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      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Killing For Sport, by Various.
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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49097 ***</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p>

<p class="titlepage larger">KILLING FOR SPORT</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p>

<p class="titlepage"><i>This volume is published by</i><br />
<span class="smcap">Messrs. G. Bell &amp; Sons</span><br />
<i>for the Humanitarian League</i>.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p>

<p class="titlepage larger">KILLING FOR SPORT</p>

<p class="titlepage">ESSAYS BY VARIOUS WRITERS</p>

<p class="titlepage">WITH A PREFACE BY<br />
BERNARD SHAW</p>

<p class="titlepage"><span class="smcap">Edited by HENRY S. SALT</span></p>

<p class="titlepage">LONDON<br />
G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.<br />
YORK HOUSE, PORTUGAL STREET<br />
1915</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a><br />
<a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>

<h2>NOTE</h2>

<p>During the past twenty-five years, chiefly owing
to the action of the Humanitarian League in
giving continuity to what had previously been
only an occasional protest, the subject of certain
cruel pastimes, called by the name of “sports,”
has attracted a large share of public attention.
The position of the League as regards the whole
question of “sport”&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, the diversions and
amusements of the people&mdash;is this, that while
heartily approving all such fair and manly
recreations as cricket, rowing, football, cycling,
the drag-hunt, etc., it would place in an altogether
different category what may be called “blood-sports”&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>,
those amusements which involve
the death or torture of sentient beings.</p>

<p>But as it is recognised that humane reform can
only come by instalment, and that legislation
cannot outrun a ripe public opinion, the League
has asked for <i>legislative</i> action only in the case of
the worst and most demoralising forms of “blood-sports”&mdash;viz.,
those which make use of a tame<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span>
or captured animal, and not one that is really
wild and free. For the same reason the League
pressed, and pressed successfully, for the abolition
of the Royal Buckhounds, not because that particular
hunt was in itself more cruel than others,
but because it stood as the recognised and State-supported
type of a very degraded pastime.
“Your efforts have gained their reward,” wrote
George Meredith to the League on the occasion of
the Buckhounds’ fall, “and it will encourage you
to pursue them in all fields where the good cause
of Sport, or any good cause, has to be cleansed of
blood and cruelty. So you make steps in our
civilisation.”</p>

<p>But these steps in civilisation have not been
easily made. It is not as widely known as it
ought to be that since the prohibition of bull and
bear baiting, more than half a century ago, there
has been practically no further mitigation of those
so-called sports which in this country absorb a
great part of the thoughts and energies of the
wealthier classes. The Acts of 1849 and 1854,
which prohibited the ill-usage of domestic animals,
gave no protection to animals <i>feræ naturæ</i>, except
from being “fought,” or baited; and the Cruelty
to Wild Animals in Captivity Act, of 1900, applies
only to those animals that are actually in confinement,
or are released in a maimed condition to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>
hunted or shot. Thus, while humane feeling has
steadily progressed, legislative action has obstinately
stood still; and while we shake our heads at
the cruel sports of our great-grandfathers, we are
ourselves powerless to stop present brutalities
which are as intolerable to humane thinkers <i>now</i>
as were bull and bear baiting <i>then</i>.</p>

<p>In a civilised community, where the services of
the hunter are no longer required, blood-sports are
simply an anachronism, a relic of savagery which
time will gradually remove; and the appeal
against them is not to the interested parties whose
practices are arraigned&mdash;not to the belated Nimrods
who find a pleasure in killing&mdash;but to that
force of public opinion which put down bear-baiting,
and which will in like manner put down
the kindred sports (for all these barbarities are
essentially akin) which are defended by similar
sophistries.</p>

<p>At a time when widespread attention is being
drawn to questions concerning the land, it is
especially fitting that the part played by the
sportsman should not be overlooked, and that not
only the cruelty, but the wastefulness of the practice
of breeding and killing animals for mere
amusement, should be made clear.</p>

<p>By including in this volume a number of
recent essays, the work of several writers (each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>
of whom is responsible only for the views expressed
by himself), it has been possible to
present the subject of sport as regarded from
various standpoints, and in a fuller light than
has ever been done before. The book, in fact,
is the first one in which the humanitarian and
economic objections to blood-sports have been
adequately set forth.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></p>

<h2>CONTENTS</h2>

<table summary="Contents">
  <tr>
    <td></td><td></td><td class="tdr">PAGE</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td><td><a href="#PREFACE">PREFACE.</a> BY BERNARD SHAW</td><td class="tdr">xi</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td><td><a href="#THE_CRUELTY_OF_SPORT">THE CRUELTY OF SPORT.</a> BY GEORGE GREENWOOD, M.P.</td><td class="tdr">1</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td><td><a href="#SPORT_AND_AGRICULTURE">SPORT AND AGRICULTURE.</a> BY EDWARD CARPENTER</td><td class="tdr">34</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td><td><a href="#THE_COST_OF_SPORT">THE COST OF SPORT.</a> BY MAURICE ADAMS</td><td class="tdr">45</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td><td><a href="#THE_ECONOMICS_OF_HUNTING">THE ECONOMICS OF HUNTING.</a> BY W. H. S. MONCK</td><td class="tdr">60</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td><td><a href="#FACTS_ABOUT_THE_GAME_LAWS">FACTS ABOUT THE GAME LAWS.</a> BY J. CONNELL</td><td class="tdr">69</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td><td><a href="#THE_DESTRUCTION_OF_WILD_LIFE">THE DESTRUCTION OF WILD LIFE.</a> BY E. B. LLOYD</td><td class="tdr">85</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td><td><a href="#THE_CALLOUSNESS_OF_FOX-HUNTING">THE CALLOUSNESS OF FOX-HUNTING.</a> BY H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON</td><td class="tdr">95</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td><td><a href="#BIG-GAME_HUNTING">BIG GAME HUNTING.</a> BY ERNEST BELL</td><td class="tdr">101</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td><td><a href="#BLOOD-SPORTS_AT_SCHOOLS">BLOOD-SPORTS AT SCHOOLS.</a> BY AN OLD ETONIAN</td><td class="tdr">116</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td><td><a href="#SPORTSMENS_FALLACIES">FALLACIES OF SPORTSMEN.</a> BY HENRY S. SALT</td><td class="tdr">130</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td colspan="3" class="tdc"><a href="#APPENDIX">APPENDIX</a> <br />BY THE EDITOR</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">I.</td><td><a href="#I">SPORT AS A TRAINING FOR WAR</a></td><td class="tdr">149</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">II.</td><td><a href="#II">“BLOODING”</a></td><td class="tdr">155</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">III.</td><td><a href="#III">THE HUNTING OF GRAVID ANIMALS</a></td><td class="tdr">158</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">IV.</td><td><a href="#IV">DRAG-HUNT <i>VERSUS</i> STAG-HUNT</a></td><td class="tdr">162</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">V.</td><td><a href="#V">CLAY PIGEON <i>VERSUS</i> LIVE PIGEON.</a> BY THE REV. J. STRATTON</td><td class="tdr">166</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">VI.</td><td><a href="#VI">COURSING</a></td><td class="tdr">170</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">VII.</td><td><a href="#VII">THE GENTLE CRAFT</a></td><td class="tdr">174</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">VIII.</td><td><a href="#VIII">SPOILING OTHER PEOPLE’S PLEASURE</a></td><td class="tdr">179</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td><td><a href="#INDEX">INDEX</a></td><td class="tdr">183</td>
  </tr>
</table>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a><br />
<a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p>

<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By BERNARD SHAW</span></p>

<p>Sport is a difficult subject to deal with honestly.
It is easy for the humanitarian to moralize against
it; and any fool on its side can gush about its
glorious breezy pleasures and the virtues it
nourishes. But neither the moralizings nor the
gushings are supported by facts: indeed they are
mostly violently contradicted by them. Sportsmen
are not crueller than other people. Humanitarians
are not more humane than other people.
The pleasures of sport are fatigues and hardships:
nobody gets out of bed before sunrise on a drizzling
wintry morning and rides off into darkness, cold,
and rain, either for luxury or thirst for the blood
of a fox cub. The humanitarian and the sportsman
are often the self-same person drawing altogether
unaccountable lines between pheasants
and pigeons, between hares and foxes, between
tame stags from the cart and wild ones from the
heather, between lobsters or <i>paté de foie gras</i> and
beefsteaks: above all, between man and the lower
animals; for people who are sickened by the figures
of a <i>battue</i> do not turn a hair over the infantile
deathrate in Lisson Grove or the slums of Dundee.</p>

<p>Clearly the world of sport is a crystal palace<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span>
in which we had better not throw stones unless
we are prepared to have our own faces cut by the
falling glass. My own pursuits as a critic and as
a castigator of morals by ridicule (otherwise a
writer of comedies) are so cruel that in point of
giving pain to many worthy people I can hold
my own with most dentists, and beat a skilful
sportsman hollow. I know many sportsmen; and
none of them are ferocious. I know several
humanitarians; and they are all ferocious. No
book of sport breathes such a wrathful spirit as
this book of humanity. No sportsman wants to
kill the fox or the pheasant as I want to kill
him when I see him doing it. Callousness is not
cruel. Stupidity is not cruel. Love of exercise
and of feats of skill is not cruel. They may and
do produce more destruction and suffering than
all the neuroses of all the Neros. But they are
characteristic of quite amiable and cheerful
people, mostly lovers of pet animals. On the
other hand, humane sensitiveness is impatient,
angry, ruthless, and murderous. Marat was a
supersensitive humanitarian, by profession a
doctor who had practised successfully in genteel
circles in England. What Marat felt towards
marquesses most humanitarians feel more or less
towards sportsmen. Therefore let no sportsman
who reads these pages accuse me of hypocrisy, or
of claiming to be a more amiable person than he.
And let him excuse me, if he will be so good, for
beginning with an attempt to describe how I
feel about sport.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span></p>

<p>To begin with, sport soon bores me when it
does not involve killing; and when it does, it
affects me much as the murder of a human being
would affect me, rather more than less; for just
as the murder of a child is more shocking than
the murder of an adult (because, I suppose, the
child is so helpless and the breach of social faith
therefore so unconscionable), the murder of an
animal is an abuse of man’s advantage over
animals: the proof being that when the animal is
powerful and dangerous, and the man unarmed,
the repulsion vanishes and is replaced by congratulation.
But quite humane and cultivated
people seem unable to understand why I should
bother about the feelings of animals. I have seen
the most horrible pictures published in good faith
as attractive in illustrated magazines. One of
them, which I wish I could forget, was a photograph
taken on a polar expedition, shewing a
murdered bear with its living cub trying to make
it attend to its maternal duties. I have seen a
photograph of a criminal being cut into a thousand
pieces by a Chinese executioner, which was by
comparison amusing. I have also seen thrown
on a screen for the entertainment of a large
audience a photograph of an Arctic explorer
taking away a sledge dog to shoot it for food, the
dog jumping about joyously without the least
suspicion of its human friend’s intentions. If the
doomed dog had been a man or a woman, I believe
I should have had less sense of treachery. I do
not say that this is reasonable: I simply state it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span>
as a fact. It was quite evident that the lecturer
had no suspicion of the effect the picture was
producing on me; and as far as I could see, his
audience was just as callous; for if they had all
felt as I felt there would have been at least a very
perceptible shudder, if not an articulate protest.
Now this was not a case of sport. It was necessary
to shoot the dog: I should have shot it myself
under the same circumstances. But I should
have regarded the necessity as a horrible one; and
I should have presented it to the audience as
a painful episode, like cannibalism in a crew of
castaways, and not as a joke. For I must add
that a good many people present regarded it as a
bit of fun. I absolve the lecturer from this
extremity of insensibility. The shooting of a dog
was a trifle to what he had endured; and I did
not blame him for thinking it by comparison a
trivial matter. But to us, who had endured
nothing, it might have seemed a little hard on
the dog, and calling for some apology from the
man.</p>

<p>I am driven to the conclusion that my sense
of kinship with animals is greater than most
people feel. It amuses me to talk to animals in
a sort of jargon I have invented for them; and
it seems to me that it amuses them to be talked
to, and that they respond to the tone of the conversation,
though its intellectual content may to
some extent escape them. I am quite sure,
having made the experiment several times on
dogs left in my care as part of the furniture of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span>
hired houses, that an animal who has been treated
as a brute, and is consequently undeveloped
socially (as human beings remain socially undeveloped
under the same circumstances) will, on
being talked to as a fellow-creature, become
friendly and companionable in a very short time.
This process has been described by some reproachful
dog owners as spoiling the dog, and sincerely
deplored by them, because I am glad to say it is
easier to do than to undo except by brutalities
of which few people are capable. But I find it
impossible to associate with animals on any other
terms. Further, it gives me extraordinary gratification
to find a wild bird treating me with confidence,
as robins sometimes do. It pleases me to
conciliate an animal who is hostile to me. What
is more, an animal who will not be conciliated
offends me. There is at the Zoo a morose maned
lion who will tear you to pieces if he gets half a
chance. There is also a very handsome maneless
lion with whom you may play more safely than
with most St. Bernard dogs, as he seems to need
nothing but plenty of attention and admiration
to put him into the best of humors. I do not
feel towards these two lions as a carpenter does
towards two pieces of wood, one hard and knotty,
and the other easy to work; nor as I do towards
two motor bicycles, one troublesome and dangerous,
and the other in perfect order. I feel towards
the two lions as I should towards two men similarly
diverse. I like one and dislike the other.
If they got loose and were shot, I should be distressed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</a></span>
in the one case whilst in the other I
should say “Serve the brute right!” This is
clearly fellow-feeling. And it seems to me that
the plea of the humanitarian is a plea for widening
the range of fellow-feeling.</p>

