when they be too recklessly disobeyed, the master of hounds falls
from his high place and retires into private life, generally
with a broken heart. In the hunting field, as in all other
communities, republics, and governments, the power of the purse
is everything. As long as that be retained, the despotism of the
master is tempered and his rule will be beneficent.

Five hundred pounds a day is about the sum which a master should
demand for hunting an average country, that is, so many times
five hundred pounds a year as he may hunt days in the week. If
four days a week be required of him, two thousand a year will be
little enough. But as a rule, I think masters are generally
supposed to charge only for the advertised days, and to give the
byedays out of their own pocket. Nor must it be thought that the
money so subscribed will leave the master free of expense. As I
have said before, he should be a rich man. Whatever be the
subscription paid to him, he must go beyond it, very much beyond
it, or there will grow up against him a feeling that he is mean,
and that feeling will rob him of all his comfort. Hunting men in
England wish to pay for their own amusement; but they desire that
more shall be spent than they pay. And in this there is a rough
justice, that roughness of justice which pervades our English
institutions. To a master of hounds is given a place of great
influence, and into his hands is confided an authority the
possession of which among his fellow-sportsmen is very pleasant
to him. For this he is expected to pay, and he does pay for it. A
Lord Mayor is, I take it, much in the same category. He has a
salary as Lord Mayor, but if he do not spend more than that on
his office he becomes a byword for stinginess among Lord Mayors
To be Lord Mayor is his whistle, and he pays for it.