On the last Wednesday in November came on for decision a match which had
excited much interest in the sporting world, and which amongst that
community is denominated a Steeple-Race, the parties undertaking to
surmount all obstructions and to pursue in their progress as straight a
line as possible. The contest lay between Mr. Bullivant, of Sproxton;
Mr. Day, of Wymondham; and Mr. Frisby, of Waltham; and was for a
sweepstake of 100 guineas staked by each. They started from Womack’s
Lodge at half-past twelve o’clock (the riders attired in handsome jockey
dresses of orange, crimson and sky blue respectively, worn by the
gentlemen in the order we have named them above) to run round Woodal
Head and back again—a distance somewhat exceeding eight miles. They
continued nearly together until they came within a mile and a half of
the goal, when Mr. Bullivant, on his well-known horse Sentinel, took the
lead, and appearances promised a fine race between him and Mr. Day; but
unfortunately in passing through a hand-gate, owing partly to a slip,
Mr. Day’s horse came in full contact with the gate-post; the rider was
thrown with great violence and, as well as the horse, was much hurt.
Nevertheless, Mr. Day remounted in an instant, and continued his course.
Mr. Bullivant, however, during the interruption, made such progress as
enabled him to win the race easily. The contest for a second place now
became extremely severe between Mr. Day and Mr. Frisby: the last half
mile was run neck and neck, and Mr. Day only beat his opponent by half a
neck. The race was performed in 25 min. 35 sec.
* * * * *
NEWMARKET JOCKIES. Court of King’s Bench, December 6th. Irish _v._
Chifney.—The defendant in this case is the celebrated Newmarket jockey,
the plaintiff is a bit-maker. When the cause was called on, Mr. Serjeant
Best asked whether or not the defendant was ready to _start_? and being
answered in the affirmative, the learned Serjeant _led off_ in a
superior stile. The action was brought upon an agreement signed by the
defendant for the payment of £15 which the plaintiff claimed as his due,
for making a certain number of bits for racers which Mr. Chifney
conceived were superior to any others, and the principle of which
originated from his own fertile invention. The agreement was proved by a
very respectable witness, and the defendant’s counsel endeavoured to
_cross_ the witness in order to prove that these bits had been exposed
to sale contrary to the orders of Mr. Chifney; but on this point he
failed, as the witness would not take the _bit_; and although he was
finally _rubbed down_, came in for the _legal plate_ without any
competitor. There was no kind of defence, and the jury found a verdict
for the plaintiff for fifteen pounds.
Cricket Topics.
The first two days of the Cattle Show found the delegates of County
Cricket busy at Lord’s, appointing on the Monday their umpires, and on
the Tuesday their matches. In the absence of the Australian team, the
programme has settled down very much on the usual lines of a domestic
English cricket season. Mr. Lacey, the head Secretary of the M.C.C.,
announced that he was arranging fixtures for a West Indian team that is
desirous of playing a series of matches in this country next summer. Mr.
Lacey is reported to have said that as the West Indians were coming for
the purpose of improving the standard of cricket in the West Indies, and
not with the idea of making money, he trusted that he would receive the
assistance of the counties in doing all that was possible to make the
tour a success.
We have not seen an authentic list of the matches arranged, but we
gather that our visitors will play a very mixed card, commencing at the
Crystal Palace on June 11th, against a London County team of Mr. W. G.
Grace’s.
Other fixtures in chronological order are against Essex, Middlesex,
Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Hampshire, South Wales, Kent, M.C.C.,
Derbyshire, “All Scotland” at Edinburgh, and “All England” at that great
centre of gate-money, Blackpool. Then against Yorkshire at Harrogate,
and to finish with a burst of alliteration, Norfolk, Notts, and
Northampton. This seems a fairly good all-round sample of English
cricket, and our visitors ought to get a good look at the game as played
in England; and we hope that they will achieve their purpose, insisted
upon by Mr. Lacey, of improving the standard of the game in the West
Indies.
In 1900, when a team visited us from the West Indies, the Marylebone
Club did what they could to discourage our guests and to lower the
standard of their play by a proclamation that none of the West Indian
matches were to count in the first-class averages. We hope that this
time Mr. Lacey will advise his Committee to join in the general note of
encouragement by permitting at any rate some of their matches—for
instance, those against Surrey, Yorkshire, and Kent, to rank as high as,
say, Somerset _v._ Hants.
There is nothing very interesting about county cricket nowadays, not
even in regard to the arrangement of championship matches.