<p>The limits of fellow-feeling are puzzling. People
who have it in a high degree for animals often
seem utterly devoid of it for human beings of a
different class. They will literally kill their dogs
with kindness whilst behaving to their servants
with such utter inconsideration that they have
to change their domestic staff once a month or
oftener. Or they hate horses and like snakes.
One could fill pages with such inconsistencies.
The lesson of these apparent contradictions is
that fellow-feeling is a matter of dislikes as well
as of likes. No man wants to destroy the engine
which catches him in its cog-wheels and tears
a limb from him. But many a man has tried
to kill another man for a very trifling slight.
The machine, not being our fellow, cannot be
loved or hated. The man, being our fellow,
can.</p>

<p>Let us try to get down to the bottom of this
matter. There is no use in saying that our fellow-creatures
must not be killed. That is simply
untrue; and the converse proposal that they must
be killed is simply true. We see the Buddhist
having his path swept before him lest he should
tread on an insect and kill it; but we do not see
what that Buddhist does when he catches a flea
that has kept him awake for an hour; and we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</a></span>
know that he has to except certain poisonous
snakes from his forbearance. If mice get into
your house and you do not kill them, they will
end by killing you. If rabbits breed on your
farm and you do not exterminate them, you will
end by having no farm. If you keep deer in your
park and do not thin them, your neighbors or
the authorities will finally have to save you the
trouble. If you hold the life of a mosquito
sacred, malaria and yellow fever will not return
the compliment. I have had an interview with
an adder, in the course of which it struck repeatedly
and furiously at my stick; and I let it go
unharmed; but if I were the mother of a family
of young children, and I found a cobra in the
garden, I would vote for “<i>La mort sans phrase</i>,”
as many humane and honorable persons voted
in the case, not of a serpent, but of an anointed
king.</p>

<p>I see no logical nor spiritual escape from the
theory that evolution (not, please observe,
Natural Selection) involves a deliberate intentional
destruction by the higher forms of life of the
lower. It is a dangerous and difficult business;
for in the course of natural selection the lower
forms may have become necessary to the existence
of the higher; and the gamekeeper shooting
everything that could hurt his pheasants or
their chicks may be behaving as foolishly as an
Arab lunatic shooting horses and camels. But
where Man comes, the megatherium must go as
surely as where the poultry farmer comes the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</a></span>
fox must go unless the hunt will pay for the fox’s
depredations. To plead for the tiger, the wolf,
and the poisonous snake, is as useless as to plead
for the spirochete or the tetanus bacillus: we
must frankly class these as early and disastrous
experiments in creation, and accept it as part of
the mission of the later and more successful experiments
to recognize them as superseded, and to
destroy them purposely. We should, no doubt,
be very careful how we jump from the indisputable
general law that the higher forms of life must
exterminate or limit the lower, to the justification
of any particular instance of the slaughter of non-human
animals by men, or the slaughter of a low
type of man by a high type of man. Still, when
all due reservations are made, the fact remains
that a war of extermination is being waged daily
and necessarily by man against his rivals for
possession of the earth, and that though an urban
humanitarian and vegetarian who never has
occasion to kill anything but a microbe may
shudder at the callousness with which a farmer
kills rats and rabbits and sparrows and moles
and caterpillars and ladybirds and many more
charming creatures, yet if he were in the farmer’s
place he would have to do exactly the same, or
perish.</p>

<p>In that case why not make a pleasure of necessity,
and a virtue of pleasure, as the sportsmen
do? I think we must own that there is no objection
from the point of view of the animals. On
the contrary, it is quite easy to shew that there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[xix]</a></span>
is a positive advantage to them in the organization
of killing as sport. Fox hunting has saved the
existing foxes from extermination; and if it were
not for the civilization that makes fox hunting
possible, the fox would still be hunted and killed
by packs of wolves. I am so conscious of this
that I have in another place suggested that children
should be hunted or shot during certain
months of the year, as they would then be fed
and preserved by the sportsmen of the counties
as generously and carefully as pheasants now
are; and the survivors would make a much better
nation than our present slum products. And I
go further. I maintain that the abolition of
public executions was a very bad thing for the
murderers. Before that time, we did exactly
as our sportsmen now do. We made a pleasure
of the necessity for exterminating murderers,
and a virtue of the pleasure. Hanging was a
popular sport, like racing. Huge crowds assembled
to see it and paid large prices for seats.
There would have been betting on the result if it
had been at all uncertain. The criminal had
what all criminals love: a large audience. He
had a procession to Tyburn: he had a drink: he
was allowed to make a speech if he could; and if
he could not, the speech was made for him and
published and sold in great numbers. Above all,
such fair play as an execution admits of was
guaranteed to him by the presence of the public,
whereas now he perishes in a horrible secrecy
which lends itself to all the abuses of secrecy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[xx]</a></span>
Whether the creature slain be man or what we
very invidiously call brute, there is no case to be
made against sport on its behalf. Even cruelty
can justify itself, as far as the victim is concerned,
on the ground that it makes sport attractive to
cruel people, and that sport is good for the quarry.</p>

<p>The true objection to sport is the one taken
by that wise and justly famous Puritan who
objected to bear baiting not because it gave pain
to the bear but because it gave pleasure to the
spectators. He rightly saw that it was not important
that we should be men of pleasure, and
that it was enormously important that we should
be men of honor. What the bear would have said
if it had had any say in the matter can only be
conjectured. Its captors might have argued
that if they could not have made money by
keeping it alive whilst taking it to England to be
baited, they would have killed it at sight in the
Pyrenees; so that it owed several months of life,
with free board and lodging, to the institution of
bear baiting. The bear might have replied that
if it had not been for the bear pit in England
they would never have come to hunt for it in the
Pyrenees, where it could have ended its days in
a free and natural manner. Let us admit for the
sake of a quiet life that the point is disputable.
What is not disputable by any person who has
ever seen sport of this character is that the
man who enjoys it is degraded by it. We do not
bait bears now (I do not quite know why); but
we course rabbits in the manner described in one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxi" id="Page_xxi">[xxi]</a></span>
of the essays in this book. I lived for a time on
the south slope of the Hog’s Back; and every
Sunday morning rabbits were coursed within
earshot of me. And I noticed that it was quite
impossible to distinguish the cries of the excited
terriers from the cries of the sportsmen, although
ordinarily the voice of a man is no more like the
voice of a dog than like the voice of a nightingale.
Sport reduced them all, men and terriers alike,
to a common denominator of bestiality. The
sound did not make me more humane: on the
contrary, I felt that if I were an irresponsible
despot with a park of artillery at my disposal,
I should, (especially after seeing the sportsmen
on their way to and from their sport) have
said: “These people have become subhuman,
and will be better dead. Be kind enough to mow
them down for me.”</p>

<p>As a matter of fact there is always a revulsion
against these dehumanizing sports in which the
killing can be seen, and the actual visible chase
shared, by human beings: in short, the sports in
which men revert to the excitements of beasts of
prey. Several have been abolished by law:
among them bear baiting and cock fighting: both
of them sports in which the spectators shared at
close quarters the excitement of the animals
engaged. In the sports firmly established among
us there is much less of this abomination. In fox
hunting and shooting, predatory excitement is
not a necessary part of the sport, and is indeed
abhorred by many who practise it. Inveterate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxii" id="Page_xxii">[xxii]</a></span>
fox-hunters have been distressed and put off their
hunting for days by happening to see a fox in the
last despairing stage of its run from the hounds:
a sight which can be avoided, and often is, by
the hunters, but which they may happen upon
some day when they are not hunting. Such
people hunt because they delight in meets and in
gallops across country as social and healthy
incidents of country life. They are proud of
their horsemanship and their craftiness in taking
a line. They like horses and dogs and exercise
and wind and weather, and are unconscious of
the fact that their expensive and well equipped
hunting stables and kennels are horse prisons and
dog prisons. It is useless to pretend that these
ladies and gentlemen are fiends in human form:
they clearly are not. By avoiding being in at
the death they get all the good out of hunting
without incurring the worst of the evil, and so
come out with a balance in their favor.</p>

<p>Shooting is subtler: it is a matter of skill with
one’s weapons. The expert at it is called, not a
good chicken butcher, but a good shot. When I
want, as I often do, to pick him off, I do so not
because I feel that he is cruel or degraded but
because he is a nuisance to me with the very
disagreeable noise of his explosions, and because
there is an unbearable stupidity in converting an
interesting, amusing, prettily colored live wonder
like a pheasant into a slovenly unhandsome corpse.
But at least he does not yap like a terrier, and
shake with a detestable excitement, and scream
out frantic bets to bookmakers. His expression is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxiii" id="Page_xxiii">[xxiii]</a></span>
that of a man performing a skilled operation with
an instrument of precision: an eminently human
expression, quite incompatible with the flush of
blood to the eyes and the uncovering of the dog-tooth
that makes a man like a beast of prey.
And this is why it is impossible to feel that skilled
shooting or fox-hunting are as abominable as
rabbit coursing, hare-hunting with beagles, or
otter-hunting.</p>

<p>And yet shooting depends for its toleration on
custom as much as on the coolness with which it
has to be performed. It may be illogical to
forgive a man for shooting a pheasant and to
loathe him for shooting a seagull; but as a matter
of plain fact one feels that a man who shoots
seagulls is a cad, and soon makes him feel it if
he attempts to do it on board a public ship,
whereas the snipe shooter excites no such repulsion.
And “fair game” must be skilfully shot if
the maximum of toleration is to be enjoyed.
Even then it is not easy for some of us to forget
that many a bird must have been miserably
maimed before the shooter perfected his skill.
The late King Edward the Seventh, immediately
after his recovery from a serious operation
which stirred the whole nation to anxious
sympathy with him, shot a stag, which got away
to die of just such internal inflammation as its
royal murderer had happily escaped. Many
people read the account without the least emotion.
Others thought it natural that the King should be
ashamed, as a marksman, of his failure to kill, but
rejected as sentimental nonsense the notion that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxiv" id="Page_xxiv">[xxiv]</a></span>
he should feel any remorse on the stag’s behalf.
Had he deliberately shot a cow instead, everyone
would have been astounded and horrified. Custom
will reconcile people to any atrocity; and fashion
will drive them to acquire any custom. The
English princess who sits on the throne of Spain
goes to bullfights because it is the Spanish fashion.
At first she averted her face, and probably gave
offence by doing so. Now, no doubt, she is a
<i>connoisseuse</i> of the sport. Yet neither she nor
the late King Edward can be classed as cruel
monsters. On the contrary, they are conspicuous
examples of the power of cruel institutions to
compel the support and finally win the tolerance
and even the enjoyment of persons of full normal
benevolence.</p>

<p>But this is not why I call shooting subtle. It
fascinates even humane persons not only because
it is a game of skill in the use of the most ingenious
instrument in general use, but because killing by
craft from a distance is a power that makes a
man divine rather than human.</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse indent10">“Oft have I struck</div>
<div class="verse">Those that I never saw, and struck them dead”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p class="noindent">said the statesman to Jack Cade (who promptly
hanged him); and something of the sense of power
in that boast stimulates every boy with a catapult
and every man with a gun. That is why there
is an interest in weapons fathoms deeper than
the interest in cricket bats and golf clubs. It is
not a question of skill or risk. The men who go<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxv" id="Page_xxv">[xxv]</a></span>
to Africa with cameras and obtain photographs
and even cinematographs of the most dangerous
animals at close quarters, shew much more skill
and nerve than the gentlemen who disgust us
with pictures of themselves sitting on the body
of the huge creatures they have just killed with
explosive bullets. Shooting “big game,” like
serving as a soldier in the field, is glorified conventionally
as a proof of character and courage,
though everyone knows that men can be found
by the hundred thousand to face such ordeals,
including several who would be afraid to walk
down Bond Street in an unfashionable hat. The
real point of the business is neither character nor
courage, but ability to kill. And the greater
cowards and the feebler weaklings we are, the more
important this power is to us. It is a matter of
life and death to us to be able to kill our enemies
without coming to handgrips with them; and
the consequence is that our chief form of play
is to pretend that something is our enemy and
kill it. Even to pretend to kill it is some satisfaction:
nay, the spectacle of other people pretending
to do it is a substitute worth paying for.
Nothing more supremely ridiculous as a subject
of reasonable contemplation could be imagined
than a sham fight in Earls Court between a tribe
of North American Indians and a troop of cowboys,
both imported by Buffalo Bill as a theatrical
speculation. To see these grown-up men behaving
like children, galloping about and firing blank
cartridges at one another, and pretending to fall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxvi" id="Page_xxvi">[xxvi]</a></span>
down dead, was absurd and incredible enough
from any rational point of view; but that thousands
of respectable middle-aged and elderly
citizens and their wives, all perfectly sober, should
pay to be allowed to look on, seems flat madness.
Yet the thing not only occurred in London, but
occurs now daily in the cinema theatres and yearly
at the Military Tournaments. And what honest
man dare pretend that he gets no fun out of
these spectacles? Certainly not I. They revived
enough of my boyish delight in stage fights and
in the stories of Captain Mayne Reid to induce
me to sit them out, conscious as I was of their
silliness.</p>

