approach of bad characters-burglars, or such like. A story came to us the other day that a convict escaped from one of the Florida penitentiaries and got well away before the hounds were put upon his line. He, however, discomfited the creatures in a cunning manner, for, providing himself with a quantity of pepper, he strewed it on his track. This not only quite prevented the hounds following him, but, it is said, pretty nearly killed one of the best of them, who persevered for a considerable time longer than his comrades in endeavouring to make out the scent of the fugitive. CHAPTER II. THE FOXHOUND. THE most perfect of his race is the foxhoundperfect in shape, in pace, in nose, in courage. Not one of his canine companions is his equal, for in addition to his merits as a mere quadruped, as a hound he is the reason for the maintenance of expensive establishments, for the breeding of high class horses, and generally for giving an impetus to trade and causing a "turnover," without which the agriculturist might starve and the greatness of our country be placed in peril. Our bravest soldiers have been foxhunters; our most successful men in almost every walk of commerce have had their characters moulded in the hunting field, or later in life have regained their shattered health by gallops after hounds across the green meadows of the Midlands or along the broad acres of Yorkshire. At the present time there are about 200 packs of foxhounds hunting regularly in the various districts of Great Britain, and I am well within the mark when I estimate the cost of keeping up the kennels, including hounds, food, wages of hunt servants, masters' expenses, &c., at over three million pounds per annum. Nor do these figures attempt to cover the ordinary expenses disbursed by those hunting men who have not hounds of their own, the cost of their horses, their keep, and other items. What in addition these amount to cannot well be ascertained, but he will be a bold man who attempts. to deny that foxhunting, as one of our national sports, possesses a place in the economy of the State. Special trains on our great railway system are repeatedly run to fashionable meets of foxhounds. Some large hotels are to a considerable extent supported by customers who visit them because of their contiguity to foxhound countries. We have been called a nation of shopkeepers -a nation of foxhunters would have been more appropriate. One way and another the expenditure upon this healthy amusement during each successive season may be reckoned in millions of pounds sterling, and still there are so called humanitarians who decry the sport as a discredit to our country. Lord Yarborough estimated the cost of hound keeping at over four and a half millions yearly, and estimates that 99,000 horses are engaged therein. Again it is said that in Yorkshire alone over twenty |