It is worthy of notice that Northamptonshire, who only just wriggled
into the first-class last season, have had to struggle hard to maintain
their position there, and have only just succeeded in arranging
sufficient matches to again qualify. This came through the agency of
Notts, who have dropped their matches with Kent, and have taken on
Northants instead. For a long time Notts and Kent have been regular
antagonists, and it seems almost a pity that their matches should be
dropped; but even the best friends amongst the counties sometimes drift
apart for a year or so, as has been shown again this year in the coy
conduct of Surrey, who again refuse to play with Somerset, the county
which has done so much to encourage Surrey cricket, originally by
consistently beating her, and then by paying her the compliment of
adopting and developing her most promising young players. _Apropos_ of
Somerset, we read with regret that Mr. S. M. J. Woods has announced his
intention of retiring from the captaincy of the eleven at the end of
next season.
Certainly his twelve years of office are very noticeable. In 1894 Mr.
Woods took over a team of mixed possibilities and impossibilities, and
has kept the concern going up to to-day, with most attractive and
varying vicissitudes, and probably “Great Heart,” as he has been styled
by his friend Mr. C. B. Fry, is about the only man who could have so
long stood the strain of so frequently facing fearful odds. Somerset
have now fifteen years’ experience of first-class cricket and have done
many brilliant things, but for the second year in succession, and
despite the fact that the Australian matches brought them in a nice
profit, the club is confronted with an adverse balance well over four
hundred pounds. It would almost seem as if cricket, the national game,
were a hybrid growth in Somerset, where the natives do not support the
game very conspicuously either by play or pay.
The dates of the big matches at Lord’s are: Oxford and Cambridge, July
5th; Gentlemen and Players, July 9th; and Eton and Harrow, July 13th. It
will be seen that these games follow one another as closely as possible,
so it is to be hoped, for the sake of the Marylebone Club finances, that
the weather for that fortnight may prove favourable. For many years the
match between Oxford University and M.C.C. and Ground has been arranged
at Lord’s as the match to immediately precede the Oxford and Cambridge
match, and in order to give the Oxonians a day of rest before the stress
and strain of the ’Varsity match, the game with the M.C.C. has been
limited to two days’ play, and in an epoch of good wickets this has
taken much of the interest out of the game. Common sense has at length
prevailed in this matter, and now the Oxford _v._ M.C.C. match has been
moved forward to a week before the Oxford and Cambridge match, and the
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday preceding the ’Varsity match are allotted
to Middlesex against Essex at Lord’s.
It seems a pity that the Hastings Cricket Festival should die out, but
such would appear to be the case, as no matches have up to now been
arranged for it. We hear that the last three years have each proved
disastrous financially, and the promoters probably consider that they
will be justified in contenting themselves with the week of Sussex
county cricket which has been allotted to them by the County Committee
at the end of August, when Warwickshire and Essex are to be engaged.
Of benefit matches there are not so many as usual. According to custom,
the Whit-Monday match at Lord’s, between Somerset and Middlesex, is
given as a benefit to a deserving member of the ground staff of the
M.C.C. V. A. Titchmarsh, at one time the mainstay of Herts, and nowadays
one of the most reliable of umpires, takes his turn on June 2nd, 3rd,
4th, and we wish him a bumper.
The great match of the year at Old Trafford, is the August Bank Holiday
battle with Yorkshire, and this is to be for the benefit of John
Tyldesley, who cannot possibly get more from it than he richly deserves,
both from his country and his county.
At the Oval, Walter Lees is to have a benefit, and he too deserves well
at the hands of Surrey cricketers, and was probably very unlucky never
to have actually taken part in a Test Match, after having so often last
season been amongst those selected to play for England.
At Lord’s the programme is no more interesting than is usually the case
at headquarters in the absence of an Australian team. Middlesex, of
course, will play all their home matches there, and, apart from the
three big-gate matches already referred to, there is nothing very
attractive about the fixtures arranged for Lord’s. Yorkshire, Sussex,
Derbyshire, Kent, and Notts play the M.C.C. and Ground, the latter
county, as usual, playing the opening match at Lord’s, beginning on the
first Wednesday in May. They are quite devoid of interest these three
days’ matches between some generally moderate Marylebone amateurs,
pulled through by the professional element, against a county team from
which the most prominent members are for this unimportant occasion
taking a rest.