<p>Please do not revile me for telling you what I
felt instead of what I ought to have felt. What
prevents the sport question and every other
question from getting squarely put before us is
our habit of saying that the things we think
should disgust us and fill us with abhorrence
actually do disgust us and fill us with abhorrence,
and that the persons who, against all reason and
decency, find some sort of delight in them, are
vile wretches quite unlike ourselves, though, as
everyone can see, we and they are as like as
potatoes. You may not agree with Mr. Rudyard
Kipling about war, or with Colonel Roosevelt
about sport; but beware how you pretend that
war does not interest and excite you more than
printing, or that the thought of bringing down a
springing tiger with a well-aimed shot does not
interest you more than the thought of cleaning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxvii" id="Page_xxvii">[xxvii]</a></span>
your teeth. Men may be as the poles asunder in
their speculative views. In their actual nervous
and emotional reactions they are “members one
of another” to a much greater extent than they
choose to confess. The reason I have no patience
with Colonel Roosevelt’s tedious string of rhinoceros
murders in South Africa is not that I am
not interested in weapons, in marksmanship, and
in killing, but because my interest in life and
creation is still greater than my interest in death
and destruction, and because I have sufficient
fellow-feeling with a rhinoceros to think it a
frightful thing that it should be killed for fun.</p>

<p>Consider a moment how one used to feel when
an Irish peasant shot his landlord, or when a
grand duke was blown to pieces in Russia, or
when one read of how Charlotte Corday killed
Marat. On the one hand we applauded the courage,
the skill, the resolution of the assassin; we exulted
in the lesson taught to tyrants and in the overthrow
of the strong oppressor by the weak
victim; but we were horrified by the breach of
law, by the killing of the accused at the decree of
an irresponsible Ribbon Lodge under no proper
public control, by the execution of the grand
duke without trial and opportunity of defence,
by the suspicion that Charlotte Corday was too
like Marat in her lust for the blood of oppressors
to have the right to kill him. Such cases are
extremely complicated, except for those simple
victims of political or class prejudice who think
Charlotte Corday a saint because she killed a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxviii" id="Page_xxviii">[xxviii]</a></span>
Radical, and the Ribbonmen demons because
they were common fellows who dared to kill
country gentlemen. But however the cases catch
us, there is always that peculiar interest in individual
killing, and consequently in the means and
weapons by which individuals can kill their
enemies, which is at the root of the sport of
shooting.</p>

<p>It all comes back to fellow-feeling and appetite
for fruitful activity and a high quality of life:
there is nothing else to appeal to. No commandment
can meet the case. It is no use saying
“Thou shalt not kill” in one breath, and, in the
next “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
Men must be killed and animals must be killed:
nay, whole species of animals and types of men
must be exterminated before the earth can become
a tolerable place of habitation for decent folk.
But among the men who will have to be wiped
out stands the sportsman: the man without fellow-feeling,
the man so primitive and uncritical in his
tastes that the destruction of life is an amusement
to him, the man whose outlook is as narrow as
that of his dog. He is not even cruel: sport is
partly a habit to which he has been brought up,
and partly stupidity, which can always be
measured by wastefulness and by lack of sense of
the importance and glory of life. The horrible
murk and grime of the Pottery towns is caused
by indifference to a stupid waste of sunlight,
natural beauty, cleanliness, and pleasant air,
combined with a brutish appetite for money. A<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxix" id="Page_xxix">[xxix]</a></span>
<i>battue</i> is caused by indifference to the beauty
and interest of bird life and song, and callousness
to glazed eyes and blood-bedabbled corpses, combined
with a boyish love of shooting. All the
people who waste beauty and life in this way are
characterized by deficiency in fellow-feeling: not
only have they none of St. Francis’s feeling that
the birds are of our kin, but they would be
extremely indignant if a loader or a gamekeeper
asserted any claim to belong to their species.
Sport is a sign either of limitation or of timid
conventionality.</p>

<p>And this disposes of the notion that sport is the
training of a conquering race. Even if such
things as conquering races existed, or would be
tolerable if they did exist, they would not be
races of sportsmen. The red scalp-hunting braves
of North America were the sportingest race
imaginable; and they were conquered as easily
as the bisons they hunted. The French can
boast more military glory to the square inch of
history than any other nation; but until lately
they were the standing butt of English humorists
for their deficiencies as sportsmen. In the middle
ages, when they fought as sportsmen and gentlemen,
they were annihilated by small bodies of
starving Englishmen who carefully avoided sportsmanlike
methods and made a laborious business
(learnt at the village target) of killing them. As
to becoming accustomed to risks, there are plenty
of ways of doing that without killing anything
except occasionally yourself. The motor-cyclist<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxx" id="Page_xxx">[xxx]</a></span>
takes more trying risks than the fox-hunter; and
motor-cycling seems safety itself compared to
aviation. A dive from a high springboard will
daunt a man as effectually as a stone wall in the
hunting field. The notion that if you have no
sportsmen you will have no soldiers (as if more
than the tiniest fraction of the armies of the world
had ever been sportsmen) is as absurd as the
notion that burglars and garrotters should be
encouraged because they might make hardier and
more venturesome soldiers than honest men; but
since people foolishly do set up such arguments
they may as well be mentioned in passing for
what they are worth.</p>

<p>The question then comes to this: which is the
superior man? the man whose pastime is slaughter,
or the man whose pastime is creative or contemplative?
I have no doubt about the matter
myself, being on the creative and contemplative
side by nature. Slaughter is necessary work, like
scavenging; but the man who not only does it
unnecessarily for love of it but actually makes as
much of it as possible by breeding live things
to slaughter, seems to me to be little more
respectable than one who befouls the streets for
the pleasure of sweeping them. I believe that
the line of evolution leads to the prevention of
the birth of creatures whose lives are not useful
and enjoyable, and that the time will come when
a gentleman found amusing himself with a gun
will feel as compromised as he does now when
found amusing himself with a whip at the expense<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxi" id="Page_xxxi">[xxxi]</a></span>
of a child or an old lame horse covered with
sores. Sport, like murder, is a bloody business;
and the sportsmen will not always be able to
outface that fact as they do at present.</p>

<p>But there is something else. Killing, if it is to
give us heroic emotions, must not be done for
pleasure. Interesting though the slaying of one
man by another may be, it is abhorrent when it
is done merely for the fun of doing it (the sportsman’s
way) or to satisfy the envious spite of the
worse man towards the better (Cain’s way).
When Charlotte Corday stabbed Marat, and when
Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh shot the Regent
Murray, they were stung by intolerable social
wrongs for which the law offered them no redress.
When Brutus and his fellow-conspirators killed
Cæsar, they had persuaded themselves that they
were saving Rome. When Samson slew the lion,
he had every reason to feel convinced that if he
did not, the lion would slay him. Conceive
Charlotte Corday stabbing Marat as an exercise
of manual and anatomical skill, or Hamilton
bringing down the Regent as a feat of marksmanship!
Their deeds at once become, not less, but
more horrifying than if they had done them from
a love of killing. Jack the Ripper was a madman
of the most appalling sort; but the fascination
of murder for him must have been compounded
of dread, of horror, and of a frightful
perversion of an instinct which in its natural condition
is a kindly one. He was a ghastly murderer;
but he was a hot-blooded one. The perfection<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxii" id="Page_xxxii">[xxxii]</a></span>
of callousness is not reached until a life
is sacrificed, and often cruelly sacrificed, solely
as a feat of skill. Peter the Great amusing himself
by torturing his son to death was a revolting
monster; but he was not so utterly inhuman in
that crime as he was when, on being interested
by a machine for executing criminals which he
saw in a museum on his travels, he proposed to
execute one of his retinue to see how the machine
worked, and could with difficulty be brought to
understand that there was a sentimental objection
to the proceeding on the part of his hosts which
made the experiment impossible. When he tortured
his son he knew that he was committing an
abomination. When he wanted to try an experiment
at the cost of a servant’s life he was unconscious
of doing anything that was not a matter
of course for any nobleman. And in this he was
worse than abominable: he was deficient, imbecile,
less than human. Just so is the sportsman,
shooting quite skilfully and coolly without the
faintest sense of any murderous excitement, and
with no personal feeling against the birds, really
further from salvation than the man who is
humane enough to get some sense of wickedness
out of his sport. To have one’s fellow-feeling corrupted
and perverted into a lust for cruelty and
murder is hideous; but to have no fellow-feeling
at all is to be something less than even a murderer.
The man who sees red is more complete than the
man who is blind.</p>

<p>The triviality of sport as compared with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxiii" id="Page_xxxiii">[xxxiii]</a></span>
risk and trouble of its pursuit and the gravity of its
results makes it much sillier than crime. The idler
who can find nothing better to do than to kill is
past our patience. If a man takes on himself the
heavy responsibility of killing, he should not do it
for pastime. Pastimes are very necessary; for
though a busy man can always find something to
do, there comes a point at which his health, his
sanity, his very existence may depend on his doing
nothing of the smallest importance; and yet he
cannot sit still and twiddle his thumbs: besides,
he requires bodily exercise. He needs an idle pastime.
Now “Satan finds some mischief still for idle
hands to do” if the idler lets his conscience go to
sleep. But he need not let it go to sleep. There
are plenty of innocent idle pastimes for him. He
can read detective stories. He can play tennis.
He can drive a motor-car if he can afford one.
He can fly. Satan may suggest that it would be
a little more interesting to kill something; but
surely only an outrageous indifference to the
sacredness of life and the horrors of suffering and
terror, combined with a monstrously selfish greed
for sensation, could drive a man to accept the
Satanic suggestion if sport were not organized for
him as a social institution. Even as it is, there
are now so many other pastimes available that
the choice of killing is becoming more and more
a disgrace to the chooser. The wantonness of
the choice is beyond excuse. To kill as the
poacher does, to sell or eat the victim, is at least
to act reasonably. To kill from hatred or revenge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxiv" id="Page_xxxiv">[xxxiv]</a></span>
is at least to behave passionately. To kill in
gratification of a lust for death is at least to
behave villainously. Reason, passion, and villainy
are all human. But to kill, being all the
time quite a good sort of fellow, merely to pass
away the time when there are a dozen harmless
ways of doing it equally available, is to behave
like an idiot or a silly imitative sheep.</p>

<p>Surely the broad outlook and deepened consciousness
which admits all living things to the
commonwealth of fellow-feeling, and the appetite
for fruitful activity and generous life which come
with it, are better than this foolish doing of
unamiable deeds by people who are not in the
least unamiable.</p>

<p class="right">G. B. S.</p>

<p><i>March, 1914.</i></p>

<div class="footnotes">

<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Copyright, George Bernard Shaw, 1914, U.S.A.</p>

</div>

</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>

<h1>KILLING FOR SPORT</h1>

<hr class="chap" />

<h2><a name="THE_CRUELTY_OF_SPORT" id="THE_CRUELTY_OF_SPORT"></a>THE CRUELTY OF SPORT</h2>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By GEORGE GREENWOOD</span></p>

<p>It is a favourite rhetorical device of the vivisectionists
to divert argument from the main
question into side issues by instituting a comparison
between vivisection and the various forms
of field-sports, such as pheasant-shooting, for
example. It is hardly necessary that I should
point out the futility of such controversial
methods; for, as Horace long ago taught us, there
is no use in an illustration which merely substitutes
one dispute for another. Vivisection may
be wrong, though pheasant-shooting be right;
while if pheasant-shooting be wrong, it is obviously
absurd to appeal to it in aid of the cause
of vivisection.</p>

<p>But for those who recognise that it is the duty
of man to abstain from all practices which involve
cruelty to the lower animals, it is important to
consider the whole question of sport, and to endeavour
to arrive at just and logical conclusions upon
the ethical issues which are raised by its pursuit.</p>

<p>Here, at the outset, I think it is necessary, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
order to avoid confusion, to attempt some definition
of the word “cruelty.” By so doing we
shall escape the absurdities of those who tell us
that all sport is cruel, and yet that its pursuit can,
nevertheless, be justified by other considerations.
The late Professor Freeman long ago pointed out
that those who speak in this slipshod fashion are
ignorant of the very elements of logical reasoning.
“Cruelty” is a word which carries its own condemnation
with it. It denotes something which
is morally unjustifiable, just as the word “lie”
denotes a morally unjustifiable falsehood. Justifiable
falsehoods are not lies, neither can a lie ever
be a justifiable falsehood. For the purposes of
this paper, therefore, I am content to define
“cruelty” as “the unjustifiable infliction of
pain.” I think that is better than defining it as
“the <i>unnecessary</i> infliction of pain.” For, to take
an example, the shooting of a partridge can hardly,
in any ordinary case, be looked upon as a <i>necessary</i>
act. To define cruelty, therefore, as “the unnecessary
infliction of pain” would be to settle
the question&mdash;or, rather to beg it&mdash;in such a case,
by means of a definition. It is true that the
definition which I have preferred leaves the
question what is or is not justifiable, in any given
case, open for discussion; but that is, of course,
inevitable, whatever definition we may adopt.</p>

