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OF

SPORTS AND PASTIMES.

MR. ARTHUR HOLME SUMNER.

To the manner born' is a phrase that we are apt to think as English as its language. It may be insular vanity that induces this belief, and probably the boy is his father's son in other countries than that which the streak of silver divides from a great portion of the world. But probably in no other country in Europe are certain tastes so hereditary, and that for the simple reason that they are part and parcel of the soil from which they spring. Great warriors and great diplomatists-come they from the Neva, the Seine, or from under the Lindens-do not necessarily hand down their gifts to their children; but how rare the example in this country of a sportsman whose son is not his father's counterpart, and the subject of our present sketch is certainly no exception to what is almost a rule.

Born in 1836, Mr. Sumner is a son of the late Colonel Holme Sumner, of Hatchlands, near Guildford; his mother a daughter of that John Barnard Hankey who was a mighty hunter in his day, and about whom, when Master of the Surrey Union, Surrey records have much to tell. Colonel Sumner, too, was for many years at the head of this celebrated pack; and so we must quote the present Master of the Cotswold in support of what is not a theory, but rather an axiom. Early initiated in the art and mystery of hunting and riding by his father's huntsman, John Dale, who is now with Lord Radnor-and than whom there is not a cheerier man in England-Mr. Sumner had learned the rudiments of the noble science before his Harrow days. Later on he for some years made Market Harboro' his head-quarters in the season, and was one of the regular B.H. division, although he was frequently to be found with the Pytchley also. On the marriage of his sister with Lord Fitzhardinge, Mr. Sumner went into Gloucestershire, and his face was a familiar one, not only in the vale but also up in the stone-wall country, of which he is now the Master. When Sir Reginald Graham retired from the Cotswold, about two years since, the eyes of all hunting men were turned towards Mr. Sumner, for it was felt that he was not a stranger in the VOL. XXVIII.-NO. 195.

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