DOI issue:
December 5, 1863
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16872#0239
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [December 5 1863.
UN-UNGLISH-PARMER-LIKE CONDUCT
THE WIRE FENCE.
(Dedicated to those Farmers and others in the Shires, who use that treacherous and unsportsmanlike contrivance.)
Dear Mr. Punch,—You carry your years so well, I need not remind
you how many of them have elapsed, since you and I were undergraduates
together.
You were a moderate weight, my old friend, before you married, and
a hard-goer, particularly over the mahogany, you cannot deny it. Don’t
you remember how Grxee Llovd swore when you jumped upon him in
the Ripley brook ? Ah!—Time has rusted our spurs since then, but
you have still doubtless a fellow-feeling for the young ones, and take an
interest even now in the frolics of the flyers and the fun of the field.
Well, my dear Mr. Punch, I gather from what I hear, that these
adventurous young men are in a sad taking this winter, that they con-
template their favourite horses with no pleasure, and are scarcely in
sufficient spirits to study the fit of their leathers and the setting-on of
their tops ; they vibrate with delight no longer at the hounds’ challenge
or the huntsman’s horn, and have altogether lost the neck-or-nothing
dash, which makes youth so enviable, and elevates the “ beggar on
horseback” into something like a hero for the time.
“ In short these funk, who never funked before,
And those who always funked, now funk the more.”
Not without reason either! as I think you will admit when I tell you
the conversation I overheard at the next table to mine only last night
at my Club.
I was just peeping into a second pint of port after a light dinner
which you may imagine for yourself, when two hungry young men,
whose names I ascertained from the waiter to be Mr. Sparkles, of
somewhere in Cheshire, and Captain Brush, oi the Hindoo Hussars,
entered on the following conversation :—
Brush {loquitur). It’s no use, old fellow, the thing’s about over
now, and Pm very much afraid that wire fencing will put an end to
our fun.
Sparkles. But won’t they take them down? I hear there’s a Cir-
cular signed by every swell in England, going round all the hunting
counties, entreating tire farmers, for their own sakes, to leave off break-
ing all our necks.
Brush. If they don’t, it’s all up, you may take your oath. It don’t
matter to me, for I’m going back to India, and can fall back upon pig-
sticking; but it’s a bore for you fellows “who live at home at ease.”
Sparkles. I meant to have bought a horse of one of my tenants this
week, but it’s no use having horses if one can’t ride straight, and I
daren’t for one, when every second fence is made a certainty.
Brush. Have they ever got you ?
Sparkles (\vehemently.) No!—and I’ll take care they never do.
Why ir. makes it about the most dangerous thing out. j
Brush. The devil doubt ye, my boy, I found that out last season. I
was riding old Swperh, you know my good old horse Superb by Tarquin,
the one that follows me about and puts his nose in my pocket. He’s
a good horse, and a bold one. Well, he was carrying me like a brick,
for I’d got a good start, and been lucky and all that, when I rode him
at a thickish place out cf a large grass field without pulling him off his
stride, for the hounds were running like smoke. I can’t help fancying
the old horse thought there was something up by the way he cocked his
ears, and went at it as if he’d eat it. Poor old boy ! he never saw the
cursed wire, how should he? and though he jumped an awful distance,
and let me off, he landed with his stomach on it and cut himself all to
ribbons. If be’d been a brute, he’d have broken my neck ! I tell ye
the odds ain’t fair. I shall cut it in my small way. That’s neither here
nor there, but when the great guns have all sold their horses, and the
swell packs are all given up, and there’s no more hunting to be had,
why the country won’t be much fun in the winter, and I’m afraid a
good many poor devils will find themselves out of work and out of
bread.
This was obviously a long speech for the young soldier, and the waiter
appearing at the moment with two tin-covered portions from the joint
(haunch of South-down kept to an hour), the subject was discontinued and
not again resumed. I could trace, however, a cloud upon Spakkles’s
fair young brow during the rest of his repast. _ He was obviously
thoughtful and ill at ease. His season I fear is spoilt, his money
wasted, and there can be no question, he will refuse t.o buy his tenant’s j
horse. Can you not put in a word for these young fellows, my kind old
friend? Wire fences are certainly unnecessary in the winter, and IJ
might easily be lifted in the hunting-season, and replaced, if required,, jj
UN-UNGLISH-PARMER-LIKE CONDUCT
THE WIRE FENCE.