<p>If, then, we are compelled to say of any sport
that it is cruel, we are compelled also to admit
that such sport is morally unjustifiable. Now,
sport, according to the general acceptation of that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
term, is of two kinds. There are, first, sports
such as cricket, football, golf, rowing, and many
others, which do not involve the taking of animal
life; and, secondly, there are the sports of hunting,
coursing, and shooting, in all their various
branches, which are frequently denoted by the
compendious term of “blood-sports”; and it is
with the latter class of sports only that this
essay is concerned.</p>

<p>Let us, therefore, examine these blood-sports,
and ask ourselves in each case whether they are
cruel, and therefore unjustifiable, or whether,
notwithstanding the pain and suffering which they
necessarily involve, they are, nevertheless, justifiable
forms of amusement and recreation, such as
a humane and thinking man need not scruple to
indulge in.</p>

<p>But before proceeding farther with the discussion,
I must own that I am not a little appalled
at the audacity of undertaking such an inquisition.
For is it not the boast of our countrymen that
England is the home and the motherland of
sport? What appellation does an Englishman
more ardently desire than that of “sportsman”?
“A good sportsman,” “a good all-round sportsman,”
“a fine old sportsman”&mdash;what names are
more honourable than these? I have frequently
heard it said of a man that “he was always ready
for a bit of sport,” and it was generally recognised
that very high praise was implied by such a
description. Fox-hunting, hare-hunting, rabbit-coursing,
ferreting, ratting, badger-baiting&mdash;it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
was all one to him so long as he could get “a bit
of sport”! What higher character could a
Briton possibly aspire to? No wonder the man
was so popular with his neighbours, and so highly
esteemed!</p>

<p>And so, if we begin to question the humanity or
the propriety of any of these forms of amusement,
the crushing answer invariably is, “But it’s
<i>sport</i>!” Surely that is amply sufficient! Surely
that is final! What more do you want? Sport
is always excellent. Sport is an end in itself.
Sport is a god worshipped in a thousand temples
throughout the length and breadth of the United
Kingdom. Let us burn incense on those altars;
let us reverently bow the knee at those shrines.
Great is God Sport of the Britishers!</p>

<p>Nay, does not our very Empire depend on
Sport? Is it not Sport that knits the fibres and
fashions the sinews of an Imperial race? It were
almost as well, then, to speak disrespectfully of
religion itself as to speak slightingly of Sport.
And yet, as philosophers, as social students, as
humanitarians, we must nerve ourselves even for
this perilous quest. We must not shrink. We
must not be deterred from pushing our investigation
even into the Holy of Holies of this great god
which the people of England have set up.</p>

<p>And let us face our worst dangers at once.
First, then, I would say a few words about the
most honoured and the most celebrated of all our
British sports, “the noble science,” as it has been
called&mdash;the glorious sport of fox-hunting.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Fox-Hunting.</span></h3>

<p>Now, fox-hunting seems to most of us almost a
part of the British Constitution. It takes rank
among the best-established of our time-honoured
institutions. What would become of the glory of
England, were it not for fox-hunting? And speaking
as one who in days gone by was, so far as time
and opportunity and a shallow purse allowed, a
votary of the chase, I can honestly say that the
sport has more to say for itself than some who
have never fallen under the sway of its fascination
are able to realise or understand. Let us see what
<i>can</i> be said for it.</p>

<p>Great and undeniable are the pleasures of the
meet; great the delights of the country-side as the
hounds are thrown joyfully into cover, with a
burst of melodious chiding. What a picturesque
sight! The busy, eager, indefatigable pack;
gallant steeds impatient for the coming race, and
scarlet coats lighting up the wintry woodland
scene! Then the excitement of the “find”; the
still greater excitement of the cry, “Gone away!
gone away!” hounds in full cry, and the cheery
blasts of the huntsman’s horn to rally the
stragglers in the rear!</p>

<p>And if there be anything at all which can in any
way justify the high-sounding title of “the noble
science,” we may look for it now. For the man
who can ride straight to hounds and hold his own
over a stiff country must possess some qualities
which are not to be despised. He must not only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
be a fine horseman&mdash;and fine horsemen are few and
far between&mdash;but he must know how to combine
courage with judgment, prompt decision with
sound discretion. Here for the good rider, whose
heart is in the right place, are the true pleasures
of the chase.</p>

<p>But let us now look at the other side of the
picture. It has been a splendid run, but the end
approaches. The fox has been viewed dead-beat,
painfully crawling into a hedgerow, with coat
muddy and staring, tongue hanging out of his
mouth, brush trailing on the ground. What sight
more piteous can be conceived? A few minutes
more and his merciless pursuers are upon him;
and, to use the words of Whyte Melville, the
Laureate of the chase,</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“’Twas a stout hill-fox when we found him, but now</div>
<div class="verse">’Tis a thousand tatters of brown!”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>This, then, is the end, and aim, and object of
our sport&mdash;“the kill”! It is our pride to be
“in at the death.” I confess I have often felt
no little ashamed of my brother-man&mdash;man, that
“paragon of animals,” “in action how like an
angel! in apprehension how like a god!”&mdash;as I
have listened to those wild shrieks and yells of
“Who-whoop” that proclaim&mdash;what? That a
little animal has been hunted to its death. And
it is this thought from which the thinking man
can never escape, and which is to his enjoyment
as the canker to the bud&mdash;the thought that it is
necessary for his pleasure that a poor little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
animal, in all the agony of terror and exhaustion,
should be running for its life before him! And
since this is the inevitable concomitant of the
sport&mdash;even the great and glorious sport of fox-hunting&mdash;the
thinking man must ask himself,
“Am I justified&mdash;morally justified&mdash;in purchasing
my pleasure at such a price?” Can we for a
moment doubt what the answer of the thinking
man must be? I do not say that all fox-hunters
are cruel men; it would be absurd, indeed, to bring
such a charge. Many good and humane men&mdash;men
who would shrink from and abhor anything
that they recognised as cruel&mdash;are, nevertheless,
habitual followers of the hounds. They have persuaded
themselves&mdash;it is so easy to persuade oneself
in accordance with one’s inclination, especially
when the object to which one is inclined has all
the sanction of custom and long usage&mdash;they
have persuaded themselves that the sport is
justifiable in spite of the suffering which is its
necessary accompaniment and result. Or, perhaps,
especially if they are young men, they have
not thought about it at all. But I cannot help
the belief that, as thought and true civilisation
advance, it will be recognised that to seek pleasure
in the hunting of any animal to its death is unworthy
of a thinking and humane man. If the
humane man can do these things, it must be
because he has not yet become a thinking man.
If the thinking man can do them, it must be
because he is not a humane man.</p>

<p>And this conclusion will, I think, be fortified if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
we consider, very briefly, some of the arguments
by which it is sought to justify sport of this kind.
We are frequently told that the fox is a thief and
a marauder&mdash;a robber of hen-roosts&mdash;and that,
therefore, he must be destroyed. The simple
answer to this is that the fox is carefully preserved;
that when foxes are scarce in a hunting
country they are imported from elsewhere; and
that the man who shoots a fox is held up to odium
and scorn as guilty of the heinous crime of
“vulpicide.”</p>

<p>But we have no sooner answered this flimsy
argument than we are met by another of a quite
different character. We are told that if foxes
were not preserved to be hunted they would be
exterminated; and that a fox, if given his choice,
would much prefer to take his chance of escaping
the hounds to the alternative of extermination.
This is certainly a quaint specimen of the sportsman’s
logic. We are asked, in the first place, to
assume an impossibility&mdash;namely, that a fox
should be endowed with reason to enable him to
consider and come to a decision upon the suggested
question; secondly, we have to assume what his
answer would be; thirdly, that that answer would
be a wise one for the foxes; and, fourthly, that
man ought to be bound by it. To this puerile
argument it is sufficient to say that the question
before us is not what a fox might, in an imaginary
and impossible contingency, conceivably think
best for himself, but what is right for man to do.
If, therefore, the alternative be between the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
extermination of foxes, by methods as painless as
may be, and their preservation to be hunted by
man, I cannot doubt in what direction the true
interests of humanity will be found to lie.</p>

<p>To this conclusion, then, I think our reason
must inevitably lead us, even with regard to the
best and most popular of blood-sports as practised
in this country. I do not hesitate to confess that
I was brought to it with reluctance, knowing full
well the pleasures of riding over a country with
hounds in front and a good horse under me. But,
in truth, the case seems too clear for argument.
On one side are inclination and pleasure, and prescription,
and the false glamour of “sport”; on
the other side are “that incomparable pair”&mdash;humanity
and reason.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">The Wild Stag Hunt.</span></h3>

<p>But if the inexorable laws of reason and of
ethics compel us to cast our vote against “the
noble science” of fox-hunting, what shall we say
of such sport as the hunting of the red deer in the
West of England? Its votaries would fain cast
over it the glamour of poetry. They dilate on the
glorious country&mdash;the woods of Porlock, the
bright heaths of Exmoor, the exhilaration and
excitement of a wild gallop over a wild country
in pursuit of this magnificent wild creature&mdash;“the
antlered monarch of the waste.” But we
have only to turn to the acknowledged textbooks
on the subject (such as Collyns’s “Chase of the
Wild Red Deer,” for example) to learn of the
horrible cruelties which are the inevitable concomitants
of this much-extolled sport&mdash;to learn how
the hunted animal, in its terror and despair, will
dash over cliffs into the sea, or vainly seek refuge
in the waves from its merciless pursuers upon the
land. I will not waste time and words over it.
I regard it as a cruel form of pleasure which every
humane man should shun and shrink from. A
relative of mine, who for many years acted as
secretary to a fox-hunt in the West of England,
and who had a great reputation as a rider to
hounds, told me that he had once gone to see the
sport on Exmoor, and that nothing would induce
him to repeat that experience, so terrible and so
disgusting were some of the things which he
witnessed there. Alas! that woman should be a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
participator in such cruel deeds&mdash;ay, and pride
herself on her rivalry with brutal man! But we
know the type. Their eyes are blinded lest they
should see, and their ears closed lest they should
hear. They know no better. They have never
learned to think!<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>

<p>Here again we are told there is only one alternative:
either these deer must be preserved to be
hunted or they must be exterminated. But
again, also, there can be no doubt as to what
our choice should be. We should lament the loss
of these wild denizens of the forest and the moor;
but better, far better, would it be that their lives
should be ended, as painlessly as may be, by the
rifle, than that they should be preserved for a
sport which is an outrage upon humanity.</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Shooting.</span></h3>

<p>I have touched upon hunting; let us now consider
the twin-sport of shooting, and let us first
consider it in its most favourable aspect. How
well do I remember those bright September evenings,
long ago, when the rays of the westering sun,
striking obliquely on the ruddy clover-heads,
bathed them in the rosy light of a summer that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
still lingered on “the happy autumn fields”!
Youth, health, and hope were ours then&mdash;youth,
health, and hope, and friends! Life lay all
before us; and, what was more to the purpose for
the present moment, before us, too, were the
partridges&mdash;a covey scattered among those smiling
clover-heads. We go forward to beat them up
with all the joy and excitement of that golden
time when life has not yet been saddened by the
pale cast of thought. The birds rise before us,
singly, or in twos. The last shots are fired. The
old retriever picks up the fallen game. Then we
turn homewards, just as the glorious sun sinks at
last behind the high Hampshire hills, and “barred
clouds bloom the soft-dying day.” Were we then
guilty of cruelty? I answer “No,” because the
moral qualities of an act exist only in the mind
of the agent,</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“For there is nothing either good or bad</div>
<div class="verse">But thinking makes it so;”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p class="noindent">and it had never occurred to us to question the
morality of a sport which gave us such days of
happiness, such nights of unbroken repose.</p>

<p>And truly, if we admit, for the sake of argument,
at any rate, and making no assumption as
against the vegetarian, that it is legitimate for
man to use birds and beasts for his food, I see not
much that can be justly said in condemnation of
shooting such as this. If birds may be used for
food, how better can they be killed than by the
gun? And thus it appears that it is that much-maligned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
and much-ridiculed individual the “pot-hunter”
who is the best justified of all the shooting
confraternity!</p>

<p>Again, if rabbits must be kept under for the sake
of agriculture (a proposition which few will be
found to dispute), it is certainly far better that
they should be shot than be taken by that hideous
instrument of torture, the steel trap, or the hardly
less cruel contrivance known as “the wire.”</p>

<p>But when we come to the shooting of artificially
reared and carefully preserved pheasants, and
especially to what is known as “battue shooting,”
very different considerations arise. Let us take
an instance.</p>

