| Show washington loved to ride after foxes and attend cockfights Cock fights diary reveals john peel is the hero of the english hunting song but to american fox hunters george washington is almost almost a patron saint this fact is brought to light by samuel J henry in foxhunting Fox hunting Is different a volume on the sport in virginia and maryland in which ing tons diaries are used as background tor for many sketches george washington many sided man attended a cockfight and a vestry meeting on the same day writes arit es the author ile he would go to church and enter in his diary the pious duty as performed but he said not who the preacher was nor subject of the sermon foxes hounds and hunting were matters that loomed large in his philosophy and there is detail after detail you cannot help loving washington when you read his diaries an unstudied record of day to day happenings pen ings the man stands forth alive despite the treatment he has received at the hands of historians who have made him an aloof and detached god to a fellow lover of sport the virginian seems a departed friend a human and responsive character with whom he has spent many happy hours afield for fox hunters speak the same language in the carefree years of 1768 69 70 the virginian planted and reaped bred horses experimented with the soil ingeniously sought to devise a better plow with meticulous detail he tells about each hunt how long it lasted whether the quarry was lost defined or killed of hounds switching from fox to deer and says they once got after a bear huntsman was a little negro named billy lee a former jockey who according to this a authority u tho rity after his master died drank himself to death dying of the D T IS s |
