There had been matches between teams of various clubs before 1876 (the T. H. and H. had two matches with the Gentlemen of Hampstead in November 1870), but it was not till this year that the first real championship race was started, though the attempt to bring it off in the wilds of Epping Forest proved a great failure, everyone losing his way separately on his own account. Next year a carefully laid out course was chosen, from Roehampton over the Common by Merton and Morden, West Barnes and Crooked Billet home, about 11 3/4 miles. The T. H. and H. won the first time, scoring 35 as against the S. L. H. 58, and the Spartans 94; but the last named club turned the tables on the others the next year. P. H. Stenning of the Thames, who finished actually first of all starters in 1877, 1878, 1879, and 1880, has run the course in 68 minutes - considerably better than ten miles an hour all the way, up hill and down dale.

In 1879 the Thames were lucky again, but in 1880 had to go down before a very well trained, if rough, team of the Birchfield Harriers. In 1881 (when no fewerthan 105 ran) the Moseley Harriers came up for the first time, and beat the holders easily, and the next year exactly repeated the performance. Since then the affair has degenerated into a gate-money meeting held on enclosed grounds, and forms the medium of heavy betting and little sport, the change having been effected chiefly at the instance of the countrymen and their allies, ostensibly because they wanted a 'rougher, more open country,' but really because they wanted to take the management of the meeting from its original promoters, who would have nothing to do with gate and betting.

Some day, when the loathsomeness of the roping and betting has disgusted the better class of runners, a championship, in which gentlemen can take part without loss of self-respect, will probably be again instituted on the old lines. But betting must be literally stamped out, and the prizes made quite nominal before we can see who runs for the sport, and who for the profit. Meanwhile nearly all the clubs (except the oldest) belong either to the Northern, the Midland, or the Southern Counties C.C. Association, which are supposed to govern their members by the A.A.A. rules, but which all are either unwilling or unable to stop the abuses of betting and team concoction, which have much injured the pastime in the eyes of real sportsmen.

The system of scoring in matches is, that the order of arrival of the different men is taken, and the club that scores the lowest aggregate wins. This certainly ensures that the best average team has the best chance, but it is possible that a club which scores, say, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th men in, but whose 6th man does not reach home earlier than 40th, may be beaten by a team which has men finish 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and nth. Thus

2

3

4

5 40

55

6

7 8

9

10

11 51

The only really fair way is that which was suggested six years ago, viz., taking the aggregate times of the first six men of each team. But perhaps this would be too much strain on the observant powers of the judges, who have plenty of room to muddle and mistake in the plain placing of the men without attempting to take each individual man's time as well.

The stock-in-trade necessary to start a paper-chase club is small. A long sausage-shaped canvas bag slung over each hare's right shoulder, with an open mouth under the left arm where the head and tail of the bag are hooked together (the hare looking as though he had a soldier's rolled greatcoat on his back), holds a quantity of torn or cut paper - the latter (bookbinder's cuttings 6 or 8 in. long are best) shakes down to the mouth of the bag as the hare runs. A small handful should be dropped by one or other of the hares every twenty yards or so. Whenever the country gives an opportunity, a 'false' scent should be laid, e.g. at cross roads. An artful hare will often drop his 'false' faintly only and lay his real scent strong and clear, most of the hounds rushing to the conclusion that he is trying to take them in, and that it is very unlikely that he would, when the scents bifurcate, give a good one on the real track. One hare will often take a false straight up a ploughed field over the brow of a hill, so that it is impossible for the hounds to see its cessation without following it to the bitter end.

Then they have to retrace it carefully till one, more sharp-sighted than the others, will see a tiny handful behind a tree, and the real scent will be traceable, probably up a dry ditch or on the further side of a hedgerow.

It is hardly necessary to say that unless one hare is a vastly better runner than the other (in which case he takes all the falses, thereby giving his slower companion welcome rests) the hares lay the falses alternately, the layer, when he ceases his deception, cutting across to join the real scent at the most convenient angle. In very long runs, two bags of scent will not suffice, and spare bags are sent on by trap or otherwise. The law given varies from ten minutes to a quarter of an hour. When the country is fairly enclosed even less will be enough, but in an open country in which the hares can be seen afar off at least ten minutes should be given, for if the hounds run the hares to sight the recognised rule is that they need no longer keep to the trail. When the hares have got rid of all their scent they should lay their empty bags at the end of the trail and make for home the best way they can, the hounds being at liberty to do the same when they reach and pick up the bags. Sometimes all the pack is not sent off at one time, it being divided into slow and fast divisions started five or ten minutes apart.

There are, however, several objections to this, for the slow pack has to puzzle out the falses and do all the hunting for perhaps half the journey, and in the great majority of cases are then caught by the fast pack, who have simply been running them to sight. The real sport of slow paper-chasing used to be the hunting and jumping, but it would be safe to say that there is not a single pack (not even excepting the oldest club) that knows how to hunt in the systematic way of nearly twenty years ago. Then, as soon as 'no scent' was called the hounds spread out ten yards apart in a fanlike form and swept every yard of ground till it was recovered, but now much is left to chance.