office, and will proceed no farther in this disgusting detail. That every landed proprietor on whose ground such enormities are practised, may cease at once to preserve, and become a red-hot vulpecide and battue-monger is my sincere and earnest prayer; for the accursed system of destruction has taken, I fear, such deep root, that it is only by some such practical lesson, that there is a chance of its being eradicated.

I am myself, and I glory in it, one of the bloodiest of the bloody; and never wish to see a fox make his escape from hounds. But, would I then resort to the cowardly trick of invading the gallant animal's sanctuary, and murdering him in "the den of his despair," that he had succeeded in reaching, if near, through the fault of my earthstopper, if distant, by his own courage and stoutness, and which instead of stimulating me to destroy, should command my respect and admiration for him? Shame! shame! I exclaim again and again on the inhuman custom! Even Caligula, or Nero, or Don Miguel himself, in a scarlet coat, could scarcely improve on it!

It may here be asked, do I object to digging, and then giving him, by allowing ample law, a fair chance for his life? To this I answer, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred I decidedly do. It is all well enough if he goes soon to ground in a small drain or rabbit spout to bolt him-taking care of course that he has a good start, unobserved by the hounds, but into any thing approaching to an earth a spade should unquestionably never enter. No man knows what mischief may not be done by it;-and as virtue, according to the school copy-books, is its own reward, so is not unfrequently the practice of breaking

Miss Eliza.- "La! how tame they all are! They don't look half so wild here, as in the pictures." Master Tommy. "Oh my! pa! here is such a queer hanimal; he's got his tail in his mouth."

Mr. Oilcake (who has been at the "Logical Gardens," and knows all about it)." Tail, my dear! that's called the probossus."

Master Tommy.—“ Probossus! my eye!—I say, ma, look at the Probossus, how he's a-shakin' his head."

Miss O.-"Oh! Liza, do come here! here's such a queer-serpentine-hanimal."

Miss Eliza.-"No."

Mr. O." No, nor me nayther. - say, keeper, what do you call this here quadruped?"

Keeper." It's the Boa Constrictor, sir."

Mr. O.-" Oh! the Boar Constructer, is it! well, hang me if I did'nt take it for a snake.'

Mrs. O.-"Come away Tommy! -how dare you!"

Master Tommy." Why, Ma, I was only pulling two or three hairs out of his whiskers."

Miss O.-"Oh, Pa! what's that great hanimal lying down there?"

Mr.O.-"Why, my dear, I belleve that's a nondescrip."

Miss O.-" Oh! a nondescrip, is it !—well, I never see such a thing in all my life.-Oh! and what's that?"

Mr. O." I believe that's a nondescrip too, my dear."

Miss O." That a nondescrip! why, deara me! it's not a bit like the first; but p'rhaps it's a young one. Master Tommy." Ma, what's this?"

Mrs. O.-"That's a Camel, my love."

Master Tommy.-"My eye! he's got a pretty lump on his back." Miss Eliza." La! what a rough cretur! What is it Pa?"

Mr. O. "It's a Polish bear, my dear; from the North Pole."

Miss Eliza.—“ Oh! its very cold there, I believe."

Keeper." Beg pardon, sir, but that bear's from the South Pole. He was brought over in one of the French ships of discovery."

Mr. O. "Oh! from the South Pole, is he?"

Miss O.- Pa, what's this great bird ?"

Mr. O." That, my dear !—let me see- -I say, keeper, what do you call this here bird?"

Keeper." It's the Condor, sir." Mr. O.-" Aye; I thought it was. That's the Condor, my dear." Miss O." What, the Hanaconda?"

Master Tommy." My eye, Ma, look at that Tiger."

Mrs. O. Tiger, my love! it's a Zebra. Don't touch, Tommy; he'll bite you."

Miss O.-"Pa, what's that?" Mr. O. (reading the name over the cage). A hostridge love." Miss O.- "A hostridge! but where's his feathers? Keeper, where's the hostridge's feathers?' Keeper. That's not a ostrich, Miss; it's a Porcupine. The ostrich as was in that cage died last June, and we havn't had the name altered."

