"Please drive cautiously. Hound puppies are at walk in the village."
We came upon this notice nailed to the trunk of an ash on the road
outside a village in Hampshire. The inference suggested itself that so
long as those who might drive furiously through the village touched
no hair of a hound puppy's head nothing else mattered. Usually, it
is the old-fashioned notices that bring a smile to the passer-by's
face: "Beware of Man-traps," "Spring Guns," "Dog-spears set here."
Walking along the River Stort we have been startled by a notice beside
some of the locks, "The Punishment for Tampering with these Works
is Transportation." "Trespassers will be Punished by Transportation"
would be a suitable legend for a board in a strictly preserved wood,
hinting that if you do not go quietly on request the keeper will carry
you. Reading the new caution to drivers outside the Hampshire village,
we were tempted to simplify it thus: "Beware of hound puppies." It is
pleasant to see young hounds basking in the sun in the farm-yard; but
when they are at walk in the charge of the village butcher they may be
more than a general nuisance; they may terrorise the place. People who
walk hounds do not always undertake the honour because they like it,
but because they cannot well refuse. The hounds are turned out into
the streets to prowl at large--they slaughter poultry, spread havoc
in many a garden plot, knock down children, and roam in through open
cottage doors, to steal the labourer's dinner from off his very table.
A pack of hounds under the control of a firm huntsman and his whips is
one thing--but hounds at walk, allowed to wander at their will, are a
peril to the community. "Beware of hound puppies"--when they come up
treacherously behind you.
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