We wonder if the management at Lord’s will one day be able to devise
some better plan of disposing of their dates and their money. To our
mind the game between Actors and Jockeys played last September might to
advantage be moved forward into the season proper.
It has always been very difficult to gain any reliable information as to
the personal profits made by members of Australian teams touring in this
country. Our enterprising contemporary the _Daily Mail_, has endeavoured
to shed some light upon the profits of the last tour, by the help of
some evidence given in the bankruptcy proceedings of S. E. Gregory.
According to Gregory’s evidence as reported, the members of the team
were to share and share alike in the profits of the tour. That was
tacitly agreed upon. All the members signed an agreement on board the
steamer _Majestic_, between America and London, by which they bound
themselves to keep order, to abstain from writing for the Press, and to
observe minor conditions. There had as yet been no balance-sheet of the
tour prepared, but it was anticipated that the gross proceeds would be
about £800 a man. Out of that the players had to pay their travelling
expenses to and from England, and while in England. The Melbourne
Cricket Club advanced the necessary money to players, and had it
deducted from each man’s share.
The players very seldom saw one another except on the cricket field or
on the boat coming out. One of the team had told him he had about £50
still to come, which would mean about £500 net for the tour. With regard
to his expenses in England, Gregory said: “I had to go very slow not to
spend more than £150. That amount went in cab fares, theatres, return
“shouts,” clothes, and cricket bats, although most of our bats were
presented to us.”
These figures are in a way interesting, and we cannot understand how the
Marylebone Club was able to lose so much money over their tour in
Australia, when Australian visitors are able to carry away a profit of
£800 per head amongst fourteen of them, besides enriching the coffers of
our counties to a very considerable extent.
The English team in South Africa succeeded in winning their first match
at Cape Town, against the Western Province XI., by an innings and 127
runs. Towards the total of 365 compiled by Mr. Warner’s team, the
captain scored 56, Denton 78, Mr. Fane 60, and Relf 61 not out. For the
Western Province Whitehead took six wickets for 160 runs, but Kotze, who
made such an impression in this country with his extra fast deliveries,
proved altogether unsuccessful.
The home team could only accomplish 26 and 142 in their two hands,
Coggings with 20 and 43 being their most successful batsman; whilst of
the English bowlers who were tried Haigh and Mr. J. N. Crawford have the
best figures, getting five wickets each for 31 and 5 runs respectively.
Against the country districts at Worcester in Cape Colony the visitors
won by an innings and 52 runs, and apparently the country districts
batsmen cannot be of any high calibre, since in their first innings Mr.
Hartley took nine wickets for 26 runs, and in their second Mr.
Leveson-Gower had five for 14; Mr. Leveson-Gower also scored 82 runs,
which constituted quite a successful first appearance for him in the
team.
We note from South African Exchanges that Major R. M. Poore, of
Hampshire fame, is again busy playing for his regiment, the 7th Hussars,
at Potchefstroom. His scores of 44 not out, and 115, prove him to be in
good form, so that he is likely to render a good account of himself when
he runs up against the English bowlers; as he did against Lord Hawke’s
team in 1896, when he took more than one century off the late George
Lohmann and some very fair amateur bowlers.
Is Foxhunting Doomed?
The above question, though not a very cheerful one to mention near the
commencement of the hunting season, is one which has nevertheless to be
faced by all hunting men, with whom the answer must chiefly rest. The
reply, as to most complex questions, must be both “yes” and “no.”
Geographically and in the very nature of things, hunting is doomed in
the ever-increasing black countries of mines and factories, of bricks
and mortar, of railways and canals, and with the modern innovation of
light railways even crossing our fields.
When even Salisbury Plain has become a military camp, who can say that
Dartmoor and Exmoor will not in another generation re-echo the sound of
bugle and trumpet instead of the horn of the hunter?
Still, where estates are large, the Master of Foxhounds, patient and
realising the changed conditions of modern hunting and fox preserving,
and the farmers long-suffering, as they will still be if properly
treated, foxhunting may yet survive for another century at least.
