TROUNCER,

Engraved by WEBB, from a Painting

by A. COOPER, R. A.

TROUNCER is a celebrated
fox-hound belonging to the

same pack as Harmony, the bitch

given in the Magazine for March

last. When a puppy he was un-

fortunately run over, by which his

near fore-leg was broken, and,

though not set very straight, it

has not prevented him being a

leading hound.

A FEW LINES FROM NIMROD.

ON my return home from the
North on Monday last (after a

week in Leicestershire), I found no

less than three letters inquiring

into the progress of the Tour, and

when it would appear in your co-

lumns. My answer is-I could

not publish it whilst sojourning

on the scene of action; neither

could I write it to my mind until

the hunting season expired. I

must have next week in the New

Forest, by way of a top-up, where,

I understand, the fame of Mr.

Nicoll's pack has attracted a host

of science, and the weather appears

favorable to the noses. After this

I shall get to pen and ink, and do

my best; but the elements con-

spired against me, and there is no

contending with the gods. I also

found a letter from A Well-wisher,

which I have sent to the editor,

A

and doubtless it will make him smile.

By way of occupying a part of two vacant days, I shall say a word on the three last Numbers, and commence by congratulating you on the acquisition of Peter Pry. I consider him a very entertaining writer, and, what en hances his value, he is practical. I thought of him the other day when on the box of the Edinburgh mail from Fenny-bridge to Grantham; but it was Tom Pye's day, and not Leech's. I drove three of his teams, and would not ask for better, so sent him a whip for a memento, as I think him a very good performer-though a short wheel-rein man and an excellent judge of his business. He has been eight years on this mail, and his father drives the York and Edinburgh.

I must here correct one trifling error in Peter Pry-" hoping I don't intrude." He mentions the excellent grub, with the agreeable accompaniments of bright plate, clean table-cloth, blazing fire, &c. at the Saracen's Head, Grantham. He should have written the George and Blue Boar, there being no Saracen's Head in that town. By way of a clencher, and also by way of a hint to other proprietors who entertain mail coach passengers, (among whom are often some of the first characters in the country,) I will just state the dinner I sat down to at that house on the first of April on my arrival with the Edinburgh mail: Soup; four large soles; loin of mutton, served up with currant-jelly sauce; a dish of Scotch collops worthy of a

dog-cook; with plum puddings and apricot tart: two well-dressed waiters were in attendance, and we occupied the second-best room in the house. At the Lion, in Shrewsbury, the passengers by the Holyhead mail fare well, and I never saw their dinner without soup and fish.

This Number contains "A Hint in Coaching," by Securitas, which of course caught my attention. On the subject of guards, their duty, and by whom they ought to be paid, I have written at some length in a letter on "The Road," not yet published; but as Securitas touches on the danger attending coaches when descending hills, and as four dreadful accidents have very lately occurred from this, almost natural, cause, I will not withhold till the next publication the suggestion of a very simple expedient by which these accidents may be avoided. It is merely this: If a strip of gravel, or broken stone, about one yard wide, and four or five inches deep, was left on the near side of a hill, and never suffered to bind or diminish, it would afford that additional friction (technically called a bite) to the two near-side wheels, that not only would the necessity of a drag chain (never to be trusted) be done away with, but in case of a hame-strap or pole-chain giving way, one wheel-horse would be able to hold back a coach, however heavily laden*. No inconvenience to the road could arise from this precaution, as carriages ascending the hills would never be required to touch the loose gravel, it not being on their side the road.

1.

It has often been a matter of surprise to me that surveyors of roads have not adopted this plan, on the suggestion of coachmen, who must know the value of "the bite." I have seen the time when I would have given fifty pounds for half as many yards of it; and on the best M'Adamised roads the necessity for it is still greater. Now surveyors of roads do not, perhaps, read the Sporting Magazine; but as editors of newspapers often present their readers with extracts from my letters, allow me to suggest their publishing the hint I have now given, heading the article thus:-Extract from Nimrod's last Letter on the Road. Doubtless themselves are often on their travels-their reporters constantly; and doubtless their lives are frequently in jeopardy on hills of no great declivity, from want of something more to be depended upon than cat-legged, stiff-necked wheelhorses often in rotten harnessto stay the pressure of a loaded coach.

On taking up the Number for March, I joined in the laugh against myself irresistibly pro duced by Timothy Ramrod for boiling the man for the Hambledon Hounds. At first reading it might so appear, but I have this consolation my language was quite classical, as relating to the operations of the kennel; and I have also grammar on my side. Had I consigned the poor boiler to the copper, I should have written in the future, and not the present tense-namely, a man to be boil ed," and not a man "to boil." The joke, however, is a fair one, and very well handled.

Timothy wishes for writers on the Trigger. Although the art of gun-making is approaching per

fection, the science of shooting `is retrograding. On the moors alone, or in cock shooting, has it now much interest to the real sports man; and I fear but little remains to be said on those subjects.

I once more congratulate my readers on the re-appearance of Sir Mark Chase in the April Number, who, every one must al low, is an agreeable and gen tlemanlike writer, and he is going to set us all right. Errors, it seems, will arise under all circumstances, whether in the expression of our own sentiments, or in conveying those of others. No doubt Sir Mark believes Sir Bellingham Graham told him it was "his deter mination to send his best horses to grass in Yorkshire at the end of last season," or I am sure he would not have said so; but if Sir B. did say so, I will submit to be boiled for the Hambledon Hounds to-morrow, My bit of Latin was certainly faulty; and it seem sI have paid dearly for my pun. The letter was written du ring the hurry and dissipation of the race week, and as the press waited for it there was no chance" of a proof; so, whether the blunder was mine or the printer's cannot now be determined.

