SIR,

SH

HROPSHIRE is not the most fortunate county in England as regards its Nobility, few of the great landed proprietors of that rank residing in the county. The Duke of Cleveland and Lord Craven, although owning large tracts of country, have no mansions in Shropshire in which to display their hospitality to a numerous tenantry; and the seats of Lord Berwick at Atcham, and Sir Ferdinand Acton at Aldenham and Morville, have been nearly deserted for many years. Indeed the Earl of Powis may be almost said to be the only Nobleman constantly resident in the county; and his Lordship, beyond the patronage bestowed on the races at Ludlow, has never evinced any predilection for the sports of the field. Nevertheless the Gentry of this county have long distinguished themselves in the Sporting World, and the names of Sir Richard Hill of Hawkstone, Mr. Corbet of Sundhorne, and Mr. Cecil Forester (the late Lord Forester), will ever be familiar to sportsmen as long as real English feeling exists, and their names transmitted to posterity as the liberal patrons of everything connected with the field, and true models of the old English gentleman and landlord a race now, alas! nearly extinct; whilst in the lower grades of fox-hunters the name of Tom Moody will never be for gotten.

In more modern times the county has been gratified by the liberal patronage afforded to foxhunting by Sir Edward Smith

of Acton Burnell, Mr. Smyth Owen of Condover, Mr. Lloyd of Aston, and the too-celebrated Jack Mytton. Whatever may have been the errors and vagaries of the latter Gentleman, the sportsman will be inclined to throw a veil over all. In the pursuits of the field, the turf, and various other ways, a splendid fortune was exhausted, a noble estate ruined, and a house dissolved. Mr. Mytton's faults may have been numerous; but, like others, he has figured the hero of many feats which never had existence except in the imagination of the creators.

As successors to these gentleMr. men a new race has arisen. Gibbons of Harley, the Hon. Mr. Forester, some of the Peels, and Mr. Egerton Jeffreys have already acquired celebrity.

The surface of this county does not offer the same attractions to the sportsman as Leicestershire, Warwickshire, or Northamptonshire: it is in many parts rugged and heavy, and broken in every direction by hills and mountains: the soil is also in many parts of a clayey stiff nature, and in others black, wet, and loamy: the inclosures are in general small, with thick and strong fences; and that succession of undulating pastures over which the Leicestershire man delights to shew his speed is unknown. To ride well up to hounds in this country requires nerves of adamant, and a horse of undaunted resolution and power. Mr. Corbet of Sundhorne used to say, "that his men, after following

L

hounds in Shropshire a couple of seasons, were pretty sure to prove clippers in whatever country they

afterwards hunted."

A Shropshire hunter has long been celebrated; and for heavy weights the breed of this county may fairly compete with the very best description of Yorkshire horse. Elmore of Piccadilly has purchased some of the best horses that ever went into his stables out of Shropshire; and the late Lord Forester, by the sale of his studs at Belvoir and other places, usually obtained enormous prices for his Shropshire cattle: this, however, may not be stating much for any horse his Lordship rode; his superior skill and judgment were such in displaying the qualifications of a horse as to cause him to appear in other hands an animal of very inferior pretensions.

The county is much indebted to Mr. Lechmere Charlton for the trouble and expense he has been at in keeping up a stud at Ludford. It cannot be said that any of his horses have yet been eminently successful in propagating a very superior breed, and none of Master Henry's stock have hitherto answered the high expectations formed from the superior blood, bone, and size of that horse. In Corve Dale, and indeed throughout the county, there are a number of mares of the old Sultan sort: the produce of these has invariably been the finest colts; and the Lutwyche and Pavilion mares are still in high repute. Pilgarlick, a Yorkshire horse, although little known, and whose performances were never anything but mediocre, is yet the sire of some good colts, and his rising stock display very su

perior pretensions. With breeders this horse ultimately must prove a great favorite. One of the first breeders in the county (probably the first) of hunters is Mr. Mere of Benington. This gentleman has at all times a stock of colts that would bear comparison with any in the kingdom. The first point to which Elmore makes is generally Benington, and he rarely pays a visit without bringing away something worthy of the attention of the London market.