<p>The short December day has drawn to a close.
There has been warm work in the coverts. A
thousand head of game&mdash;pheasants, hares, and
rabbits&mdash;have been brought to bag. In fact, we
have had, not indeed a tremendous battue, as
these things are reckoned nowadays, but simply
“a jolly day’s covert-shooting.” But now darkness&mdash;thick,
gloomy, winter darkness&mdash;has settled
down like a pall upon the woods. There is some
snow upon the ground, and with the night has
come a sharper frost and a bitter, piercing wind.
But what is that to us as we gather together in the
warm dining-room, where the lamps are so bright,
where the logs burn so keenly, and where thick
curtains ward off the draughts of that nipping,
eager air, and deaden the sound of the gusts
moaning fitfully without? How delightful a
festive dinner like this after our day of woodland<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
sport! And yet, as I have raised the first glass
of champagne to my lips, a thought has sometimes
come to me which has gone nigh to spoil
my pleasure. It is the thought of that cover
where the fun was so fast and furious, and which
literally seemed to swarm with game. I picture
it as it is <i>now</i> under the darkness of night. There,
within sight of the bright lights around which we
are so joyously gathered, <i>there</i> are scores&mdash;hundreds
may be&mdash;of miserable creatures with
mangled limbs and bleeding wounds; some with
hind-legs broken, dragging themselves piteously
over the frosty ground; some writhing in agony
which death comes all too slowly to relieve. Ah,
if that wounded hare could speak, as she looks at
the line of light streaming from our dining-room
windows, what a curse might she not breathe
against the cruel savages within! What a contrast!
<i>Here</i>, light, warmth, and pleasure; <i>there</i>,
darkness, cold, and pain unspeakable! Are
not <i>these</i> considerations which should give us
pause?</p>

<p>And can it be denied that the man who has
learnt to stand at “a warm corner” unmoved
while wounded beasts and birds are struggling or
piteously crawling in agony all around him, who
can listen unmoved to the terrible cry of the
wounded hare&mdash;a cry like that of a child in pain&mdash;can
it be denied that that man, who has so deadened
his susceptibility to the sufferings of his
humble and helpless kindred of the animal world,
has himself suffered grievous injury to that which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
is best in human nature&mdash;that sacred instinct of
compassion, wherein some thinkers of no mean
order have thought they discerned the origin and
the very basis of morality?</p>

<p>And what a curse to our country is this selfish
mania for the preservation of game&mdash;preservation
for the purpose of destruction! For this are the
country-folk warned off from the quiet woodland
ways; for this are the children prohibited from
entering the copses to gather wild-flowers; for
this are enclosures made, barbed-wire fences
erected, footpaths and commons filched from the
public, and the landless still further excluded
from the land; for this must temptation be constantly
set before the eyes of the labourer; for
this must the offender against the game laws be
called up for sentence before a tribunal of game-preservers;
for this must the woods and the
country-side be denuded of their most delightful
inhabitants&mdash;the jay and the magpie, with their
lustrous plumage and wild cries; the squirrel,
embodiment of life and graceful activity, with his
curious winning ways; the quaint, harmless, and
interesting little hedgehog; the owl, with its long-drawn
melancholy note, as it hawks in the
summer moonlight&mdash;for this must wood-sides be
disfigured by impudent notice-boards, telling us,
in the arrogant language of the rich Philistine,
that “All trespassers will be prosecuted, all dogs
destroyed”; for this must millions of innocent
creatures be pitilessly condemned to shocking
mutilations and atrocious agonies, long drawn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
out. Such is “Merry England” under the rule
of the game-preserver!</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“Strange that where Nature loved to trace</div>
<div class="verse">As if for gods a dwelling-place,</div>
<div class="verse">There man, enamoured of distress,</div>
<div class="verse">Should mar it into wilderness.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>I have now briefly considered those blood-sports
which are generally spoken of as “legitimate”
sports&mdash;namely, hunting and shooting. “But,”
someone will ask me, “what of hare-hunting, and
coursing, and otter-hunting&mdash;are not these ‘legitimate’
sports also?”</p>

<p>Well, over these I care not to delay; a few words
will suffice for each.</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Hare-Hunting and Otter-Hunting.</span></h3>

<p>Well has it been said that</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“Poor is the triumph o’er the timid hare.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p class="noindent">It is to my mind indeed a pitiable form of pleasure
that men should go forth to hunt to death this,
the most timorous of animals. Even in the days
of bluff King Hal, when humanitarians were
indeed few and far between, and it was hardly
recognised that men had any duties to the lower
animals, there was found a great and good and
enlightened man to raise his voice in protest
against this sport. “What greater pleasure is
there to be felt,” wrote Sir Thomas More in his
“Utopia,” “when a dog followeth a hare than
when a dog followeth a dog? For one thing is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
done in both&mdash;that is to say, running, if thou hast
pleasure therein. But if the hope of slaughter
and the expectation of tearing in pieces the beast
doth please thee, thou shouldest rather be moved
with pity to see a silly, innocent hare murdered of
a dog, the weak of the stronger, the fearful of the
fierce, the innocent of the cruel and unmerciful.”</p>

<p>Ought we not to feel some shame if we have not
advanced farther than this old teacher of nearly
four hundred years ago? But it seems that the
age of King George V. has still something to learn
from the age of King Henry VIII.</p>

<p>And but a few years later, in the reign of that
famous King’s still more famous daughter, in “the
spacious times,” when kindness to poor animals
was but little thought of, do we not hear the voice
of the great poet who is not of an age, but for all
time, in an exquisite description of the miseries
of the hunted hare?&mdash;</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">“By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Stands on his hinder legs, with listening ear,</div>
<div class="verse">To hearken if his foes pursue him still.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;</div>
<div class="verse">And now his grief may be compared well</div>
<div class="verse">To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">“Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Turn and return, indenting with the way;</div>
<div class="verse">Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch;</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay.</div>
<div class="verse">For misery is trodden on by many,</div>
<div class="verse">And, being low, never relieved by any.”</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>And here let me say that, if some of us have
been loud in our protest against hare-hunting by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
schoolboys (and I refer especially to the case of
the Eton beagles), it is because we believe it to be
of paramount importance that this duty of kindness
to animals should be inculcated upon the
young; that this sacred instinct of compassion
should be fostered in young minds; and that boys
should be restrained from pursuits which tend to
deaden this best of all human feelings.</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“’Tis education forms the common mind;</div>
<div class="verse">Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p class="noindent">And who shall say what harm may be done to
character, if the men who are responsible for
education allow it to be supposed by those under
their charge that animal suffering is a thing of no
account?</p>

<p>As to otter-hunting, or the “otter-worry,” as
it is better called, it is a kind of sport of which I
have seen a good deal in bygone days, but which
I always found abominable. Let me give one
example from my own experience. It is a lovely
day and a lovely country. The beautiful River
Plym is flowing clear and cool in its lower valley
depths, between wood-clad hills. I see before me
an old quarry-pool. Precipitous rocks stand over
it. One little stream, or adit, alone connects it
with the river. At the farther end, away from
the entrance of this adit, the hillside slopes more
gradually, and is covered with broken fragments of
rock and quarried stone. On my left the pool
lies open to the woods. We had found an otter
in the morning, and it was supposed that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
creature had taken refuge in the “clitter of
rocks” above the pool. Accordingly, men armed
with otter-spears, and aided by terriers, endeavour
to dislodge it. Suddenly another otter, much
larger than the one we have been hunting, emerges
from this retreat and dashes into the water.
Instantly the pool is surrounded by excited
hunters. A man with a spear stands at the adit-head,
blocking that way of escape. The water
is alive with swimming hounds, while others
stand baying on the banks. Now, an otter can
stay long under water, but it must rise at intervals
for breath; so, after a pause, we hear the shout of
“Hoo, gaze!” and I catch sight of a small dark
face and large brown eyes for one moment above
the surface of the pool. Again and again, at ever-shortening
intervals, I see that face appear and
disappear. I can never forget it&mdash;that wild,
scared face, and the terror of those hunted eyes!
There is no possibility of escape. Hounds and
“sportsmen”&mdash;yes, and “sportswomen” too&mdash;surround
the pool, and the only exit is carefully
and effectually guarded. The otter, wildest
and most timid of animals, must either
attempt to run the gauntlet or be actually
drowned in the pool. Only one thought possesses
me&mdash;that of sickening compassion for this poor,
beautiful, hunted creature. Men&mdash;and, good
heavens! women too&mdash;seem frenzied with the
desire to kill. No thought of pity seems to dawn
upon their minds. So at length, amid yelling men
and baying hounds, the wretched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> “beast of the
chase” is forced for dear life’s sake to try the
desperate shift of taking to the land, in the vain
hope of finding sanctuary in the friendly waters of
the Plym, that are so near and yet so far. Vain
hope indeed! Scarce twenty yards of flight, and
the hounds roll her over. From the carcass thus
barbarously done to death the “pads” are cut off
as trophies by the huntsman, and the master goes
through the ceremony of “blooding” his little
son, who has now seen his first “kill.” The boy’s
cheeks and forehead are smeared with blood from
one of the dripping “pads,” and the “young
barbarian” goes home swelling with pride at this
savage decoration. What a lesson for him! Thus
is the rising generation taught to be gentle and
compassionate, and to love “all things, both great
and small”! O Sport, what horrible things are
done in thy name! How long shall the nation
continue to bow the knee to this false god&mdash;this
bloody Moloch of Sport?</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Spurious Sports.</span></h3>

<p>But of all the sports of killing which we have
hitherto reviewed, this much at least may be said&mdash;namely,
that they are concerned with the
hunting or shooting of wild animals at liberty, in
their native haunts. We now have to consider
certain other blood-sports, the differentiating
feature of which is that they are concerned with
the hunting or shooting of animals liberated from
captivity for that purpose. Such are rabbit-coursing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
the hunting of carted deer, and the
shooting of pigeons from traps, which are very
commonly referred to as “spurious sports”&mdash;a
title which they most justly merit.</p>

<p>On pigeon-shooting I will not waste many words.
To shoot a strong “blue rock,” released from one
of five traps, at a rise of between twenty and thirty
yards, is not, as some people think, an easy thing
to do. On the contrary, it is a very difficult thing
to do, the result being that, even when good shots
are competing, many birds get away wounded, to
die a lingering death. Moreover, if a test of skill
be all that is required, the clay pigeon answers the
purpose quite as well as, if not better than, the
living bird. I might dwell, too, on the injuries
sometimes done to the birds when closely packed
in hampers for transport purposes. But it is, I
think, sufficient to say that it is now generally
recognised in this country that the practice of
shooting captive birds from traps has about it
none of the elements of “sport” properly so-called.
It is a mere medium for betting and
money-making, or money-losing, without any of
those healthy, invigorating, and athletic concomitants
which do something to redeem genuine
“sport” from the reproach of cruelty; and if
cruelty be the unjustifiable infliction of pain, then
it can, I think, hardly be doubted that pigeon-shooting
must be classed among cruel sports. Of
this opinion was the House of Commons thirty-one
years ago; for in the year 1883 a Bill passed
through that House, on second reading, to put<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
down this spurious sport by law. And to show
how poorly it is now esteemed, even in fashionable
circles, it may be mentioned that the Hurlingham
Club, where pigeon-shooting was once regularly
carried on, some years ago decided to prohibit
this unworthy practice in their grounds.</p>

<p>It remains to consider the two spurious sports
of rabbit-coursing and the hunting of carted deer.
Let us take the latter first.</p>

<p>What are the animals employed for this form
of fashionable amusement? They are park-bred
deer, kept in paddocks or stables, and carefully
fed and exercised. It is said on behalf of the
“stag-hunters” (so called) that to do the deer
any injury is the last thing they wish for; on the
contrary, their desire is to recapture the animal
alive and well, in order that he or she may afford
sport another day. This, doubtless, is true
enough; but, unfortunately, the deer is terrified
by the chase, and becomes exhausted in the course
of it. Unfortunately, too, there are such things
as spiked iron railings and barbed-wire fences, to
say nothing of walls and other obstacles with
which the hunted deer is confronted in his cross-country
flight. The result is inevitable, and such
as all reasoning men know to be inevitable&mdash;namely,
that from time to time terrible “accidents,”
as they are euphemistically called, take
place, some of which, but by no means all, find
their way into the columns of our newspapers.
Thus, to give an example, it twice happened
within a period of eight months that a miserable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
hunted deer impaled itself upon a spiked
iron fence at Reading, which in its terror it
essayed to jump, but which in its exhaustion it
failed to clear. I could give case after case in
which a hunted deer has lacerated itself in the
attempt to leap a barbed-wire fence; broken a
leg, or perhaps (more mercifully) its neck, in trying
to clear a gate or wall; cut and wounded itself
by jumping on a greenhouse or glass frames;
fallen exhausted before the hounds, and been
bitten and torn by them; sought refuge in a river,
canal, or pond, and been drowned by the pursuing
pack. Ten such cases are known to have occurred
in six months with one pack only, hunting in the
Home Counties, and six tame deer were done to
death by that same pack within that period.</p>