(Dedicated to those Farmers and others in the Shires, who use that treacherous and unsportsmanlike contrivance.)
Dear Mr. Punch,—You carry your years so well, I need not remind
you how many of them have elapsed, since you and I were undergraduates
together.
You were a moderate weight, my old friend, before you married, and
a hard-goer, particularly over the mahogany, you cannot deny it. Don’t
you remember how Grxee Llovd swore when you jumped upon him in
the Ripley brook ? Ah!—Time has rusted our spurs since then, but
you have still doubtless a fellow-feeling for the young ones, and take an
interest even now in the frolics of the flyers and the fun of the field.
Well, my dear Mr. Punch, I gather from what I hear, that these
adventurous young men are in a sad taking this winter, that they con-
template their favourite horses with no pleasure, and are scarcely in
sufficient spirits to study the fit of their leathers and the setting-on of
their tops ; they vibrate with delight no longer at the hounds’ challenge
or the huntsman’s horn, and have altogether lost the neck-or-nothing
dash, which makes youth so enviable, and elevates the “ beggar on
horseback” into something like a hero for the time.
“ In short these funk, who never funked before,
And those who always funked, now funk the more.”
Not without reason either! as I think you will admit when I tell you
the conversation I overheard at the next table to mine only last night
at my Club.
I was just peeping into a second pint of port after a light dinner
which you may imagine for yourself, when two hungry young men,
whose names I ascertained from the waiter to be Mr. Sparkles, of
somewhere in Cheshire, and Captain Brush, oi the Hindoo Hussars,
entered on the following conversation :—
Brush {loquitur). It’s no use, old fellow, the thing’s about over
now, and Pm very much afraid that wire fencing will put an end to
our fun.
Sparkles. But won’t they take them down? I hear there’s a Cir-
cular signed by every swell in England, going round all the hunting
counties, entreating tire farmers, for their own sakes, to leave off break-
ing all our necks.
Brush. If they don’t, it’s all up, you may take your oath. It don’t
matter to me, for I’m going back to India, and can fall back upon pig-
sticking; but it’s a bore for you fellows “who live at home at ease.”
Sparkles. I meant to have bought a horse of one of my tenants this
week, but it’s no use having horses if one can’t ride straight, and I
daren’t for one, when every second fence is made a certainty.
Brush. Have they ever got you ?
Sparkles (\vehemently.) No!—and I’ll take care they never do.
Why ir. makes it about the most dangerous thing out. j
Brush. The devil doubt ye, my boy, I found that out last season. I
was riding old Swperh, you know my good old horse Superb by Tarquin,
the one that follows me about and puts his nose in my pocket. He’s
a good horse, and a bold one. Well, he was carrying me like a brick,
for I’d got a good start, and been lucky and all that, when I rode him
at a thickish place out cf a large grass field without pulling him off his
stride, for the hounds were running like smoke. I can’t help fancying
the old horse thought there was something up by the way he cocked his
ears, and went at it as if he’d eat it. Poor old boy ! he never saw the
cursed wire, how should he? and though he jumped an awful distance,
and let me off, he landed with his stomach on it and cut himself all to
ribbons. If be’d been a brute, he’d have broken my neck ! I tell ye
the odds ain’t fair. I shall cut it in my small way. That’s neither here
nor there, but when the great guns have all sold their horses, and the
swell packs are all given up, and there’s no more hunting to be had,
why the country won’t be much fun in the winter, and I’m afraid a
good many poor devils will find themselves out of work and out of
bread.
This was obviously a long speech for the young soldier, and the waiter
appearing at the moment with two tin-covered portions from the joint
(haunch of South-down kept to an hour), the subject was discontinued and
not again resumed. I could trace, however, a cloud upon Spakkles’s
fair young brow during the rest of his repast. _ He was obviously
thoughtful and ill at ease. His season I fear is spoilt, his money
wasted, and there can be no question, he will refuse t.o buy his tenant’s j
horse. Can you not put in a word for these young fellows, my kind old
friend? Wire fences are certainly unnecessary in the winter, and IJ
might easily be lifted in the hunting-season, and replaced, if required,, jj