Mrs. O." Oh! Tommy, Tommy! come down this minute? you'll be tore to pieces."

Master Tommy." Why, Ma, I was only getting up the lather to look at the monkeys."

Miss O." Liza, Liza, look behind you! The helephant's got his trunk close to your ear."

Miss Eliza (screaming). "Oh!"

Master Tommy.—“Oh, Ma! do come here. The keeper's agoin' to put his head into the Lion's mouth."

Mrs. O." I hope not. Oh dear! I wonder how he dars!Mary--Liza-come away directly!" Master Tommy." Why, Ma,

he wo'nt hurt."

Miss O." I dare say he wo'nt

bite the man's head off. We'd better stay."

Mrs. O." No, no, my love; we mustn't stay: it's uncommon dangerous, and I won't stop another minute on no account. Besides, I've another reason (whispers); as soon as he's done, he'll come round a-collecting. So, come along!-Mary-Liza-Tommy

Mr. Oilcake come, we've seen enough-Tommy, come along!" (Mr. and Mrs. Oilcake, Miss and Miss Eliza ascend the steps.) Keeper (with his head in the Lion's mouth).-"Hollo! hollo! hollo-h!"

Mrs. O. (taking a furtive peep from the top of the steps). "Tommy! Tommy! Tommy!" MENANDER.

SIR,

I HAVE to apologize for my unintended, though unavoidable, silence during the last two months, and the consequent interruption to the series of my letters;-be assured, however, that nothing short of absolute inability to work should have compelled me to keep my whip still for so long a period; and "the mutability of worldly affairs," as Baillie Mucklethrift has it, being taken into account, I trust in your December number to resume both "Hare-hunting," and "The Road," and continue, in successive ones, each subject regularly to its conclusion. Meantime, Mr. Editor, though I do not forward to you the regular No. 3, of the first mentioned article, I candidly confess myself so devoted to the science, and so utterly and incorrigibly a thistle-whipper, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of employing the few minutes I have fortunately vacant, in sending you what little information I have lately picked up respecting both the operations and changes in some of the harrier kennels of my acquaintance. Being well entered to the scut in my boyhood, at Horsham, where I remember I used to turn

out, day after day, with a pole quite as thick and about twice as high as myself, and scramble from morning to night after the thousand and one cries of old Southerns, that in those days gave no peace to the echoes of the Sussex weald; and having afterwards been pretty well blood-ed at Oxford with the Marcham and an infinity of other packs in the neighbourhood (to say nothing of my having for a series of years both carried the horn and worn the kennel-coat in person), I have never, though as rapturously and madly fond of fox-hunting as any man, been able to boast myself at all steady from hare, and, in spite of the curses and anathemas that I am well aware are thundered against them in various quarters, I acknowledge that I still take the very highest degree of interest in harriers and their proceedings.

It is strange indeed to witness the contempt and abhorrence with which some persons regard them. In masters of fox-hounds themselves, it is perhaps to be partly accounted for by the disturbance and damage they are supposed to cause in the covers, &c. &c., to say nothing of the possibility of their ocasionally finding and giving

a good account of him; but it has really often made me mad to hear people abuse them who never entered into the spirit of a run, or ever rode over a broomstick in their lives; and who put on the scarlet coat in the morning, as the King of France is said to have marched up the hill, merely to pull it off again in the evening unstained and unspotted. "I had rather see a fox, than ride to the best run ever had with harriers," was an observation once made to me after a miserable day's work amongst some miserable woodlands in the north, in reply to a remark of mine-"How much better we should have been off with Lord Maitland on the hills, instead of having wasted an apparently good scenting morning with the foxhounds in the vale." Surely than this "the force of folly can no further go;" more especially when I add that the absurd speech was made by a man for whom foxhunting, even in its slowest day, was, with its necessary concomitants of "ox-fence and field of deep," altogether far too fast; and whose only chance of even seeing a hound in chace consisted in its being a perfectly uninclosed country that he had to get over. I have almost invariably found, however, that those who are the greatest tailors with the fox-hounds are the most virulent declaimers against the harriers; and though, as I said

