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 SPORT Mr. P. G. Barthropp came next and con- tinued till 1902, when Mr. Lake and Mr. ArcoU became joint masters. At the end of the 1904-5 season the arrangement came to an end, the hounds being sold at Rugby in May 1905. The Hundred of Hoo country is therefore still vacant and seems likely to remain so unless the West Kent pack reverts to the old order of things once more. STAGHOUNDS The earliest form of the chase adopted in Kent, as elsewhere in the once thickly wooded parts of England, was stag-hunting. This, of course, is only natural, for the country was ready made for it, whereas for hare- hunting or fox-hunting there was far too much wood until the slow march of civiliza- tion began to leave its mark in the numerous spaces cleared for the cultivation of crops. Several references to South of England stag-hunting in the thirteenth century are to be discovered, and from them one gathers that in those early days the chase was chiefly in favour with the clergy. Henry HI seems to have been particularly gracious in granting leave to notable divines to hunt in the royal forests, and, if all we read is true, the privilege was very much abused. Hunting was cer- tainly not nearly as popular with the masses then as it is to-day for many reasons, and it was urged against the clergy in particular that they became so intoxicated with the delights of the chase that they did practically nothing except hunt. Thus we read that Walter de Merton, Bishop of Rochester (i 274-1 277) devoted his life to stag-hunting, and, accord- ing to Strutt, was an ' an excellent hunter, but so fond of the sport that at the age of fourscore he made hunting his sole employment, to the total neglect of the duties of his office.' An even earlier reference to stag-hunting in Kent is to be found in a paper contributed to the Sporting Magazine for January 1793 under the head of 'A curious Account of the Sports and Pastimes of the Londoners in the reign of Henry H, by William Fitzstephen, a Monk.' After an elaborate account of the various holiday sports of the period, the writer concludes : — Many citizens take delight in birds, as spairows and hawks, gosshawks, and such like ; and in dogs to hunt in the woody grounds. The citizens have authority to hunt in Middlesex, Hertfordshire, all the Chilterns, and in Kent, as far as Grays-water. In Kent, as elsewhere, the earlier methods of stag-hunting were of a very rough-and- ready character, and the hounds employed must have been very rough-and-ready too. Nearly every squire in the early part of the eighteenth century, when hunting seems to have come generally into favour with every one, had his three or four couple of hounds with which he used to hunt anything that he could find — stag, fox, or hare. Some- times these odd couples belonging to different owners would combine, and thus, no doubt, began the custom of kennelling hounds on the ' trencher-fed ' system, which still exists in several parts of England. Probably there were dozens of packs in every county con- ducted on these lines, but none of them, of course, was organized in the same way as at present. A rather gruesome reference to one of these establishments is made in an issue of the Sporting Magazineinij^l. The account says that ' while the hounds of Gordon, Esq., were hunting in Whitly Shrubbs near Seven Oaks in Kent, a hound was perceived with a human head in his mouth, which was proved once to have belonged to a boy lost from the workhouse at Beresford in October last, and who was then advertised, but has not since been heard of.' Sometime about the middle of the last century the Dering family is said to have kept a pack of staghounds for a short time at Surrenden Park, Pluckley, now the residence of Mr. Walter Winans, well known as the owner of many famous trotting horses. But the only Kentish pack of note established on sound lines is the Mid-Kent, which has now been in existence for nearly forty years. The Mid-Kent Staghounds These notable hounds were started as a private pack in the year 1868 by Mr. Tom Rigg and were hunted by him until 1874. At that time the Mid-Kent became a sub- scription pack and they have been carried on in that way up to the present time. When Mr. Rigg gave up the mastership of the Mid- Kent that office went to Mr. Ambrose Warde of Tutsham Hall, but he only remained a single season with the pack, and was succeeded in 1875 by Mr. Charles Frederick Leney of Thorndale. Mr. Leney, whose kinsfolk have been a good deal associated with the Mid- Kent for a period of more than thirty years, stayed till 1883, when another member of the family, Mr. Herbert Leney of Blacklands, took over the reins of manage- ment. This arrangement lasted for three seasons, the next master being Mr. R. A. Barkley of the Priory, Diss. He held office till 1888, in which year the late Colonel J. T. North of Eltham came upon the scene. 485