MASTER M'GRATH

Lady Sarah (Lord Lurgan)

Dervock

(Gardiner)

HIND LEG. From hock to stifle joint, 94in.; from stifle to top of hip bone, 12in.; girth of ham part of thigh, 14in.; thickness of second thigh below stifle, 8in.

BODY.-Girth round depth of chest, 26in.; girth round the loins, 17țin.
WEIGHT.-54lbs.

He was bred by James Galway, Esq., and his full pedigree, tracing back to five generations, is here given

Master M'Grath by Dervock (Gardiner's), Lady Sarah (Lord Lurgan's), is thus in-bred four times to King Cob, through Figaro, Tippitywitchet, Tollwife, and Kentish Fire; to Sadek and Sanctity, through Syren and Senate; to Ball's Bugle twice, through his sister Knavery; and to Kouli Knan, through Kirtles and Coquette. He has also the Em. peror (Easterby's) blood in him, through Linnet, and that of Waterloo (Lord Eglinton's), through Bowhill. It is a curious fact that Brigadier (the winner of 1866) also comes from Lady Watford, and combines the Larriston blood with that of King Cob and Emperor; both have the Figaro blood likewise, and they each have another strain of King Cob-Master M'Grath, through David, and Brigadier, through Weapon. Master M'Grath, besides the strains of King Cob, has double strains of Waterloo blood, through Ruby by Moses, a brother, and Bowhill from Bessie Bell, a sister of that dog.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

It is creditable to the collective wisdom of the country that any reference in Parliament to our national pastimes is very sure to be received with respect. To any thinking man, the good policy of keeping the recreations of a people to healthy channels will be at once apparent. The actual importance, indeed, of field-sport and personal prowess has ever been recognized. The fondest epithet that Homer could find for his hero was when he characterized him as a "horsebreaker;" and winning a race at the Olympic games was a triumph of which a poet would make as much as he might of a victory achieved by one General over another. Nor has this spirit died out in modern times. More than one prime-minister has owned to an ambition that went on winning the Derby; an M.F.H. is often a man of far higher social position than an M.P.; while no-one receives more continual encouragement to keep up his practice than a good shot.

And yet, at this moment, our English sports are in a bad way. The injury that the present system of racing is inflicting on man and horse is everywhere apparent. Gentlemen, of a very necessity, are committing their characters to the care of usurers and black-legs; and horses, still the best in the world with only fair play, are worn out long before they reach their prime or mature strength. Perhaps the very strongest proof of such demoralization is the course that sportsmen themselves are about to take. Sir Joseph Hawley, acknowledged to be one of the best judges of racing and the owner of the best racehorse of his time, has just given notice that he shall move, at the next meeting of the Jockey Club: 1st, That no two-year-old shall run earlier in the year than July 1. 2nd, That no two-year-old shall start for any handicap; and a horse running in contravention of this or the preceding rule will thenceforth be disqualified for running at any meeting where the rules of the Jockey Club are in force. 3rd, That, in future, no money shall be added from the funds of the Jockey Club to any race for which two-year-olds may be entered. 4th, That if two or more two-year-olds run a dead-heat, they shall not be allowed to run again; but the prize shall be equally divided between or among them. As Admiral Rous, a yet higher authority, has long held the same opinions as to the pernicious effects of early two-year-old racing, there is now a hope of this suicidal system being materially modified; as that under such wholesome reform some good, sound four and fiveyear-olds may be once again seen on a course.

Still, for the best even, the Turf should be but indirect in its influence: whereas the uses of fox-hunting are more tangible, and foxhunting is fast going out of fashion. By the close of the season, there are rumours already of two or three establishments which threaten to be utterly broken up. Not that there is any want of proper management. Not but that people enjoy hunting as much, and that more

people hunt than ever, but simply from there being nothing to hunt. Never has the case been brought more clearly home than by Mr. Booth, whose speech we gave in our columns a fortnight since. And Mr. Booth is not only a fox-hunter, not merely a Master of Hounds, but one of a distinguished family of agriculturists. And this was what he said at a meeting called to determine what was to be done with the Bedale pack: "The scarcity of foxes was becoming so great as to make it a question whether they could go on with the hounds with any prospect of success at present. That portion of the country lying west of Leeming-lane, and bounded on the north by the river Swale, and on the south by the road leading from Leeming-lane station to Masham, was certainly in a very bad state as regarded foxes. In addition to this, the owners of property about Hipswell, Brough, and Hauxwell complained very much of the destruction of foxes in that part of the country. The next estate on which there was a scarcity was that of the Marquis of Ailesbury, at Jerveaux, and also at Tanfield. He (Mr. Booth) believed there had only been one fox found on that estate during the last three seasons. In the summer he saw the marquis, and he promised that in future foxes should be preserved, and that with that view he should give his gamekeepers strict orders respecting them. There had, indeed, been three foxes found at Tanfield, on the marquis' estate, but these were three out of nine turned down by Mr. Hutton, at Aldborough. There was also Constable Burton, where, last season, they found one fox, but nothing this year. At Hornby they found, last season, one fox they drew it a few days ago, and found only a three-legged one. Complaints had also been made of Hutton-moor, on the estate of Earl de Grey. They tried it last season, and found one dead fox. This season they had not been allowed to try it, as it had not yet been shot over." Again, at a meeting held at Ollerton on Monday last, a letter was read from Mr. Harvey Bayley sending in his resignation as Master of the Rufford Hounds, his chief reason for doing so being that the foxes were not preserved. Whereupon thanks were passed to Mr. Bayley for having "fully and honourably acquitted himself;" and then it was resolved that "this old-established hunt" be broken up, and the hounds sold. The famous Billesden Coplow cover in the Quorn country is now commonly drawn blank; and a resolution has just been passed by the committee calling attention to the growing scarcity of foxes in this celebrated hunting country. Still further, Lord Ashburnham has instructed his solicitor to give notice to the Master, servants, and subscribers to the East Sussex Hounds that they will be prosecuted for trespass if found hereafter on any of his lordship's lands.