above, they do sometimes put one's patience to the very proof, it is rather good fun to listen to the empty ebullitions of their pseudoenthusiastic zeal. It will require, nevertheless, an authority a little more convincing than these gentry can produce, to choak me off an efficient and well-appointed pack (none of your psalm-singing, leathern-eared southerns be it understood), in an open and really rideable country, where the hares run stout; and as to a preference being given to the horrors of woodland fox-hunting, I will freely give my consent to join the senseless and unmeaning cry, when, and when only, the rhetoric of these misbelievers shall have succeeded in persuading me that a bottle of soured and corked La Fitte is more palatable than a honest glass of sound and genuine old British black-strap.*

To proceed, however, to the main subject of this letter without further preface; I have to observe, in the first place, that the harehunting on the Downs of Sussex bids fair this season to give very general satisfaction.

In this immediate neighbourhood Captain Richardson, of Findon, has got together a remarkably neat and pretty pack of dwarf fox-hounds (principally, I fancy, from the East Sussex and Colonel Wyndham's kennels), with which, I venture to predict, if he rigidly

adheres to the system of drafting every thing in the shape of flash, he must, nolens volens, show some capital sport in his very beautiful and harrier-like country. During last winter he kept some eight or ten couples of the same sort merely to hunt away an idle hour or two of the morning before dinner, whenever the idea struck him; and even with this diminutive and scanty number, he had, I believe, occasionally, some very pretty things. This year, however, now that his neighbour, Mr. Goring, has laid down his lot, of whom, out of deference to the old adage, "de mortuis nil nisi bonum," I shall say no more than that they are defunct, he has formed a complete and businesslike establishment, and I repeat, it will go hard indeed, if in the hands of so good a sportsman, the country is not at last satisfactorily hunted. The downs of which it consists are, of all spots on earth, the very place for a fast and racinglike pack; though I confess, were they mine, I would rather have them with a slight and remote cross of the harrier, than of entirely pure and unadulterated foxhound blood. The best thanks, however, of all hare-hunters in his neighbourhood are due to Captain Richardson for bringing amongst them so superior a lot to anything they have recently seen; and I hope, Mr. Editor, to record in your pages many a clipping gallop with them during the progress of the

season.

The Portslade have already commenced operations in the neighbourhood of Shoreham, with some fairish sport, and, as usual, are under the management, in the field, of Messrs. Vallance and Bridger. I have myself been as yet unable

to meet them; but the hounds, I hear, are looking tolerably well, though short in the extreme in point of numbers for the beginning of the season. If I mistake not, they lost several couples during the summer months; and, if all suspicions are correct, by the agency of poison! on which I have only to observe, that I trust the nefarious miscreant who could do so dastardly an act, may swing ere long in the same rope to which the law of the land already condemns the incendiary, and to which the law of fox-hunting should also condemn the vulpecide in any and every country where a regular and established pack is kept. The Portslade, I should add, though far from a first-rate establishment, do their work in a very quiet and oftentimes satisfactory manner; and to those amongst my readers who wish to earn an appetite for dinner without the nuisance and inconvenience of being jostled about by a Brighton mob of horsemen, I can safely recommend them. Their fixtures throughout the season will be, on Tuesdays, at White Lot Bottom (not far removed from the famous Devil's Dyke), and on Saturdays, at Erringham, almost immediately above Shoreham Bridge.

Several very large and tumultuous assemblages have also already taken place near Patcham and other places, under the pretext of hunting with a pack that calls itself The Brighton Subscription Harriers ;"--and to give a more plausible appearance and colour to these meetings, sundry hares have been mobbed to death, and an infinity of shillings and half crowns have been collected in the shape of field-money "par Messieurs les entrepreneurs," as Gil Blas

says. I call, however, on the