Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-11-13
BRITISH SPORT.
The EngliShman Born Nimrod, No
Matter What Degree.
What the walfth Of August Means Through
out Great Britain - The EtQuatte
of the Sportsman.


If as shown in the preceding article
$50 Zoo, 900 is annually expended by
British spoT:smeu in hunting and fishing
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, on
which day every British subject feels en-
titled TO his ease and sport, and the
statutory feast-day of the l2;h of iu-
gust, the latter, which is the annual lay
dedicated TO the slaughter OF grouse, is
ALWAYS rife with the most iuteuse thrills
of anticipatory pleasure.
The peut-up yearnings of an army of
British nimrods explode on this day
/ The very mention of the glorious twelfth
a; any other season of the year fills their
whole beings with flashes and quivers of
hunger for the moors and fields. II
would he n national crisis indeed that
would compel parliament to hold over
this initial epoch OF the season 8 out
door sport If last week the social. po-
ltical aud financial .'season' WIS at its
height; if all the mIlords, the hOnOra-
bles This or That, and the whole list of
artists. actors, literntors, bunkers. man
ufacturers, clerics, scientists and what
nots, whose dOings make London the
real center OF the world, and this whole
Eight little island the brain and Drawn
workshops for European civilization and
progress, were Ut their tenseSt strainugs
! of activities; this week, il it contain the
! exalt;ng :twe,fth, - the foremost peO-
pie OF Great Britain are a wholly differ
ent set of human being. There is now
an enthusiasm, heGrtiness, geniality
and hilar.Ousness about the British man
that makes you feel you have misjudg ed
! him. He is no longer stone.
He is radinnt, generous human. In
justice. this will even apply to the grave
and austere Scotch, High-lows and gal
tiers, baimoralS and Tam O'Slanters,
corduroys and coliarless necks, endless
tiap-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, | am sorry to say, more
| integrity than the American laugh,
! which always seems TO be begging Il par
| don or casting Il challenge, and his face
| is continually wreathed III 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 brief
| period of the year, a brght-faced instead
! of a beHr-fuced Briton, he has not done
amiss. After all, the beggariy brace of
grouse, ptarmigan OF pheasuuts, or the
t.embling-kneed ana skinny deer
he has knocked over with
his expensive fowling-piece, is
/ not SO much the yearly motive
which impels HIM to immense expense
and labor. Whether or not himself con-
scions, the impalpable, undesirable
witcheries of that sweet nature ever
calling to man to be hettered, is what
draws him on. The wide, free moor
lands odorOus with countless flowers and
vagrant weeds; the glorious sides of
mountains, endless pauoramas of scene
and color as the shine ard 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
fathery waterfalls; the whipping burns:
and above all the deep and dreamfui
lochs of Scotland; these are the British
sportnan 5 real quarry after nil.
For month before the 18th all
kinds of preparation are making. The
first eleven days in August almost gives
the impression of the gathering of an
army of militia, and on the day itself
and indeed for week before, the
Princess street station, Edinburgh, Ex-
change aud Lime street stations, Liver
pool, and particularly the Euston Square
station of the London and Northwestern
railway, IN London, present most ami
mated scenes All other passenger
traffic gives way to the hunter hosts.
Horses aud heavy luggage have been
sen: on by the "goods trains in ad-
vaupa hut ore rpnasn6
with hampers, pouches, cases of fowling-
pieces, dogs, boxes of dogs food. aud
countless paraphernalia of hunting,
while excited groups of kennel-keepers,
masters, servants, ''loaders, old
hunters who are clad in the toughest and
greasiest of garments, aud excited anna
teurs dressed to proclaim their destina-
ton, jostle each other in
good natured desperation in ex-
traordnary efforts to monopo-
llze the attentions Of porters, guards and
trainmen. From six TO eighteen hours
bring them all TO their journeys end;
for there Is no "shooting'' in the re-
hottest portion of Scotland which cannot
be reached in the latter time from Lon
don.
The moorland cabin and the Highland
sheeling, which were formerly ths abode
OF tue bIitisu spOEtSiDeu, nave given
way to
THE MODERN "SHOOTING-BOX,
which is never less than handsome cot
tage, and the "lodge, which is often
as grand as the magnificent palace
Aside from these exclusive conveniences
for sportsmen, it is becoming more and
more the custom on the part of titled
owners of large northern estates, who
retain possession of their own '!shoot-
ings, or who lease them to others with
privilege OF themselves and certain /
number of guests shooting over their own /.
preserves, to discharge many of their (
London social obligations by entertain /
ing their city friends with "a few
days shoo:ing.'' We Ameri-
cans have no comprehension .
of the universally of the sports
man instinct and education In Great /
Britain. Reading English fiction, and |
particularly Kingsley's novels, gives an |
insight into the importance of hunting |
and shooting TO every English bred mau
So that the greater the man be socially,
politically or financially, the more likely
il is that he is bred from youth, though
always living in London, to following
the hounds and shooting grouse on the