Foxes are rather plentiful everywhere. In summer they harbour about the Stretton hills and Styper Stone mountains in great numbers, and towards winter fly to their common haunts. In consequence of the almost inaccessible nature of the country about these hills, and the great difficulty in drawing the coverts, they are seldom visited by foxhounds; hence they are at all times tolerably stocked; and were not the foxes occasionally disturbed, they probably would remain altogether in the neighbourhood. Towards the spring of the year the country people get up, therefore, a grand battue. Commonly this pastime is not very destructive; but reynard is forced from his haunts, and the bitches generally breed in a more open country. The late Mr. Samuel Wilding on such occasions frequently coursed them with a strong rough greyhounda race almost peculiar to these parts-no other description of dog facing the hills and the fox with equal courage.

Several packs of fox-hounds skirt the county, and occasionally hunt within its limits-Sir Richard Puleston's, Captain Hay's, and

Mr. Dansey's. None of these None of these are exclusively Salopian. The glory and pride of the county is centered in the packs denominated par excellence THE SHROPSHIRE FOX-HOUNDS, and unquestionably they do honour to the county in all respects. There is no point, however minute, but to which the most rigid attention is paid. Probably the expense of huntsman, dogs, horses, kennels, &c. &c. may amount annually to rather more than three thousand pounds; but this includes every expense, the whole of which is defrayed by subscription of the Members. Several of the most celebrated sportsmen of the day have at various periods, under the appellation of Presidents of the Hunt, held the management of the whole of the affairs; and it is but just to state, that during the administration of Sir Bellingham Graham the Hunt arrived at a point of perfection from which it has not since retrograded. Of late the affairs of the Hunt have been under the direction of Mr. Lloyd of Aston, the President; and from this gentleman's uniting the suaviter in modo with the fortiter in re, he has contrived to give satisfaction to all parties, an:l secured the general esteem.

The hounds are rather what is termed fast: although perhaps not so high bred as some of the Leicestershire dogs, there is to be found in them a mixture of all the best blood in the kingdom. With a good scent to live five and forty minutes before these hounds, a fox must get away at a very rapid pace, and at the expiration of that period the field will be more select than

numerous. Sir Bellingham Graham bestowed unusual pains in selecting the various crosses from which the packs are formed; and to his care, and that of Sir Edward Smith, much of their recent celebrity may be ascribed.

The past season has not been particularly brilliant in runs: the scent throughout the season in most parts of the kingdom has been exceedingly cold. In Shropshire it has been peculiarly so. With the exception of a day at the Twemlows, and another at Shrewsbury White Gates, there has been nothing worthy of much notice. It has been generally observed that never in any season were both packs in higher condition, and it has been the subject of much regret that occasions of display were so very rare.

The kennels are about four miles from Shrewsbury on the Welch Pool road. In their arrangements nothing is wanting: the huntsmen's cottages, stables, &c. are neat and unpretending, and they are well situated and central. When it is considered that frequently during the season coverts are drawn nearly twenty miles from home, the before-named expenses cannot be considered enormous.

The Members of the Hunt are all of the best families of the county: much care is taken in the admission-perhaps there is a feeling somewhat too exclusive: there is also an aristocratic air thrown over the proceedings of the Hunt, exciting, however, nothing beyond risibility in any one. It contrives to give a tone to most of the fashionable movements in the county, and some of the younger Members also acquire an air of

tone from their connexion with the Hunt. However, everything is managed in a most gentlemanlike spirit; and that hospitality for which the proud Salopians have ever been celebrated is still a distinguishing feature.

Nothing is more against the well-being of a subscription pack than the absence of the influential men of the county, to whom all affairs of this kind naturally look for patronage. When it is considered that Berwick, Morville, Halstone, Lutwyche, Milliehope, and many other of the old family mansions, have for years been unoccupied, it is surprising how the hunting establishment has been kept up: yet public spirit with the county gentlemen has never for a moment flagged, and Shropshire may reasonably boast of having the best subscription packs in the kingdom. It would almost amount to treason to compare them with some of the Leicestershire establishments, yet the Members need not shrink from observation on this account.