<p>These cases formed the subject of questions
put by me to the late Prime Minister, Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, in the House of Commons.
I should like to quote his answer given to one of
such questions on March 14, 1907: “If such
cruelties are perpetrated, and we can do anything
to stop them, I shall be very glad. I am against
cruelty of any sort, whether under the name of
sport or otherwise. I like it rather less under
the cloak of sport than otherwise.” Nay, this
cruel and contemptible travesty of sport was once,
in a lucid interval, condemned, even by that well-known
and recognised organ of sport, <i>The Field</i>,
“the country gentleman’s newspaper.” For in
<i>The Field</i> of September 3, 1892, we read as
follows:</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“If we look at this fiction of chase from an unprejudiced
standpoint, we must admit that it is only prescription
and usage which enable us to retain it in our sporting
schedule and to tolerate it as legitimate. Strictly
speaking, it stands on the same footing as bull and bear
baiting, both of which have had to go to the wall under
the influence of what is called the march of civilization.”<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>

</div>

<p>Need I say more? Surely the case is too clear
for argument&mdash;except, indeed, for certain peers
in the Gilded Chamber, whose hidebound prejudice
seems to be impervious to reason!</p>

<p>So much for the hunting of carted deer, the
spurious sport of the rich. What shall we say of
rabbit-coursing, which has been described as the
sport of the poor, but which would, I think, be
better called “the spurious sport of the spurious
poor”? Here, too, I can speak as an eye-witness,
and I will repeat the description of what
I saw, as it appeared in a London newspaper:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“Wishing to see for myself what goes on at the
‘sport’ of rabbit-coursing, I took train on Sunday
morning to Worcester Park Station, whence a
walk of about a mile leads to the field where the
entertainment is provided. Here was soon gathered
together an assembly of about three hundred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
‘sportsmen,’ mostly lads and larrikins. There
was a large number of dogs, chiefly of the ‘whippet’
breed, and many of them carefully clothed
after the manner of greyhounds. The ear was
assailed by the noise of continual barking, and
the nose by whiffs from a neighbouring sewage
farm. After we had waited some little time a
van was drawn on the ground heavily laden with
large shallow hampers packed with live rabbits.
Three or four of these hampers were brought
forward to the starting-point; a stout gentleman
who carried a revolver and appeared to ‘boss the
show,’ gave the order ‘to get behind the ropes,’
some juvenile and promising bookmakers mounted
stools, and the fun commenced.</p>

<p>“Two dogs are led to the starting-point amidst
shouts of ‘I’ll lay three to one,’ ‘I’ll lay seven to
four,’ etc., quite in the approved sporting style.
A man opens a sort of trap-door in the lid of one
of the hampers, seizes one of the cowering rabbits
by the skin of the back, presents it to each dog
alternately, in order, I presume, to excite him to
the utmost, runs with it, still held in one hand by
the skin of the back, some thirty-five yards, and
then flings it down, whereupon a shot is fired
from the revolver, the dogs are released and rush
madly for the prey. What follows requires some
explanation. Let it be remembered that these
are, or were, wild rabbits, among the most
timorous of wild creatures; that they have probably
undergone the horrible experience of being
driven from their burrows by the ferret some days<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
(and who shall say how many days?) before;
that they have been sent by rail to town; that
they are carted to the scene of action closely
packed in hampers; that they are, for a long time
previously to being ‘coursed,’ surrounded by
shouting men and barking dogs, and that after
all this, weak, dazed, and half paralysed with
fear, the victim is ‘dumped down’ in the
middle of a strange field.</p>

<p>“The result is what might be expected. He
can hardly run, and knows not where to run.
Some come straight back into the mouths of the
dogs, others make a feeble attempt to seek shelter
in the distant hedge. But the result is always the
same. In a few seconds the dogs are upon him.
The first seizes him by the back or hind-quarters;
the second, overtaking the first, and not to be
balked of his share of the prey, grabs the victim
by the head and shoulders. Then ensues a tug of
war, during which the miserable rabbit is frequently
more than half disembowelled before he
is taken, still alive, or half alive, from the jaws of
the dogs. Not one escapes; he is not given a
chance. One that was put down a few yards in
front of two very young dogs, who were evidently
new to the business, might have got away, but
when this was seen a large dog was at once sent
after the fugitive. I am told that at North
Country meetings when a puppy is entered a
rabbit is frequently mutilated by having a leg
broken or an eye put out; but I saw nothing of
this at Worcester Park.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>

<p>“I should mention that I was joined by a friend
from New Malden, well known in the neighbourhood
for humanitarian efforts, and that we were
at once ‘spotted’ as alien interlopers, and looked
at askance in consequence. Possibly the result
was greater caution in the management of the
proceedings. But we saw quite enough. Fifteen
wretched creatures were done to death in forty-five
minutes, and the ‘sport’ goes on all day and
every Sunday. I counted the steps taken by the
man who ran forward with each rabbit, and
never did they exceed thirty-five. A really wild
rabbit in his own familiar haunts might have
some chance at that. But these poor cowering
things, tortured to make a hooligans’ holiday!
The mere monotony of it was sickening. And
yet when a Bill is brought into Parliament to
make such abominations illegal, a noble lord, one
of the pillars of the Jockey Club, opposes it
because it ‘would affect the poorer classes far
more than themselves,’ and because it is ‘a piece
of class legislation’ (Lord Durham in the House
of Lords, <i>The Times</i>, March 4, 1902). Why not
go back to cock-fighting and bull-baiting at
once?”<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>

</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>
<p>Such are the sports that make England great,
that strengthen the muscles and sinews of a
conquering Imperial race! Let us rejoice, then,
that we have an Hereditary Chamber, where
faddists and fanatics are unknown, to throw the
ægis of its protection over the pleasures of rich
and poor alike, and where the high-souled, high-bred
scions of a time-honoured aristocracy magnanimously
defend the cherished institutions of
our forefathers against the attacks both of blatant
democrats and sickly sentimentalists!</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">The Ethics of Sport.</span></h3>

<p>It was said by a noble lord in the Upper House
not long ago that “Physical courage and love of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
sport have been for centuries the distinguishing
characteristics of the British race.” Is there any
necessary relation between these two things? I
take leave to doubt it&mdash;indeed, I entirely deny it&mdash;if
by “sport” these “blood-sports” are intended.
But let us set beside this wonderful
pronouncement the statement of a cultivated and
enlightened Englishman who was for many years
resident in Burmah. In that charming book,
“The Soul of a People,” Mr. H. Fielding writes
as follows:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“It has been inculcated in us from childhood that it is
a manly thing to be indifferent to pain&mdash;not to our own
pain only, but to that of all others. To be sorry for a
hunted hare, to compassionate the wounded deer, to
shrink from torturing the brute creation, has been accounted
by us a namby-pamby sentimentalism, not fit
for man, fit only for a squeamish woman. To the Burman
it is one of the highest of all virtues. He believes
that all that is beautiful in life is founded on compassion,
and kindness, and sympathy&mdash;that nothing of great
value can exist without them.”</p>

</div>

<p>May not our much-vaunted Christianity learn
something from this despised religion of the
Buddha, first taught by Gautama on the banks of
the Ganges some six hundred years before Christ?
For what is it that Buddhism teaches us? It
teaches as a first principle to do no harm to any
living thing; it teaches mercy without limit, and
compassion without stint. Of the Burmese Buddhists
we read: “They learn how it is the noblest
duty of man, who is strong, to be kind and loving
to his weaker brothers, the animals.”</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p>

<p>Contrast with that the following, taken at
random from among my newspaper cuttings (it is
a paragraph from the <i>Morning Post</i>):</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p class="right"><i>June 14, 1904.</i></p>

<p>“The Carlisle Otter Hounds met at Longtown yesterday,
and had the best hunt that has taken place in the
Esk for fifty years. A splendid otter was put up at Red
Scaur, and for four hours he kept men, hounds, and
terriers at bay. He left the river several times for the
woods and rocks, and ran the woods as cunningly as a
fox. Eventually, when climbing a steep rock for a hole,
he fell back exhausted into the water, and the hounds
despatched him. His body was presented to Sir Richard
Graham.”</p>

</div>

<p>No thought of pity here for the poor wild
creature, hunted, harried, and remorselessly pursued
by men and hounds for four mortal hours&mdash;in
water, through woods, over rocks, ever flying
in all the agony of fear, till the last dregs of
strength are exhausted, and, on the very threshold
of the longed-for refuge, he falls, hopeless
and helpless, in the stream, where “the hounds
despatched him.” Such is a “grand otter hunt,”
the best that had taken place in the Esk for fifty
years! Truly we may smile at those holy men
of the Buddhists who carried bells on their shoes
in order to give warning as they walked to the
little creatures in the long grass; but for my part
I own that, upon the whole, I would far sooner
be classed with these poor sentimentalists, who
have seen in their hearts the coming of that
“milder day” for which the great poet who sang
of “Hartleap Well” so devoutly longed, than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
with that flower of muscular Christianity, the
stalwart Britisher, so distinguished for his love of
sport and his contempt for pain&mdash;his own
generally excepted!</p>

<p>How, then, stands this question of sport considered
as a question of ethics? A great German
thinker, as we all know, believed that he had
found the very basis of morality in the sacred
instinct of compassion. I will not argue whether
Schopenhauer was right or wrong in that contention,
but this, at any rate, we must all admit&mdash;namely,
that without compassion all our boasted
morality would be but as sounding brass and as
a tinkling cymbal. Nay, whether it be or be not
the basis of morality, this at least is true that,
without compassion, no morality worth having
could exist at all.</p>

<p>Let us listen for a moment to Rousseau on this
matter:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“Mandeville was right in thinking that, with all their
systems of morality, men would never have been anything
but monsters if Nature had not given them <i>compassion</i>
to support their reason; but he failed to see that
<i>from this one quality spring all the social virtues</i> which he
was unwilling to credit mankind with. In reality, what
is generosity, clemency, humanity, if not <i>compassion</i>,
applied to the weak, to the guilty, or to the human race
as a whole? Even benevolence and friendship, if we
look at the matter rightly, are seen to result from a constant
compassion, directed upon a particular object;
for to desire that someone should not suffer is nothing
else than to desire that he should be happy.… The
more closely the living spectator identifies himself
with the living sufferer, the more active does pity
become.”</p>

</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p>

<p>And again:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“How is it that we let ourselves be moved to pity if
not by getting out of our own consciousness, and becoming
identified with the living sufferer; by leaving, so
to say, our own being and entering into his? We do not
suffer except as we suppose he suffers; <i>it is not in us, it
is in him</i>, that we suffer.… Offer a young man objects
on which the expansive force of his heart can act&mdash;objects
such as may enlarge his nature, and incline it to
go out to other beings, in whom he may everywhere find
himself again. Keep carefully away those things which
narrow his view, and make him self-centred, and tighten
the strings of the <i>human ego</i>.”</p>

</div>

<p>It is upon this theme that Schopenhauer becomes
so eloquent, and with larger view even than
that of Rousseau, as it seems, he brings the lower
animals within the protection of his moral system.</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“There is nothing that revolts our moral sense so
much as cruelty. Every other offence we can pardon,
but not cruelty. The reason is found in the fact that
cruelty is the exact opposite of <i>compassion</i>&mdash;viz., the
direct participation, independent of all ulterior considerations,
in the sufferings of another, leading to sympathetic
assistance in the effort to prevent or remove
them; whereon, in the last resort, all satisfaction and
all well-being and happiness depend. It is this compassion
alone which is the real basis of all <i>voluntary</i> justice
and all <i>genuine</i> loving-kindness.… There is another
proof that the moral incentive disclosed by me is the
true one. I mean the fact that <i>animals</i> also are included
under its protecting ægis. In the other European
systems of ethics no place is found for them, strange and
inexcusable as this may appear. It is asserted that
beasts have no rights; the illusion is harboured that our
conduct, so far as they are concerned, has no moral
significance; or, as it is put in the language of these
codes, that there are no duties to be fulfilled towards<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
animals. Such a view is one of revolting coarseness&mdash;a
barbarism of the West.… Compassion for animals
is intimately connected with goodness of character, and
it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to
living creatures cannot be a good man.”<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>

</div>

<p>So wrote a young German philosopher some
seventy years ago; and all that has since happened
in the world of thought has but served to
strengthen his teaching as to our duty towards
the lower animals. For since he wrote science
and thought have become profoundly modified
by one of those epoch-making inductions which,
at very rare intervals, some great thinker is
inspired to make. We have seen the establishment
and the almost universal acceptance of the
doctrine of evolution, involving as one of its
corollaries the unity of life and the “universal
kinship” of man with his humbler brethren&mdash;or
cousins, if you will&mdash;of the animal world.</p>

<p>I venture, then, to offer this teaching for my
readers’ consideration. In its light I would ask
them to view these questions, and if they shall
think that that light is the light of reason and
truth, then to follow it wheresoever it may lead.
I do not think it will lead them to offer fresh
hecatombs upon the blood-stained altar of Sport.</p>

