I am always delighted to see any member of the Corporation at the meet
of my hounds. If they came out horrid Radicals they would go back half
Tories.
[Illustration: "_I am afraid all the dumb bells in the world would not
get me up to that._"]
"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin," and there is nothing
like a meet in the open country for setting things right between
friends and neighbours.
_Mayor's Banquet, Newport,
January 15th, 1884._
A clever satirist has said that nature made the horse and hounds and
threw in the fox as a connecting link. In my opinion, fox-hounds and
hunting are the connecting links between the landlord and the tenant
farmer.
[Illustration: "_'Oh the devil!' I exclaimed. 'No, not the devil,'
said the farmer, 'but the fox.'_"]
I have made many pleasant acquaintances lately in my hunting
expeditions, and I hope we shall always remain on the most amicable
terms. But some have astonished me with their argument. Said one,
"Beg pardon, Major, I have lost such a sight of poultry." "Dear me,"
I said. "Yes, we lost forty ducks the other night." "Oh, the devil!" I
exclaimed. "No, not the devil," said the farmer, "but the fox." I
asked the farmer how he managed to count so many. "Well," was the
reply, "I had four ducks sitting on ten eggs each; and that made
forty." Well, the Chamber of Agriculture has not yet settled the
knotty point of "compensation for unexhausted improvements." However,
the argument ended in our parting very good friends, as, said the
farmer, "I and my landlord have been friends hitherto, and as I hope
we shall continue to be."