RETURNING FROM MARKET, 1838.
(From Sir Walter Gilbey’s paper on “Farms and Small Holdings.” Live Stock Journal Almanac 1906.)
Photo by W. Shayer, Senr.
Still, fortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Farmer are a good sort, the former with an innate love of sport and the latter not impervious to soft sawder if laid on judiciously; and if game preservers will unselfishly remember the lines, even if exaggerated, that
“One fox upon foot more enjoyment will bring
Than twice twenty thousand pheasants on wing;”
and if each Master of Foxhounds will spend as much of the needful as he can locally, and remember that in the twentieth century men do not come out to be d——d; and those who take part in the pleasures of the chase, would subscribe to the great and increasing expenses of the packs which they favour (?) with their presence, observe the courtesy which they would show when “standing down,” and show some consideration for farmers and their gates, fences and crops, I have no fear but that the farmer will do his part as he has hitherto done in the more prosperous past; and to the question as to whether hunting is doomed to extinction or not, we may hopefully and confidently respond, in the words of the good old song:
Oh, perish the thought, may the day never come
When the gorse is uprooted, the foxhound is dumb.
J. J. D. J.