds would be far off. A bit of bread and cheese, as luncheon, at the nearest farmhouse, or the village pub.; if the former, a brace of birds, or a hare left, with a kindly message. Enough game to carry home, without being tired, plenty for the larder, and some for friends; then dinner, some punch—and Betty would come with the chamber candle and warming-pan, to find the party asleep and quite ready for bed.
The Guns, with which our grandfathers shot, were vastly inferior to our modern breechloader; the workmanship was good, but the flint-lock, with its tardy firing, and the very weak powder then in use, did not render the “birding gun” a very efficient weapon.
COCK SHOOTING WITH SPANIELS—1804.
Thornhill, who wrote the Shooting Directory in 1804, is as great an authority on the subject of guns as any of his contemporaries; and he had quite sense enough to see that the old-fashioned long barrel of four feet, or more, carried no further than one of three feet, and he counselled the musket length of two feet ten inches, as the standard length for fowling-piece barrels, and preferred one that carried its shot close, to one that scattered. The method of proving “that a barrel will not burst, was to get a ball to fit the exact bore, and put the exact weight of the ball in powder, with which load, and fire it off by a train; if it does not burst, you need be under no apprehension. This is called Tower-proof; or put in double the quantity of powder and shot.”
He recommends as a proper charge for a fowling-piece of ordinary calibre, a drachm and a quarter, or a drachm and a half, of good powder, and an ounce, or an ounce and a quarter, of shot; and, when treating on the subject of recoil, he gives one or two anecdotes of overloading. “The overloading of the piece is the reason of the recoil; respecting sportsmen who are in the habit of overloading with shot, such are properly ridiculed in a treatise published some time since, entitled, ‘Cautions to Young Sportsmen,’ in which we find an advertisement levelled at some persons who were going to a Pigeon Shooting Match at Ballingbear-Warren House. It was as follows: ‘Take notice, that no person will be allowed to load with more than four ounces of shot.’ A gamekeeper to whom this author mentioned the story, told him he thought it a pretty fair allowance, and, on being told what charge and weight of shot he generally used, replied, he divided a pound into five charges.... A friend of the gentleman who relates this story, seeing his keeper equipped for a pigeon match, had the curiosity to examine his charge, and, after trying it with his rammer, expressed his surprise at finding it rather less than usual. ‘Oh, sir,’ replied the keeper, ‘I have only put in the powder yet;’ and, on putting in the shot, the charge, altogether, was eleven fingers. The reason he assigned was ‘that he always liked to give his piece a belly full.’”
The Percussion Cap, which was destined to make such a revolution in small arms, was patented April 11, 1807, by the inventor, the Rev. A. J. Forsyth, of Belhelvie, Aberdeenshire. It soon came into use, for we find an advertisement in the Morning Post, December 23, 1808: “To Sportsmen. The Patent Gun-lock invented by Mr. Forsyth is to be had at No. 10, Piccadilly, near the Haymarket. Those who may be unacquainted with the excellence of this Invention are informed that the inflammation is produced without the assistance of flint, and is much more rapid than in the common way. The Lock is so constructed as to render it completely impervious to water, or damp of any kind, and may, in fact, be fired under water.”
Grouse, partridge, and other shooting, commenced on the same dates as now, and game certificates were as necessary then, as at the present time. Heavy bags were not the rule. Thornhill supplies us with his ideal of a luxurious sportsman of his time, with every appliance for slaughter, and game ad libitum. Compare his butcher’s bill with that of a modern battue. “A man of fortune, surrounded with gamekeepers (let us suppose the scene for the present in Norfolk), pointers, setters, &c., without number, Manton[55] Guns, and all in compleat retinue, going out at, perhaps, twelve o’clock (the hour of indolent, and feather bed gunners), into the highest preserved covers in that County, where the game is so very tame, that twenty birds may be killed in a few hours; their servants with clean guns ready, and, if necessary, loaded by them; and probably, if the dog of one of these elegant sportsmen is admired, or gains credit, if his master is asked his name, he makes for answer ‘he really cannot tell you, but will ask his gamekeeper.’”
A large bag is spoken of by Daniel, in his Field Sports, where he says that in 1796, on Mr. Colquhoun’s manor at Wretham, in Norfolk, the Duke of Bedford, and six other gentlemen, killed eighty cock pheasants, and forty hares, besides some partridges, in one day.
Mr. Coke, of Holkham, kept up a wonderful head of game, so that his performances ought not to be looked upon in the light of phenomenal sportsmanship, because his victims were so plentifully to hand. As an instance, on October 7, 1797, upon his manor at Warham, and within a mile’s circumference, he bagged forty brace of partridges, in eight hours, at ninety-three shots; and, on the previous day, over the same ground, he killed twenty-two brace and a half, in three hours. In 1801, he killed, in five days, seven hundred and twenty-six partridges.
In January, 1803, Mr. Coke, Sir John Shelley, and Tom Sheridan went to Lord Cholmondeley’s place at Houghton, in Norfolk, and killed there, in one day, to their three guns only, fourteen and a half brace of hares, sixteen couples of rabbits, twenty-four brace of pheasants, thirteen brace of partridges, and sixteen couples of woodcock.
In the Morning Post of the 21st of January, 1801, we find: “Col. Thornton some time ago made a bet that he would kill 400 head of game at 400 shots, the result was, that, in the year 1800, he bagged 417 head of game (consisting of partridges, pheasants, hares, snipe, and woodcock) at 411 shots. Enumerated amongst these are a black wild duck, and a white pheasant cock, and at the last point he killed a brace of cock pheasants, one with each barrel; on the leg of the one last killed (an amazing fine bird) was found a ring, proving that he had been taken by Colonel Thornton when hawking, and turned out again in the year 1792.”