<div class="footnotes">

<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> One of the strongest objections to fox-hunting consists
in this, that each season must necessarily be preceded
(so at least we are told) by the barbarities of “cub-hunting.”
The slaughter of these poor little cubs is
cruel and pitiful work. Sometimes, too, a vixen falls a
victim to the hounds while her cubs are still dependent
on her for their food. No doubt an early ride on a fine
September or October morning is a pleasant thing, and
the “sportsman” need not know much about what goes
on in the coverts, or trouble himself to think about it!
But the fact remains that this is a miserable and cruel
form of “sport.” And what shall we say of the practice
of “digging out” a wretched fox when, perhaps
after a long run, he has sought refuge by “going to
ground”? Can anything be conceived more callous
or more cowardly? Yet educated, and, presumably,
thinking men, and women too&mdash;Heaven save the mark!&mdash;stand
by and enjoy the fun! Such is the debasing
effect of “sport” upon the human mind and character!</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> In the <i>Westminster Gazette</i> of August 15, 1908, a
woman wrote on “The Enchantments of the New
Forest,” and this is what she says: “Anyone with a drop
of sport-love in them, given a nag of some kind, will not
be a day in the forest before he finds himself chasing
some animal, alive or dead.” The sentiment is surely
even more deplorable than the grammar.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> It must in fairness be added that the article from
which the above extract is made was subsequently repudiated
by the editor as being “quite opposed to the
line which <i>The Field</i> has always taken.” It seems that
“by an oversight the article was inserted during the
absence of the departmental editor.” I quote it, nevertheless,
as showing that over twenty years ago the
truth as to this matter had dawned upon the mind of at
least one of the leader-writers of a great sporting paper.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Moreover, there is a sport which, as the Rev. J.
Stratton has pointed out, might well supersede rabbit-coursing&mdash;viz.,
whippet-racing. “It cannot be
pleaded,” he says, “that if we were to stop the coursing
of captured rabbits we should be unduly depriving workmen
of recreation, for ‘whippets’ could be employed
just as well in races as in chasing rabbits. Of the first
of these sports I can speak as an eye-witness. In
whippet-racing a course is formed, which is kept free
for the dogs by ropes on either side. At one end, men
have in hand the whippets that are about to compete,
and here stands the starter, holding his pistol. ‘Runners-up’
now come on to the course, carrying in their
hands a towel or scarf, and starting from the front of
the dogs, and frantically waving the article they hold,
and whistling, and calling to the animals, they begin to
run towards the far end of the course, where the winning-line
is marked out and the judge has taken up his post.
When the right moment has arrived, the pistol is fired,
and the whippets are liberated, and commence to travel
the course with the speed of the wind, the ‘runners-up’
always getting well beyond the winning-point before the
dogs overtake them, in order that the latter may pass it
at their utmost pace. It is altogether a remarkable
sight, and had I never seen the thing, I could not have
believed that the little dogs would enter into the contest
with the ardour they do.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> My quotations are from Mr. A. B. Bullock’s translation
of “The Basis of Morality,” see pp. 170, 208, 218.</p>

</div>

</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p>

<h2><a name="SPORT_AND_AGRICULTURE" id="SPORT_AND_AGRICULTURE"></a>SPORT AND AGRICULTURE</h2>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By EDWARD CARPENTER</span></p>

<p>It has frequently been pointed out that the
enthusiasm for “sport” is the relic of a very
primitive instinct in man. In that sense it is
quite natural. In early days the sheer necessity
of pursuing and killing animals for food, or of
hunting down and destroying beasts of prey, must
have become very deeply ingrained; and the
satisfaction of that need became an instinctive
pleasure, so much so that oftentimes nowadays
the pleasure remains, though the need has long
disappeared.</p>

<p>In the village where I live there is a countryman
of a very primitive type, who goes almost mad
with excitement when the hunt is out. Though
over forty years of age, he has been known more
than once to leave his horses with the plough in
the field and career wildly after the hounds for
two or three hours on end, careless of what might
happen to his deserted team. At the public-house
afterwards in the evening he recounts in a
shrill voice every detail of the “find” or the
“kill.” “Talk about your oratorios and concerts,”
he shouts, “<i>there’s no music, I say, like the
’ounds</i>!” On one occasion when the hunt was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
baffled by the fox getting into a narrow cleft in
some rocks, and with the fall of evening the
hounds had to be drawn off, this man positively
remained on the spot, watching, all night; and
when the huntsmen returned in the morning with
a terrier, he followed the terrier as far as ever he
could&mdash;head and shoulders&mdash;into the hole, helped
the dog to clutch the fox, and all three&mdash;dog, fox,
and man&mdash;suddenly freed, rolled together down
the steep cliff-side into a stream below! Such is
the force of the old instinct, and the story helps
one to realise the strange conditions of sheer
necessity under which primitive man lived, though
in the light of actual life and the present day it is
ludicrous enough, even if not revolting in its
ferocity.</p>

<p>So far from there being any necessity in this
case to rid the country-side from a beast of prey,
it is quite probable that the fox in question had
been imported from Germany&mdash;as a certain number
undoubtedly are&mdash;simply in order to provide
a country squire’s holiday! A French lady, herself
very fond of riding, told me lately that in her
native Burgundy foxes are still very numerous,
and have to be hunted down in consequence of
the damage they do; but when I informed her that
our foxes are largely “made in Germany,” and
brought over in order to do artificial damage and
so be artificially hunted, she laughed almost
hysterically&mdash;as surely she was entitled to do.</p>

<p>There is this futile artificiality about almost all
our “sport.” It is one thing to sit all night in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
the lower branches of a spreading tree just outside
some little Indian village, in order to get a chance
of shooting the dangerous man-eating tiger as he
comes forth from the jungle, and quite another to
pot tame pheasants at the corner of a wood, or
half-tame grouse as they fly over the “battery”
in which you (and a gamekeeper) are safely
ensconced. The pheasants have been reared
under a barnyard hen and fed by hand till they
are as tame as fowls, and the grouse can only be
persuaded to fly to the guns by a quarter-mile-long
line of “drivers,” who with much shouting
and waving of flags compel them to rise from the
heather. The gamekeeper gets his guinea tip,
and you in return get the credit of a large bag
secured by his kind assistance! The force of
humbug could no further go. The truth is, all this
modern “sport” is a simple playing at hunting
and shooting.</p>

<p>And if it were merely playing, though it might
be somewhat laughable, there would be no need
to protest. But, unfortunately, there are two
serious considerations involved, which are by no
means “play” to those concerned. One (which
has been touched on elsewhere) is the needless
cruelty to the animals; the other is the serious
ruin of our agriculture and detriment to our
farm populations.</p>

<p>The damage done by fox-hunting to fences and
crops is obvious enough to everyone. But there
are other complications. In a hunting district
the tenants far and wide are invited to find homes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
for the puppies which are being reared for the
replenishment of the pack. It is an ungrateful
task. The puppy is a pest on the farm; it is in
everybody’s way, and it has its muzzle eternally
in the milk-buckets. Its board and lodging are
not paid for; but&mdash;oh, gracious compensation!&mdash;the
farmers who “walk puppies” are given a
dinner at the end of the puppy-rearing season, and
get their chance of a prize for the best exhibited.
Partly in consideration of these favours, but more
because they do not want to offend the gentry in
general or their own landlords in particular, the
tenants put up with these obnoxious additions to
their households. Furthermore, as foxes must
on no account be killed by private hands, even
though they are constantly raiding the farmyards,
the owners of the hunt offer compensation for
fowls killed or wounded, as they also, of course,
do for fences and crops damaged.</p>

<p>But what a situation for any self-respecting
farmer! To see a tribe of “gentlemen and
ladies” tearing over his land and making havoc
of his new-sown wheat, to find half a dozen fowls
some morning with their heads bitten off, to have
his wife at her work tumbling over an intruding
puppy&mdash;and then to have to go, cap in hand, to
ask for compensation for all these things! What
an unworthy position for him to be in, and how
galling to think that his life-work and the very
dignity of his profession are so lightly regarded,
or that the loss of them can be counted as easily
atoned for by a few shillings.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Growing Grouse.</span></h3>

<p>As to the grouse moors, the damage done to
agriculture and to the popular interest in connection
with them&mdash;though it might not appear
obvious at first&mdash;is very considerable. A hundred
years ago the moors in my neighbourhood&mdash;as in
many other parts of the country&mdash;were common
lands. The people had rights of pasture over
them for their cattle and sheep, they kept down
the rabbits, using the latter largely for food, and
they were able to grow farm crops up to the very
edge of the heather. To-day these same lands&mdash;enclosed
on the plea of public benefit!&mdash;are given
over to grouse. The rabbits have become to a
great extent the gamekeepers’ perquisites, and
very valuable “perks” too. They are allowed to
swarm, and consequently they not only destroy
what pasturage there is on the moors, but, penetrating
into the farms along the moor edges, they
damage very seriously the cereal and other crops.
I know places where I am credibly informed that
a hundred years ago oats were commonly grown,
but which now are quite impossible for such a
purpose. And&mdash;such is the sway of the institution&mdash;young
farmers desiring to shoot the
rabbits on their own tenancies are looked askance
at and discouraged from doing so for fear they
might possibly bag a brace of grouse! When we
consider the well-known expense involved in
rearing and shooting these sacred birds, and at the
same time the damage, just described, to ordinary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
agriculture, we have again a sad picture of the
prevailing futility. On some farms&mdash;especially, I
believe, in Devonshire&mdash;where grouse are not concerned,
but where rabbit-shooting is a favourite
recreation of the landlord class&mdash;the spinneys and
copses are allowed to become so infested with
bunnies that general farming is greatly paralyzed
in consequence.</p>

<p>Indirectly in a similar way does pheasant-shooting
lead to agricultural damage. In the
present day&mdash;partly out of fear of Lloyd George
and all his works&mdash;the tendency of landowners is
to sell and make ready money from the old oak
and other timber in their woods, and by planting
plentiful spruce and fir to turn the plantations into
pheasant covers. The number of gamekeepers
charged with preserving these plantations multiplies,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>
and <i>their</i> idea of duty consists in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
destruction of any and every winged and four-footed
creature that might possibly be harmful
to the pheasants or their eggs. It would probably
surprise the reader to have a complete list
of such&mdash;and I do not presume to supply it&mdash;but
it includes hawks and owls of various kinds, jays,
magpies, stoats, weasels, and even the beautiful
and probably innocent squirrel. All these fall
victims to the gun or the trap, and, needless to
say, the balance of Nature is seriously upset in
many directions. For our purpose here we need
only point out the consequent and ruinous swarming
of mice and sparrows. The destruction of
hawks and owls in particular has led to this
result. Clouds of sparrows, ever multiplying,
occupy the hedgerows and descend upon the cornfields
as soon as ever the corn is ripe, doing countless
damage&mdash;to which the mice contribute their
share. No one who has not witnessed it with his
own eyes could believe the loss to the farmer
from this cause alone. And again we are struck
with the foolishness which allows this to go on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
merely for the sake of breeding tame birds for the
guns of very tame sportsmen.</p>

<p>The pheasant is a very beautiful bird, and if
allowed to breed in our woods under natural
conditions, would hold its own in a modest way,
and with the other denizens of the woodlands,
the squirrels and the jays and the owls and the
hawks, would render these places really interesting
and delightful resorts. It seems sad that all
these animal possibilities should be destroyed
for the sake of what is often little more than
human brag and bag! As an instance of the
unintelligent way in which these things are
worked, it may be mentioned that even that
stately bird, the heron, is a mark for, and is
commonly shot down by, the gamekeeper. And
why? Because, forsooth! it not unfrequently
feeds upon <i>trout</i>. The trout is a sacred fish, and
therefore the glorious heron must be shot!
Whether the gamekeeper wars upon the kingfisher
for the same reason I do not know. But
it seems quite possible that he does, for beauty
and rarity are no defence.</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Pheasant or Peasant?</span></h3>

<p>There is another aspect of the subject which
must not be passed over. To-day the small-holding
question is coming very much to the fore.
The splendid results obtained by a combination
of small farms and agricultural co-operation,
already conspicuous in Denmark, and coming<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
into sight in Ireland, are strongly urging us in
England in the same direction. A large multiplication
of small-holders, with facilities for their
combined action and co-operation, is to-day the
one promising outlook for British agriculture.
Yet it is notorious that the County Councils are
much more inclined to hinder than to help this
movement. And why? There may be different
reasons; but undoubtedly one of the most powerful
is&mdash;sport. It is obvious that a population of
small holders&mdash;particularly if associated and
combined&mdash;would form a very serious obstacle
to the latter. A squire with three or four farms
under him, of 500 acres each, can easily make
terms with his tenants, and persuade or compel
them to favour the hunting and shooting; but
what would he do with fifty small-holders? It
would be a very different pair of shoes, and he
would have to walk (like Agag) somewhat
delicately. The compensations, and the obstructions,
and the complications generally, would
bring the old order to an end.</p>

<p>Thus we come very clearly, I think, to a certain
parting of the ways in the matter of our agricultural
future in this country. It all comes to this:
Are we going to continue for ever playing at the
land question&mdash;that question whose vitality and
importance we daily more and more perceive&mdash;or
are we going to be serious about it? We cannot
take both ways. On the one hand, we have the
Scottish Highlands depopulated for the sake of
deer; we have English farms more or less ravaged,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
and farmers terrorised for the sake of fox-hunting;
we have grouse-moors and pheasant-covers, with
their concomitant evils, let to rich Americans
and titled grocers; and, on the other hand we
<i>may</i> have a real live agriculture and a brisk independent
rural population. We cannot have
both. If we retain the present system&mdash;conducing,
no doubt, to a healthy schoolboy type
of squire&mdash;it means a downcast, stupefied, unenterprising
peasantry. If we turn seriously to
the re-establishment of agriculture, and of a real
live, manly population on the land, that will
undoubtedly mean the abandonment of a good
deal that goes by the name of sport.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>

