I hold that nothing is so likely to be permanently prejudicial to the interest of hunting in the British Isles as a certain flavour of tip-top fashion which has gradually enveloped it. There is a pretence of grandeur about that and, alas, about other sports also, which is, to my thinking, destructive of all sport itself. Men will not shoot unless game is made to appear before them in clouds. They will not fish unless the rivers be exquisite. To row is nothing unless you can be known as a national hero. Cricket requires appendages which are troublesome and costly, and by which the minds of economical fathers are astounded. To play a game of hockey in accordance with the times you must have a specially trained pony and a gaudy dress. Racquets have given place to tennis because tennis is costly. In all these cases the fashion of the game is much more cherished than the game itself. But in nothing is this feeling so predominant as in hunting. For the management of a pack, as packs are managed now, a huntsman needs must be a great man himself, and three mounted subordinates are necessary, as at any rate for two of these servants a second horse is required. A hunt is nothing in the world unless it goes out four times a week at least. A run is nothing unless the pace be that of a steeplechase. Whether there be or be not a fox before the hounds is of little consequence to the great body of riders. A bold huntsman who can make a dash across country from one covert to another, and who can so train his hounds that they shall run as though game were before them, is supposed to have provided good sport. If a fox can be killed in covert afterwards so much the better for those who like to talk of their doings. Though the hounds brought no fox with them, it is of no matter. When a fox does run according to his nature he is reviled as a useless brute, because he will not go straight across country. But the worst of all is the attention given by men to things altogether outside the sport. Their coats and waistcoats, their boots and breeches, their little strings and pretty scarfs, their saddles and bridles, their dandy knick-knacks, and, above all, their flasks, are more to many men than aught else in the day's proceedings. I have known girls who have thought that their first appearance in the ball-room, when all was fresh, unstained, and perfect from the milliner's hand, was the one moment of rapture for the evening. I have sometimes felt the same of young sportsmen at a Leicestershire or Northamptonshire meet. It is not that they will not ride when the occasion comes. They are always ready enough to break their bones. There is no greater mistake than to suppose that dandyism is antagonistic to pluck. The fault is that men train themselves to care for nothing that is not as costly as unlimited expenditure can make it. Thus it comes about that the real love of sport is crushed under a desire for fashion. A man will be almost ashamed to confess that