What hunting men must realise and acknowledge is that, now that the
feudal system is as extinct as the dodo, and scarcely one applicant for
a vacant farm can be found where we used to have twenty, hunting can
only be carried on through the goodwill of the occupier of the land
which is ridden over, whether landowner or tenant farmer. In the good
old times, before the disastrous season of 1879 and the extension of
foreign competition, when farmers were rich and the “fields” were small
and consisted chiefly of his own friends and neighbours, the farmer as
depicted in _Punch_ might be the first to ignore the warning cry of
“’ware wheat!” on his own farm, but now that times are permanently bad
but few farmers can afford to hunt, and railway facilities—and now that
modern Juggernaut the motor car (patronised even by masters of foxhounds
who will probably soon adopt a motor-hound van)—bring strangers by the
hundred who know not wheat from grass nor seeds from bare stubble, and
care less, and spend nothing in the neighbourhood, no wonder the crushed
farmer turns, and some even insist on their undoubted legal right of
warning off the trespasser, and if necessary protecting their own
property _vi et armis_ (with a pitchfork). Hunting, formerly arising out
of the absolute rights of the lord over his serf, continued through the
mutual good feeling between landlord and tenant, but now that many
landlords are absentees and scarcely know a single tenant by sight, they
cannot expect to let their land while still retaining it for sporting
purposes without compensating the tenant or recognising the sacrifices
which he endures for sport. One who was “blooded” by that best of
sportsmen, the late Sir Charles Slingsby, half a century ago, at the
early age of six years, and has had a life-long experience of every
phase of country life both as landowner and farmer, while equally keen
on both hunting and shooting, can see a good deal of both sides of this
question.
To begin at the top, though the Master of Foxhounds, especially
nowadays, has of all men the most need of tact and the patience of Job,
how many are there in possession of those estimable qualities?
Although James Pigg had his prototype, dear old Jorrocks must be
regarded as somewhat of a caricature; but Lord Scamperdale and his
bully, Jack Spraggon, were taken from real characters, and the race, I
fear, is not now altogether extinct. I have known a master, an old
country squire and no ignorant upstart, abuse as a vulpicide another
poor crippled squire in his carriage before the whole field, with the
not unnatural result that he who for fifty years had preserved foxes
throughout his vast extent of coverts solely for the benefit of others,
as he could never hunt himself, went home and ordered every fox on his
estate to be killed for two years as an object lesson; thereby quite
ruining one day in every week. One cannot approve of such wholesale
punishing of the innocent with the guilty, but cannot wonder at it. The
same master, before throwing off, abused publicly on his own doorstep at
a meet another landowner from whose five-acre covert I had myself had
the satisfaction of holloaing away no less than seven foxes while
shooting the week before. Another Master of Foxhounds in my hearing
slanged the best of sportsmen and a keen fox preserver because he
himself in a fit of temper had drawn blank at a hard gallop two hundred
acres of coverts from which, to my own knowledge, five foxes at least
had been halloaed away. My own Master of Foxhounds, a real good sort and
an intimate friend, once received me, until I laughed him out of it
instead of taking offence myself, with unaccountable coolness at
Peterborough Hound Show; though I think he might have guessed that the
unpleasing present which he had that morning received of the pads of a
litter of cubs was scarcely likely to be sent by a keen preserver of
foxes for twenty years with the well-known postmark of his own parish.
Obviously I myself was the most injured as well as insulted party.
Still, happily, these cases are exceptions in an experience of some
scores of masters in every part of England, and I may especially mention
the courtesy shown to a stranger in days of old in the Croome and
Blackmore Vale countries.
It is vain for a Master of Foxhounds, not himself a landowner, to state
that foxes do no harm to game, to me who have counted eighteen nests,
say one hundred brace of partridges, destroyed around a single field;
not that one grudged it, but one likes sometimes to have one’s
sacrifices a little appreciated. We feel well repaid for the hundreds of
rabbits consumed in the summer if only one of the right sort is found in
our coverts when needed, and the master cheerily shouts as he dashes
past, “I knew we could always depend on you, old chap.” Again, masters
and fields, especially non-subscribers from towns, do not recognise the
difficulty of showing foxes when needed. A good fox is not like a
hand-reared pheasant, a tame animal to come when whistled for, but a
wild animal going far afield and lying out in turnips or taking refuge
in the tops of pollard trees; coverts may have been lately shot, timber
may have been felled, a strange dog may have hunted them; worst of all,
a fox may have been chopped there, or a score of things happened of
which the grumblers are ignorant. A reputed millionaire Master of
Foxhounds in a grass country brought his oats, hay and straw from
abroad, losing hundreds of pounds of goodwill from the aggrieved farmers
for every ten pounds saved. And now for the average man, who hunts to
ride, or often only to sport pink at dinners or balls, and actually
seems to believe himself that he confers a favour on the poor farmer by
ruining his crops and breaking his fences and leaving his gates open,
and whom he will sometimes curse incontinently if he is the least slow
in throwing open his gates to the trespasser, to whom in rare cases he
may throw a copper as to a beggar, contemptuously. Such an one buys
everything at a distance, not only clothes, boots, saddlery and horse
clothing, and stable utensils, but hay, corn and straw, while he buys
his horses from the London dealer and not from the farmer. The chief
reason of this is not only thoughtlessness but the fact that too many
masters are morally the slaves of the servants who rob them, and who,
with an ignorant, timid, or indifferent master, will often represent
local goods as inferior, and even make them so to secure the
commissions, as the cook does with eggs, poultry, meat, &c. It always
puzzles me, too, why hunting men will pay two to three hundred guineas
to a London dealer for a pig in a poke rather than buy a hunter from the
breeder and trainer whose animal they can see day after day doing an
excellent performance with hounds, and of which they may have any
reasonable practical trial in the field before buying. The grooms can
make the purchase a failure if they do not get substantial “regulars,”
and their master is a duffer, and many men explain that with dealers
they can swap and change, forgetting that it is the dealer and not
themselves who is sure to benefit by each exchange.
