Hunting is generally accused of being a very dangerous amusement, and yet by medical returns it might easily be demonstrated that it is not so injurious to a man's health or so fatal to his life as going to a succession of balls, or especially of good dinners; in fact, there can be no doubt that a London season blanches, per cent. per annum, more cheeks, and requires more physic and more coffins, than a hunting season.
How little danger, instead of how much, belongs to hunting, is daily proved by, comparatively speaking, the impunity with which inexperienced people join in the chase. If a crowd of 150 or 200 persons of all ages and shapes, none of whom had ever before been in a boat, were all of a sudden, say during Christmas holidays, to dress themselves like tars, and then compete with sailors in every sort of weather, the chances, or rather the certainty, would be, that, without any disparagement to the art of boating, at least half of them would be drowned from sheer ignorance and inexperience. Again, if an eccentric gentleman in London, making his coachman stand up behind his carriage, were to require his footman to drive it, the vehicle, before it could reach the Opera-house, would probably be either smashed or upset; and yet, its fate would not be admitted as proving that it is dangerous to drive. In fact, it is a common proverb, that, in order to be proficient in any trade, it is necessary to be first duly apprenticed to it. But in the hunting field no education at all is deemed requisite. And, accordingly, so soon as a young man, "gentle or simple" (though oftener simple than gentle), can get hold of money, he buys a stud of horses and hacks, hires grooms, orders three or four scarlet coats with the appurtenances thereto, goes to Melton, makes his formal appearance at a crack meet, and his informal disappearance into the first brook, or on the other side of the first fence he comes to, and yet, "Oh! PRAY catch that horse if you please!" is usually the only result, repeated over and over again without injury to anybody. Now, if people who really have never learned to ride, mounted on young horses who have never learned to hunt, can thus attempt to follow hounds without damaging much more than their clothes, it ought to follow that an experienced rider on a clever hunter has, at all events, not more danger to apprehend than other people are liable to, who ride solely on hard roads, on which a horse is very apt to travel carelessly, and always falls heavily. Will Williamson, now upwards of eighty years of age, who has been huntsman to the Duke of Buccleugh for more than fifty years, and whose worst accident was lately caused by being overturned in a dog-cart, still follows his hounds; and, in like manner, in every part of the kingdom are to be found old men who, with very little to complain about, have been hunting from their boyhood, and occasionally from their childhood.
Charles Payne, the huntsman of the Pytchley, was much damaged by being thrown out of a gig; while, a short time ago, his head whip, who had fearlessly crossed almost every fence in Northamptonshire, dislocated his shoulder by slipping off a little deal table. The gallant master of the Tedworth hounds was severely injured in his conservatory; the huntsman of the Surrey fox-hounds within his house by a fall. Lastly, it may truly be asserted, that, in hunting, more accidents occur from over caution in riders than from a combination of boldness and judgment; indeed, if hunters could but speak, they would often whisper to their riders, "If you keep taking such affectionate care of MY HEAD, you'll throw me DOWN."
The encouragement given to farmers to breed horses of the best description, the high prices paid to them for hay, oats, beans, and straw; the sums of money expended for the purchase or rent of hunting-boxes, lodgings, stables, carriage-houses, &c., added to a variety of other incidental expenses, large and small, amount to a grand total which it would be less easy to underrate than exaggerate.
But besides the sums which hunting-men, by maintaining from eight to fourteen hunters, with grooms and strappers in proportion, distribute in their various localities, in almost every county men of rank and fortune step forward to support, more or less at their own private cost, a huntsman, one or two whips, hounds, and a stable full of horses, for the recreation and amusement of the community.
With this generous object in view, the late Sir Richard Sutton, for many years, spent about 10,000l. a-year in maintaining two packs of hounds and a stud of about fifty horses, for which he readily paid enormous prices.
In any portion of the globe, except the United Kingdom, the price of dog-flesh in England would appear utterly incomprehensible. In 1812 Lord Middleton gave 1200 guineas for the pack he purchased. When Mr. Warde gave up the Craven country Mr. Horlock paid him 2000 guineas for his hounds; while Lord Suffield coolly handed over to Mr. Lambton 3000 guineas for his pack without seeing them. To Mr. Conyers the master of the Tedworth hounds offered for "Bashful" 100 guineas; and for another bitch, called "Careful," 400 guineas, or 10,080 francs; a sum which, in any village in France, would be considered for a peasant girl—though neither bashful nor careful—a splendid marriage portion.
Before Sir Richard's death, Lord Alford, Lord Hopetoun, Lord Southampton, and, since his decease, Lord Stamford, who keeps seventy horses, have come forward to bestow upon the hunting counties around them the same noble and munificent assistance which, on a smaller scale, is as liberally given in many other localities; and yet, without one minute item, the sum total of the enjoyment, the recreation, the health, the good fellowship, the hard riding, the enormous sums of money distributed over the United Kingdom to maintain that ancient, royal, loyal, noble, and national sport which seriatim we have endeavoured to describe would suddenly be annihilated, were we but to lose that tiny unclean beast, that dishonest little miscreant that everybody abuses—The Fox.
Ille Jacet.