What wonderful names Mr. Jorrocks had for his public Fox-hunters sometimes seem to imagine that th.'r favourite sport is one of the oldest, in england, They are wrong. The fox originally was considered to be an unworthy object of the chase. He was vermin in the real sense of the term. Mr. Jorrocks, on the other hand, speaking for the Victorian Age, regarded women as "erty weary warmints" and his love for the fox was exceeded only by his love for the ess and the Yound." But he called the fox a "warming,"" too, in terms of affection:
"sun tin' fills my thoughts by: day, and many a good run I have im'way sleep. Many a, dig: in the that gives Mrs, J. when 1 think they're running into the: warming (renewed. cheers). No man to be called a sportsman wot doesnt Kick his wife out of bed fon a average once in three But fox-hunting came into its own somewhere about 1750. the "Field" of November 6, 1875 there is an engraving of a hunting-horn bearing this inserip-
Thomas Boothby Esa., Tooley Park, Leicester, "With this horn hho hunted the frst, pack of foxhounds then in England fifty-five fears, Born 1677. Died 752.
low the perty of. Thoms aAvenant Esq county Salop, his It is also on record that Lord Arundel, at the end of the seventeenth century, of fox hound with that family until 1782 when they were sold to Hugh Meynell, of Quornion Hall, Leicestershire, Edward LI had a chief huntsman named William Twiel who wrote, in Norman French, a treat hunting (Lo Art de Venerie) but the fox is mentioned there only as an inferior object of sport. The hardy sportsmen of ancient Britain chased wilder and eigner game. They kept good hunting dogs—as their Roman conquerors testified. Later, the Saxons drew a sharp wistinetion between the higher and lower sorts of chase. The form was reserved for the King and his friends, the latter for the landowners. Stag hunting and the chase of the wild red deer were, under the Normans, favourite royal sports. The Devon and Somerset staghounds date back to 1698, when Hugh Polland, Queen 'Elizabeth's ranger Exmoor, kept his own pack and the tradition was continued by rangers of Exmoor for 200 year'
Fox dogs were noted in the time of Edward V as being kept by sportsmen but, not exclusively for fox hunting. The great sport therefore only dates from about the middle of the eighteenth houses:
The "World Turned Upside Down" was one of those quiet wayside Inns out of Whose sails the march of railroads has taken the wind. Te Was m substantial old stone standing a. little off, the mad, approached by a dri Yound a neatly cultivated, ov shaped garden, where, amid well-rolled gravel walks ind fantast cally ott yews, swung a blue and Gold gin bearing its name—The World Turned Upside Dow celusteringg vine covered one the house, and reached nearly up to the latticed stone roof, while 1oxu ivy erept tip to the very chimney pots on the other; rose And creepers were trained upon trellises. in front, and altogether Was as pretty) an auberge ax any' in the Tand, Jorrocks's f ful chronicler Ilot himself go there. be a dull fellow who could resist the charm of that picture of an odd corner of old Englanii. There are still many "World Turned Upside Down" inns One for example on the London to Bath road bears sign which use to be depicted a m in harness and a horse driving from the box.
The joys of hunting were matched by the joys of being an M.F.H. On that point there is a classic comment on record:
Of all sitivations under the none is more enviable or note onerable than that of master of fox ounds! Talk of a MLP.! vot's an BLP. compared to an MEHL? Your ives in tainted" atmosphere among other MLP's and loses his con: Sequence by the commonness of the office and the scoldings he gets from those who sent h there, but_an M.F.H. holds his levee' in the stable, his levee in the, kennel: and his levee is the funting field—is great and important everywhere—has no one fo compete with him no, one to find fault, but all join in doing honour to him to whom honours so greatly due (cheers) And el John Jorrocks! my good. trind' continued the worthy grocer, fumbling the silver in. his small clothes "with upturned eyes to heaven, "to think that you, after all the' hups and downs, of life—the erossin's and jostlin's of merchandise and ungovernable trade Sthe. sortin' of rs—the juexin' of teas—the posting' of Tedgers, and handling' of invoices, to think that you my dear feller,
Linguished post, is most should have arrived' at this culeusly wonderful most singular-queer. Gentlemen, this is the proudest moment of iny life.
Oratory has to go a long way \before it can reach such a plane lof eloquence and deep sincerity combined. And no Nabob that "ever was foalai" loved hunting better than J. J. to whom the sport was the "liver and bacon of my existence." The peges of (Continued on page 236.)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.