Nothing is looked forward to with more anxiety in Shrewsbury and its vicinity than the Hunt week. This usually takes place at the latter end of the season; and as most of the Nobility and Gentry then make a point of assembling at Shrewsbury, the county town becomes a most agreeable residence, and that dulness and languor which are its usual characteristics give way to an air of bustle and animation only equalled by the Race or Assize week. Much of the gaiety and festivity of this period depend upon the popularity of the President. When such is the case, strangers are very nu

merous, and the patronage of the Hunt is proportionably estimated. The grand display of fashionables is reserved for the Hunt Ball, which at all times is the great magnet of attraction for county beauty and elegance.

Feminé sono naté Per vincere e regnar,

may well be applied to the Shropshire belles on this occasion. Since the demise of the Bailiff's Feast at Ludlow, Hunt dinners are not to be despised.

Fashion has of late years extended its busy influence even to the sports of the field. Everything must now be done in bevies. The cockney bursts from his dingy abode in the City only to meet his assembled compeers at the bustling Margate: the ennuy'd West-ender flies from his Town Club to meet fresh faces congregated at Bath or Cheltenham : and unless the Sportsman has spent or embarrassed a fortune in a crowd at Melton, he can never presume to move a distingué. "Let me be naked and unshorn; let me live on roots and sleep on flints, so that I have but consideration, distinction," said the Dervis: and it is the same with the English. At whatever sacrifice, distinction must be obtained. It is not now enough that a man should figure where his forefathers did; he must move in a more fashionable and a more heterogeneous sphere. This mania hitherto has not raged very fiercely in Shropshire: its gentry are still contented with their old halls, and are still anxious to transmit them unimpoverished to their successors : they have yet to learn how to glimmer ignis-fatuus-like, and expire. A SALOPIAN.

SIR,

HA

AVING considered the effect of those provisions which the present Act has either introduced or sanctioned, let us now advert to some of those regulations which it has destroyed, or, in other words, has repealed. I fear it will, on an attentive consideration, be found, that in several instances the useful plant has been plucked up, where the object was merely to extirpate the noxious weed. I believe the purest motives to have actuated the person who brought in this Act, but no art is more difficult than that of legislation. The Act of the first or second of James the First, which complains of "the vulgar sort and men of small worth making a trade and a living of the spoiling and destroying of the said games, who are not of sufficiency to pay the said penalties, &c. nor to answer the costs," treats as an offence (and such every true sportsman will deem it) the tracing or coursing hares in the snow. As this Act is repealed, such is no longer an offence. The Act of James introduced the qualification, or amount of property or rank, which authorised a person to sport. But this qualification, which was increased by subsequent Acts, is wholly destroyed by the New Game Bill, through the simple operation of repealing all those Statutes which had directed it. With the qualification the New Act has swept away all those provisions, in themselves very useful, and often leading to the detection of poachers, by which the houses of unqualified persons might be search

ed for game, or for nets or other instruments improperly employed in its destruction. When game was made an article of sale, and the object professedly was to put an end to poaching by driving the contraband dealer in it out of the market, the landed qualification to kill, and consequently to sell, game ought never to have been taken away. The respectability of the sellers was a sine qua non : it was essential to make the law work well. The qualification afforded some chance that the individual was respectable: it gave some pledge that the power he had of selling his game would not be abused: it kept the sale of game in the hands of persons (I am now speaking of the landed qualification, for the other qualification never ought to have existed) not only having some stake in the country, but also a certain interest in the game itself, and its preservation, and a motive properly to use the power they possessed, and not recklessly to abuse it. But when a mere certificate could, even in the hands of the most desperate and unprincipled thief and poacher, legalise his right to sell by whatever foul means he obtained the game, what controul could be obtained over a person of his description—a person bound by no laws, human or divine? He has no character to lose, no property to injure, and the licence is only a legal permission to sell the produce of rapine and of plunder. So much for allowing game to be sold by persons having no qualification to kill: in