Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-11-09
BRITISH SPORT.
The Englishman 4 Born Nimrod, No
Matter What Degree.
What the Twelfth Of August Means Through.
out Great Britain y The Etiquette
Of the Sportsman.
Copyright. 1890.

I
Special Correspondence of the Gazette.
If as shown in the preceding article
$50 200, 600 is annually expended b,
British sportsmen in hunting and fishin!
in Scotland, it may be easily understood
that, of the three great British popular
days, "Derby day. which is move
able sporting day, Bankers holiday, OF
which day every British subject feels en-
titled to his ease and sport, and the
statutory feast-dey of the 18th of au-
gust, the latter, which is the annual day
dedicated to the slaughter of grouse, i:
always rife with the most intense thrills
of anticipatory pleasure.
The pent-up yearninRs of an army of
British nimrods explode on this day
The very mention OF the glorious twelfth
at any other season of the year fills their
whole beings with flashes and quivers of
hunger for the moors and fields 1t
would be a national crisis indeed that
| would compel parliament TO hold over
this initial epoch of the seasons out
| door sport. If last week the social, po-
litical and financial ..season'' was at its
height; if all the mIlords, the honora-
bles This or That, and the whole list of
| artists. actors, literators, bankers, man
ufacturers, clerics, scientists and what
| nots, whose doings make London the
real center of the world, and this whole
'tight little island the brain and Drawn
workshops for European Civilization and
progress, were at their tensest strainings
of activities; this week, ii it contain the
exalting 'twelfth, - the foremost peo-
pie of Great Britain are q wholly differ
of humaD hpinp ia
au enthusiasm, heartiness, geniality
and hilariousness about the British man
that makes you feel you have misjudg ed
him. He is no longer stone.
He is radiant, generous human In
justice, this will even apply to the grave
and austere Scotch, High-lows and GAL
tiers, balmorals and Tam O'Shanters,
corduroys and collarless necks, endless
fap-pockets and suggestions of TASKS,
show the British man of the hunting sea-
son off TO good advantage besides. His
language Is honest and hearty, his
laughter has, l am sorry to say, more
integrity than the American laugh,
which always seems to be begging q par
don or casting challenge, and his face
is continually wreathed in smiles, The
world seems good to him, and anybody
where he is. And therefore if he spends
forty instead of twenty millions for the
thing which makes him, for even a brief
period of the year, bright-faced instead
of a bear-faced Briton, he has not done
amiss. After all, the beggarly brace of
grouse, ptarmigan of pheaeauts, or the |
Il embllng-kneed ana skinny deer |
he has knocked over with |
his expensive fowling-piece, is !
not SO much the yearly motive |
lo inn HIN, 70
and labor. Whether or not himself con-
scious, the impalpable, undef1nable
of that sweet nature ever
calling to man to be bettered, is what
draws him on. The wide, free moor
lands odorous with countless flowers and
vagrant weeds; the glorious sides of
endless panoramas of scene |
and color as the shine and cloud chase
each other across them; the white wings
Of mountain mist softly Tapping the
grim old peaks; the purple heather; the
rocky glens: the stupendous straths: the
fatbery waterfalls; the whipping burns;
and above all the deep and dreamful
Ochs of Scotland; these ars the British
portman s real quarry after all.
For q month before the 18th all
Kinds of preparation are making. The
irst eleven days in August almost gives
he impression of the gathering of au
Irmy of militia, and on the day itself
md indeed for a week before, the
Princess street station, Edin burgh, Ex-
hange and Lime street stations, Liver
,ool, and particularly the Euston Square
tation Of the London and Northwestern
allway, in London, present most ami
mated scenes. All other passenger
ratio gives way to the hunter hosts. {
nd J.,
ent on by the ''goods trains' IN ad- ,
ance, but the platforms ere massed +
nth hampers, pouches, cases of fowling-
ieces, dogs, boxes of dogs food, and I
ountless paraphernalia of hunting, ,
lille excited groups of kennel-keepers
servants, ;'loaders, - old I
unters who are clad in the toughest and
reasiest of garments, and excited anna g
ours dressed to proclaim their destina- q
on, jostle each other In f
God natured desperation in ex- I
efforts to monopo- L
re the attentions Of porters, guards and Il
'ainmen. From six to eighteen hours Il
ring them all to their journeys end; Y
,r there Is no "shooting'' in the re- v
otest portion of Scotland which cannot +
3 reached in the latter time from LON h
on. q
The moorland cabin and the Highland n
Keeling, which were formerly the abode Il
the British sportsmen, have given u
az to Is
THE MODERN "sHooTING-Box, IL
hich is never less than q handsome cot n
ge, and the 'lodge,'' which is often | G,
grand as the magnificent palace. a
side from these exclusive conveniences OF
+ sportsmen, it is becoming more and RI
ore the custom on the part of titled CT
vners Of large northern estates, who e,
tain possession of their own ''shoot- b,
es, or who lease them to others with N
ivilege of themselves and certain b
lmber of guests shooting over their own ii
eserves, to discharge many of their CT
'ndon social obligations by entertain
g their city friends with "a few
Us shooting.'' We Ameri- la
rs have no comprehension pr
the universally of the sports ri,
an instinct and education in Great al
itain. Reading English fiction, and OF
rtioularly Kingsley's novels, gives an m
light into the Importance of hunting 70
d shooting to every English bred man. du
that the greater the man be socially, tr,
litically or financially, the more likely M
IS that he is bred froEi youth, though oh
Ways living in London, to following ba
, hounds and shooting grouse on the fir