to skirt and cut across the country, and withal
to meet his master at the proper place with a
fresh and unblown animal. Of course the keep
of such a staff is costly. The wages of huntsmen
average from eighty to one hundred pounds
a year, with a cottage and certain perquisites;
but there is a noble duke, an enthusiast in the
sport, who gives his huntsman two hundred
pounds per annum. This, however, is of course
an utterly exceptional wage.

The first whip will cost five-and-twenty shillings
a week, the second a guinea, the pad-groom
a guinea, and the kennel-feeder, if there be one,
another guinea a week.

The wages of neither huntsmen nor whips are
high when it is remembered what brutes they
ride, and that they are never expected to crane
at anything, but to fly ox-fence, brook, anything
that may come in their way. Nimrod relates
several anecdotes which he heard from whips of
their falls; one complained that his horse was
"a dunghill brute," because, "not content with
tumbling, he lies on me for half an hour when
he's down;" another, having had his horse fall
on him, and roll him " as a cook would a
piecrust," got up and limping off, said, " Well, now
I be hurt." . Another acknowledged to having
broken three ribs on one side and two on the
other, both collar-bones, one thigh, and having
had his scalp almost torn off him by a kick from
a horse. Nor, if we may credit the same
excellent authority, is there much thought
given to these unfortunates. "Who is that
under his horse in the brook?" " Only Dick
Christian" (a celebrated rough-rider*), answers
Lord Forester, " and it's nothing new to
him!" "But he'll be drowned!" exclaims
Lord Kinnaird. "I shouldn't wonder,"
observes Mr. William Coke, "but the pace is
too good to inquire."

* See All the Year Round, vol. ii., page 396,

In addition to huntsmen's whips you will
require two or three helpers in your stable at
wages of from twelve shillings to fifteen shillings
a week, and an earth-stopper, who will get half
a guinea a week. In this estimate I have said
nothing of the saddler's nor of the farrier's bills,
most important items.

And now you have to provide horses for your
staff and for yourself—dependent, of course, on
the number of your servants and the number of
dogs you hunt. A huntsman and two whips
will require two horses each for two days a week,
or eight horses for the three for three days, the
pad-groom will require a horse, and there should
be a couple of hacks for messages. The master
may do with three, or may be able to afford
more—I should say he will require four,
barring accidents. The precise cost of hunters
is entirely a matter of weight and fancy. A
ten-stone master of hounds with an eye for a
horse, good judgment, and talent in bargaining,
can, in the country, mount himself more than
decently for fifty guineas, whereas in town the
price would be doubled. With increase in
weight the price runs up frightfully, and an
eighteen-stone man would give five hundred
guineas for a horse, and think himself lucky if
the mount suited him in every respect. No
amount of weight prevents a man from following,
or even keeping hounds, if the passion be
on him and he can afford a proper mount; there
are masters of hounds of seven and a half stone
weight, and there are one or two ranging between
eighteen and twenty stone. To get themselves
properly carried, men of the latter stamp must
expend an enormous sum in horseflesh, requiring,
as they do, the speed and jumping-power
of the hunter, combined with the solid strength
of the dray-horse. The horses for the huntsman
and the whips are often good screws, or perhaps
horses which, unless in constant work, are
"rushers," or "pullers," or "rusty." When
these animals are kept in perpetual motion, have
a good deal of hard work, and can have any
sudden freak of fancy taken out of them by a
judiciously administered "bucketing," they are
generally useful mounts for servants. A horse
with a bad mouth is often a good horse for a
whip, or when an original delicate mouth is lost,
for very few uneducated men have light hands.
Horses a little worn are often bought for
servants, or very young horses, if the men are good
workmen, are bought and handed over to the
servants to be made. Forty pounds may be
taken as an average price for whips' horses,
sixty pounds for huntsmen's mounts, but there
is a master in England who pays a couple of
hundred guineas for his huntsman's horses, but
then the huntsman stands six feet two. These
horses are turned out from the 21st of April,
and one man can look after and cut grass for
six horses, but the average price of their keep
throughout the year is twenty-five pounds each;
a master of hounds may reckon that the keep
of each of his own mounts is forty pounds a
year.

In summing up the question of expense, it
will be well to bear in mind the axiom of a well-
known sportsman of bygone days, that "a
master of hounds will never have his hand out of
his pocket, and must always have a guinea in
it;" but it may be laid down as a principle that
the expense generally depends upon the
prudence, experience, and interest possessed by the
owner of the pack and the stud. Two men
have worked different counties in a season, one
at the fourth of the expense incurred by the
other, and the difference in sport has been
inappreciable. It may, however, be taken as a
fact that the expenses of a fox-hound pack for
hunting twice a week, including cost of hounds,
lorses, huntsmen, and stable attendants, will be
about fifteen hundred, and for three times a
week, two thousand pounds.

Besides the packs of hounds kept by private
gentlemen, there are many subscription packs.
About a thousand a year is the average amount
of a subscription pack's income, though some
lave larger revenue. Men of very large means
will subscribe eighty or a hundred to the pack,
)ut twenty-five pounds a year is regarded as a
very decent subscription from a man whose