It astonishes me as a practical breeder how valuable studs can be reared
as well as herds of pedigree cattle and flocks of sheep in the Shires,
where on every day in the week, Sundays only excepted, any one of half a
dozen packs may stampede the lot, causing laming, staking and slipping,
or casting their young; for it is trouble and risk enough with horses
alone to have to round up and shut up all one’s brood mares and young
stock rather than have them excited and dispersed over the adjoining
parish through gaps and gates left open. It is not the fliers of the
hunt who do the most damage, as experience teaches them to ride at the
post or stiffest part of a fence that a horse will clear, instead of
blundering through, but the ignoble army of skirters, who will tear down
any fence in their efforts to regain the safety of the hard high road.
Fortunately, the boastful thruster who shows off by turning a somersault
through a new gate when hounds are not running is rare. Much might be
done by reducing the quantity and improving the quality of the second
horsemen, especially in the crowded Shires.
To sum up; the hunting man would do well in his own interest to show
appreciation of the self-denial of the farmer by buying horses, forage
and all that he can in the country which he affects, and avoid as far as
possible all injury to growing crops, especially when hounds are not
running or scent is bad—the days are only too few and choice when one
must go straight and fast or go home—and then little harm results.
Fences need seldom be broken nor gates left open where stock is, and any
man who can afford to hunt can afford to pay a good subscription to
enable the Hunt to compensate the farmer by removing and replacing the
barbed wire, or, better still, supplying timber for fencing instead, and
tactfully recouping Mrs. Farmer for loss of her just perquisite,
poultry, even if, with the privilege of her sex, she sometimes opens her
mouth a little widely and loudly. I have heard masters of hounds
explaining to those who, like myself, have seen “bold Reynard” (see
Sponge) carrying off fowls in broad daylight, that foxes do not injure
poultry. Unfortunately the vulpine instinct is to prepare for a rainy
day, and though we are assured that foxes leave home preserves alone as
a reserve fund, it makes little difference whether neighbours or
“travellers” clear off and bury the feathered contents of our henroost
for future use, whether hungry or not, as the best fed dog will do with
a number of bones.
[Illustration:
RETURNING FROM MARKET, 1838.
(From Sir Walter Gilbey’s paper on “Farms and Small Holdings.” _Live
Stock Journal Almanac 1906._)
_Photo by W. Shayer, Senr._
]
Still, fortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Farmer are a good sort, the former with
an innate love of sport and the latter not impervious to soft sawder if
laid on judiciously; and if game preservers will unselfishly remember
the lines, even if exaggerated, that
“One fox upon foot more enjoyment will bring
Than twice twenty thousand pheasants on wing;”
and if each Master of Foxhounds will spend as much of the needful as he
can locally, and remember that in the twentieth century men do not come
out to be d——d; and those who take part in the pleasures of the chase,
would subscribe to the great and increasing expenses of the packs which
they favour (?) with their presence, observe the courtesy which they
would show when “standing down,” and show some consideration for farmers
and their gates, fences and crops, I have no fear but that the farmer
will do his part as he has hitherto done in the more prosperous past;
and to the question as to whether hunting is doomed to extinction or
not, we may hopefully and confidently respond, in the words of the good
old song:
Oh, perish the thought, may the day never come
When the gorse is uprooted, the foxhound is dumb.