One word more to Sir Mark. He says that I pronounce clipping an outrage upon nature; and yet, says he, "is not our whole treatment of the domesticated horse equally so?" I answer-certainly not; on the contrary, it is an im provement upon the natural animal, by which his power, strength, and his very nature, are altered for the better. Will any man say quitting the horse, and looking at man-that the fine condition of a prize-fighter is an outrage on his nature? Undoubtedly not: he is

twice the man he was in his natural state; and, as to the horse, if we are induced to believe (and of which, by the adaptation of his parts to the uses we put them to, there is not a shadow of doubt) that he was intended for almost all the purposes to which we apply him, surely our reason prompts us to increase his natural powers by nutritious food, or any other judi

cious treatment.

In the last notice I took of clipping, I admitted that the rule against it must not be made absolute, although I am certain there are very few horses (hunters) to whose constitutions it is the sine quâ non of condition, if proper means are resorted to*. Of its absolute necessity, few instances have come under my observation; but of its ill effects I see daily examples. It was but the week before last that I was one of six waiting with our horses an hour and half for hounds, in a cold stable in Leicestershire: five of the horses were not clipped, and were warm and comfortable, though their coats were as fine and as short as if they were going to start for the Derby; but the onet that was clipped trembled like an aspen leaf, and looked in a pitiable state. Clipping road coach horses is strongly to be recommended They quit, and return to, their stables at a stated moment, and the advantage to them will, I am sure, be great, and I shall have recourse to it in November.

I notice with pleasure the sensible remarks of M. P. on the Game Laws. When I alluded to the

attack on the twenty-five gamekeepers, I certainly intended to infer from it the vast temptation to poaching which that quantity of game must present which required such force to protect it. It may be true, as M. P. observes, that the increase of poaching may be attributed to the riches and luxury of the inhabitants of London and other large cities; but it is a hard case, that, on their account, the value of property should be deteriorated; the character of the English country gentleman so materially changed for the worse; and the whole country set by the ears. A considerable game-preserver has promised me his sentiments on this subject (the deterioration of property, if the sale of game be made legal), and as soon as I receive them I will publish them. However, as the prevention of evil is the great end of all government, I trust that the Lords aud Commons will make such alterations as will benefit all parties to the injury of none.

I must allude to one other remark of M. P, wherein he states that I produced the French Revolution in proof of the danger of meddling with old laws. On reference to that part of my letter, he will find I made no such allusion. I merely hazarded an opinion, when speaking of that nation, that their insisting upon natural rights, undervaluing the distinctions of society, and making philosophers of the people, upset their government and deluged their country with blood; that the experiment

+ Col. Russell's,

was succeeded by a lawless freedom, which submitted indignantly to all further restraint; and that, when once that bond-by which alone society is held together-was dissolved, it was instantly followed by licentious liberty and a thirst of blood, which nothing could satiate; by the darkness of atheism, and the madness of democratic power. That, previous to the revolution, abuses existed, no one can doubt; but if M. P. intends to insinuate that "the Game Laws, and the privileges which a haughty nobility claimed for themselves under the feudal system," were done away with at the expense of all this blood, let him look back to a letter of mine in the last Number but one, wherein I transcribe a passage from an official document of the French Government, stating, that the number of persons implicated in offences against the Game and Forest Laws in France, in the year 1825, amounted to eighty-six thousand eight hundred and sixtyone !!

I cannot pass over the good wishes expressed by Currus (p. 376) for the success of the Nimrod coach. He says, he trusts no animosity will exist between the Nimrod and the other coaches on the Southampton road. I can answer for myself—I know of none. As Currus very justly observes, there is plenty of room for the fourth coach; for Southampton is an increasing place, and numbers of well-wishers to the old coaches can testify the late want of room in any comfortable part of the drag. As for myself, since I have lived in this country, I have always been booked through (though only

going little more than half way) in the Telegraph, to which coach I always gave the preference, and which neither myself nor many of my friends would have deserted, but for circumstances unnecessary to detail.

Currus asks-is the Nimrod to be a lasting establishment? I need scarcely answer the question. Thousands would not purchase it; and I hope it will continue to deserve the support it has already met with. I admire, however, his concluding sentence: "Why waste good horse flesh, (says he,) through ridiculous enthusiasm ? Let sound judgment and fate decide the question." These, I can assure him, are my own sentiments. Previous to the start, I begged Peer and Waterhouse to take no notice of any other coach, but to keep their time to a minute*, and that I should set my face against racing. In the first place, the time can be kept without a horse striking into a gallop; and what business have we to race, as we oppose no coach? In the second, racing alarms passengers; and in the last, though not least, it is inhuman and barbarous conduct towards the noblest brute-animal God ever formed-an animal, without which life would be bereft of more than half its charms.

May I dwell a few minutes more on the Nimrod? When I was in the North, a Sunday Paper, called the English Gentleman, was sent me, in which was a long article from the pen of Tom Whipcord, addressed to me (" sub nominis umbra") on the subject of this renowned coach. Tom styles himself an old acquaintance of mine,