Is it necessary for us to give any reason for this lamentable state of things?-for a Journal, whose editor, according to an old Suffolk Subscriber, has a "mania against game," to say that game is the sole root of the evil? The three-legged fox at Hornby and Lord de Grey's dead fox at Hutton, the blotting out of the Rufford and the notice to quit in Sussex, all tell out the same sad story. At Hutton, only last week, a day's shooting came to this amount: 1,250 pheasants, 703 hares, 34 rabbits, 6 partridges, 2 snipes, and 1 woodcock; a total of 1,996. Twelve hundred pheasants, seven hundred hares, in a-day, and one dead fox in a season. "O monstrous! but one half-penny

worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!" Then, just twenty years since, an observant sportsman foreshadowed what was coming in Nottinghamshire, even in the days of that keen hand, Captain Percy Williams: "Game, especially hares, are as thick as autumn leaves in the Vale of Vallombrosa: fat pheasants, too, reared under a Bantam hen, and fed on barley, like chickens in a poultry yard, have brought in their train envy, hatred, and malice-have dispossessed the fox and demoralized the country." What will our Suffolk Subscriber say to this? How now as to the "mania which is tiring your readers," and our "uncalled for remarks" on Mr. Corrance, the Farmers' Member for a game-ridden county like Suffolk. Look only to the long speech which the honourable gentleman delivered at Ipswich the other day, and that appeared in our paper of last week. In this address he touched upon every conceivable abuse but that which is doing more actual harm and creating more ill-will in the rural districts than the proportionate good that would come from the concession of all his other points put together. Verily, as we have said, the leading sports of this country are in a bad way. On the turf, though, there is some chance of amendment, but battue-shooting is eating up fox-hunting, and selfish arrogance driving out and warning off the most healthy amusement in all its phases that this country does, and which no other country can boast of. Still there is something left at the bottom of Pandora's box. Field sport, we have said, has always been treated with respect by the House of Commons; and at the meeting at Ollerton, the only man in the room who held up his hand for the continuance of the Rufford Hounds was Mr. Denison, the Speaker, who, according to the Master, "has been the mainspring of keeping them going so long."

The indolence, the exclusiveness, and the refined cruelties of the Nobles have foreboded the fate of many an empire, and it will be a bad sign when men like our Suffolk farmer and his Chambers rather shirk than encounter the evils now spreading so rapidly, and which are as inimical to true sport as they are to kindly feeling and good farming. Very recently we had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Leigh's hounds at Silsoe, when they began by drawing the pleasure grounds at Wrest, gardens so beautifully laid out and kept up that many a Master might hesitate before he put his pack into them. But no sooner were they in than a fox was found; no sooner was one killed than another was away. There might have been half-a-dozen a-foot at the same time. And yet the shooting at Wrest is good, while the owner moreover is a noble lady, who may not personally take much interest in fox-hunting. But Lady Cowper has possibly been taught to feel how much good she may do, at the sacrifice of a fancy duck or a setting hen. And so she welcomes the Hunt, and her neighbours and tenants, and that great middle-class get a day's amusement for which they will all be all the better, and nobody the worse. Our Suffolk Subscriber, and some others as well, will be kind enough to see how strong a line we are trying to draw between sport and game; between that which encourages good feeling and good fellowship, and that which breeds, in the words. of the old sportsman, "Envy, hatred, and malice."-Mark Lane Express of Jan. 11th.

NORFOLK HUNTING SONG.

(The following was recently written and sung by a Norfolk yeoman at a dinner in the county.)

My Lord, although right well I know but little voice I boast-
You sha'nt wait long, I'll sing a song in honour of the toast.
It seems you will not let me off, no matter what I say,
So I'll do my best to please you in a quiet sort of way.

My friends, we've had the pleasure now, while sitting round this board,
To drink to Mr. Hamond and to Melton's Noble Lord;

And the hunting men of Norfolk in a pretty mess would be,
If it were not for their kindness and their liberality.

To any sporting character 'tis really quite a treat

To see the hounds and horses and the servants at the meet.
Oh, would I were a Tennyson! I would their praises sing,
And tell of all the ecstacies that do from hunting spring.

To give the covert owners some advice I shall presume:
It were well if they would follow in the wake of Mr. Lombe,
For it matters not how often we may meet at Bawdeswell Bell,
We always find the animal at home and treated well.

I wish, don't you? the great battue were out of fashion quite,
And we had the game preservers with us in the foremost flight;
And if for want of shooting they were driven rather hard,
They could always have a day's battue in any poultry yard.

Don't tell me of shooting pheasants, tame as barn-door hens and cocks,
But give me a little spinney, that will always hold a fox;
And I really think the clamour at the fox is most absurd,
For whenever he can find a rat he'll scorn to touch a bird.

A farmer's view I'll now give you: they wish the hounds good luck,
And won't grumble if they chance to lose a chicken or a duck;
And though you ride across their wheat, you're welcome, if you please,
To call and taste the home-brewed beer or bit of bread-and-cheese.

Give us good runs, confound your guns, hurrah for scarlet coats-
Between ourselves, the hunting will improve the price of oats-
And if perhaps you make some gaps, Yoick! over there! who cares?
Amongst the stubbs we'll nurse the cubs in preference to hares.

So here's success to hunting, in Norfolk may it thrive;
May both our masters long be spared to keep the game alive!
I hope both packs may flourish well, I do upon my soul,
And should a pain or care remain, we'll drown it in a bowl.