<p>The time grows short, for indeed anxious problems
lie in the near future before this country,
and a choice has to be made&mdash;a choice that may
have a good deal to do with the position of
England in the world. The country-sides have
got to stop playing at rural life, and to take it
up seriously. Nor, after all, would the abandonment
of sport as the chief object of the country<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
gentleman’s existence mean the abandonment
or discouragement of all wild life. Rather the
contrary. We all in these over-civilised times
appreciate the value and importance of wild
nature; and however effective and widespread
we may make our agriculture, we shall surely also
demand the establishment of extensive natural
reserves for all kinds of free plants and creatures.
We have seen that “sport” is not really favourable
to wild nature life, but only to some very
artificial and limited forms. With the abandonment
of sport in its present shape, it is possible
that the landowners of the future&mdash;whether
private individuals or public bodies&mdash;will turn
their attention to the making of splendid nature-resorts
in wood and mountain and moor, where
every kind of creature may have free access and
free play, unharmed by man, and open to his
friendly companionship and sympathetic study.</p>

<div class="footnotes">

<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> The following is quoted from Mr. Lloyd George’s
speech at Bedford (October, 1913):</p>

<p>“In 1851 you had in this country 9,000 gamekeepers;
in 1911 there were 23,000. During that period the
number of labourers on the soil went down by 600,000.
The number of gamekeepers went up by 250 per cent.,
and the number of labourers down by 600,000. Pick
up a copy of the <i>Field</i> and look at the advertisements
there, and you will realise the extent of the evil. Here
is one advertising shooting rights for estates where last
year 5,000 pheasants were shot. Here is a sportsman
who advertises 1,000 acres, with coverts to hold 7,000
rabbits on his estate. You try a small holding <i>there</i>!
Agriculture has had a bad time. It has had to pass
through a time of great crisis. What would have been
done in any other trade if it had to face the difficulties
which agriculture had? A great capitalist would have
introduced new machinery, got the best labour, and
would have put the whole of his energy, brain, and enterprise
into restoring that industry. He would have gone,
if necessary, for years without any return, and at last
he would have pulled through. That is what has happened
in many industries in this country. What has
happened here? What has the great capitalist done in
agriculture? He has trebled the number of his gamekeepers,
he has put land out of cultivation, he has increased
enormously the number of pheasants which have
been turned on to the land.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> See the “Report of the Land Enquiry Committee,”
vol. i., 1913, which in its chapter on “Game” contains
a severe condemnation of the practice of excessive game
preserving. “The damage done by game is too serious
to be overlooked. Even when the tenant farmer is fully
compensated the damage amounts to a national loss.…
Not merely is land under-cultivated, but large
areas are altogether out of cultivation owing to the preservation
of game. This land, instead of providing food
for the people, provides sport and delicacies for the few,
and is the source of much damage and annoyance to
neighbouring farmers.”</p>

</div>

</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>

<h2><a name="THE_COST_OF_SPORT" id="THE_COST_OF_SPORT"></a>THE COST OF SPORT</h2>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By MAURICE ADAMS</span></p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“Now Dives daily feasted and was gorgeously arrayed,</div>
<div class="verse">Not at all because he liked it, but because ’twas good for trade;</div>
<div class="verse">That the people might have calico, he clothed himself in silk,</div>
<div class="verse">And surfeited himself on cream, that they might get the milk;</div>
<div class="verse">He fed five hundred servants, that the poor might not lack bread,</div>
<div class="verse">And had his vessels made of gold that they might get more lead:</div>
<div class="verse">And e’en to show his sympathy with the deserving poor,</div>
<div class="verse">He did no useful work himself that they might do the more.”</div>
<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Ernest Bilton.</span></p>
</div>
</div>

<p>In a tract entitled “Sport, A National Benefactor,”
dedicated to the sportsmen of the nation,
Mr. Henry R. Sargent gives elaborate statistics to
prove that large sums of money are devoted to the
maintenance of sport, while about £25,000,000
are annually spent upon it. Of this amount he
estimates that wages absorb some £6,000,000.
Rents of shootings and fishings, and the price of
race-horses, come to £5,500,000, which sum, though
“going principally to the upper classes, is recirculated
in various ways,” while, “except the
few pounds paid for dead horses, we have from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
hunting, shooting, and racing, over £6,000,000 a
year paid for oats, meal, hay, straw, beans, and
bran; and let it be understood that it is all British
produce. No infernal foreign stuff is given to our
hounds or horses, though we may eat it ourselves,
and thus encourage Free Trade&mdash;that curse of our
country.”</p>

<p>After we have thus been shown “what a
gigantic medium sport is for the circulation of
money&mdash;the vertebræ (<i>sic</i>) of our common weal,”
we are not surprised that “to these facts and
figures, which no sophistry can dispute and no
method of statement darken,” Mr. Sargent should
“draw the attention alike of sportsmen, prigs,
prudes, and the public,” and should “invite the
consideration of Radicals and Socialists” to the
subject. For he continues gravely:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> “Let these
political step-brethren ponder well before they
strive to injure the classes who maintain our
sports. Let them recognise the fact that as a
universal benefactor in bringing to the poor the
rich man’s money, a substitute for sport can never
be found. These revolutionists should also assure
themselves of the fact that never can they devise
a system which will carry out the principles of
Communism as practically and universally as that
which has always been adopted by our resident
landlords. Be it £5,000, £20,000, or £100,000 a
year, which may be focussed in the one individual,
he spends it all among the community. Yet
these are the men who are marked for destruction
by the Radical, the Socialist, and the Anarchist;
and not the landlords alone, but all moneyed men,
no matter of what class.”</p>

<p>It is small wonder, then, that the heart within
him is grieved when he thinks of those bold bad
men, the agitators, for they, he informs us tearfully,
“as a rule, dislike the upper classes,” while
those pre-eminently wicked men, the land agitators,
to a man, “hate them with ferocity.” It
was to gratify that hatred, as our author is assured,
“and not so much to benefit either the land
tenants or crofters, that agitation has been got up
in Ireland and Scotland.”</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“In Ireland hunting was attacked, as was openly
avowed, to drive the landlords out of the country, but
happily hunting is as strong there as ever, except in
Waterford; and although they be not so well off as formerly,
we still have the landlords. In Scotland the same
game is being played by the agitators. Although they
strive to hide the motive under the kilt of the crofter,
they have no desire but to injure the landlords through
means of attacking the shooting. Hunting was also
assailed by other parties, in alleging that cruelty was
practised by hunting carted deer! An outcry is also
raised for the tourists, that in pursuit of their vocation
they are, forsooth, to be allowed to disturb the Highland
forests, and so scare away the wild red-deer, animals
which the agitators know well cannot abide the sight
of a human being, much less the slightest noise. What
do agitators care for tourists, anyway? Then comes
this raid upon racing. Of a truth, therefore, it is high
time that all sportsmen, from the peer to the pantry-boy,
should coalesce and defend themselves in organised
phalanx against those who, with intolerance and impertinence,
gratuitously assail us.”</p>

</div>

<p>For just consider the money spent on racing,
and the number of men employed. Some 8,000<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
young men, says Mr. Sargent, “are employed in the
racing stables of the kingdom&mdash;a number equal
to that of more than ten regiments of the line.”</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“When we come to consider what has been spent upon
the stables at Newmarket, and other places … the
amount becomes absolutely appalling! The sum has to
be counted in thousands&mdash;and it runs into millions&mdash;all
of which is spent in labour and material. As do the
other branches of sport which I have dealt with, racing
sends money flowing from the rich to the poor man’s
pocket, but at the same time nearly all classes derive
monetary benefit through this special branch of sport.”</p>

</div>

<p>One seems to have heard something of gambling
at races, but our author tells us that “it is the
misfortune of racing, and not its fault, that
betting should be connected with it,” but he holds
that “to stop gambling on the Turf, which has
existed from time immemorial, is an impossibility:
so no one need attempt to do so.” With the true
democratic feeling engendered by the “principle
of Communism” animating sport, he asserts that
“no man abhors gambling more than I do, and
I would, if I could, put a stop upon the shop-boys
and humble classes indulging in the vice, but I
would let the others do as they choose.” For the
author is sure that “to interfere with any old-established
institution which is working well is a
most dangerous thing.” “God knows,” he exclaims
in despair,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> “what would be the result, if
these latter-day saints, who are now on the prowl,
were to succeed in their attempt to interfere with
racing, even if only so far as betting is concerned.”</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Giving Employment.</span></h3>

<p>The pamphlet from which the foregoing extracts
have been taken is not, as one might imagine, a
huge joke, nor is it a sly attempt to pour ridicule
upon sport. It was published by the Sporting
League&mdash;on the executive committee of which we
find the names of many noble lords and distinguished
commoners&mdash;apparently with the
serious intention of furthering the fifth of the
League’s praiseworthy objects&mdash;“Generally to do
whatever may from time to time seem advisable
for counteracting the pernicious influence of
‘faddists.’” It seems that we can hardly reckon
a sense of humour among the many “inestimable
benefits” that sport bestows on its devotees,
however much food for laughter the publications
of the League may give to “faddists” and the
public.</p>

<p>Although this tract was published some years
ago, its arguments have not deteriorated with
age, since we find them essentially reproduced in
an address delivered in November, 1908, at the
Surveyors’ Institute, by the President, Mr.
Howard Martin, and commented on with approval
by <i>The Field</i>. Mr. Martin, like the author of the
tract, seriously insists on the great benefits which
agriculture and business derive from fox-hunting.
He estimates that on the upkeep of hunters
£3,500,000 a year are spent. Shooting also involves
a large outlay for the feeding and rearing
of birds, and attracts much cash to the pockets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
of residents in the country. And, further, the
prosperity due to sport radiates in all directions.
Not merely farmers and farm-hands, but local innkeepers,
country fly-drivers, and village shopkeepers
share in the stream of wealth which sport
pours forth over the country. There are even
tips for the inn-servants and the porters at the
railway-stations! Indeed, Mr. Martin declared
that he had taken great pains to get at reliable
facts and figures on which to ground his arguments,
and his conclusion was that not only did
hunting and the preservation of foxes generally
benefit agricultural districts, but that hunting
and the exercise of shooting rights indirectly
benefited the country at large “by checking rural
depopulation.” <i>The Field</i> is not unmindful of
the rich physical and moral gains which the gamekeepers,
beaters, and others ministering to sport,
derive from a shooting-party. “They are all of
them fond of sport; they like to see birds well
killed, they enjoy the pick-up, they enjoy (a
matter of no little moment) a good beaters’ lunch,
they like a good glass of ale at the close of the day,
and are better off in mind and pocket for a few
hours which interrupt the routine of their ordinary
life like a holiday.”</p>

<p>It is amusing to note how largely the anti-Budget
protests of the distressed Dukes and other
wealthy persons were based on the egregious fallacy
that “giving employment” is conducive to
the welfare of the community, without regard to
the character of the employment given. Nothing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
for instance, could be more absurd than the
remarks made by Lord Londonderry on August 23,
1909, and solemnly reported in <i>The Times</i>:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“What was his position if he had to curtail his expenditure,
as he was told by his Radical friends that he
must do? The great interest in the property to him
was the shooting and gardens, which gave employment
to a large number of men. Could it be said that these
two enjoyments were to him absolutely selfish? He
was able to send out large consignments of game as
presents, and was also able to benefit those out of employment
in times of depression. Therefore that
amusement was not a selfish one.”</p>

</div>

<p>The fact that Lord Londonderry’s shooting gives
employment to a large number of persons is in
truth its greatest condemnation; for though the
individuals employed may be glad of the work,
the community loses by the waste of time, labour,
and money involved in such a perfectly futile
occupation as that of game-preserving, in which
every pheasant killed has cost far more than its
own food-value.</p>

<p>Here, again, is a delightful extract from a
sporting paper, October 6, 1909:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“Rearing of pheasants is a very costly matter, and
one which I anticipate will be seriously curtailed in the
near future if this so-called ‘Working Man’s Budget’
is passed. County gentlemen will be very hardly hit
if this iniquitous Bill becomes law, and they will consequently
have to effect economies in every direction.
One of the very first will be in reducing their shootings,
or in giving up rearing birds altogether. Pheasants
which are hand-reared cost about 4s. each to feed,
from start to finish. Thus it is easy to understand what
sums of money find their way into farmers’ and tradesme<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>n’s
pockets for the purchase of food alone, for hundreds
of thousands of pheasants all over the kingdom
have to be fed for months every year. The money
which is expended one way or another over shooting is
quite enormous, for it must be remembered that, in
addition to the purchase of eggs and food, there are
wages, clothes, and fuel for keepers; there are also endless
expenses in connection with rearing. When the
shooting commences, there are beaters at 2s. 6d. and 3s.
per day, with meat, bread, cheese, and beer. And there
is the expense of hospitality to guests. Take it all in
all, the old saying that each pheasant shot costs, one
way and another, a guinea, is not far wrong.</p>

<p>“Now, who benefits from all this? The poor owner
certainly does not, for it is all pay, pay, pay with him,
and if he does sell his surplus birds, he will only get
back 2s. to 2s. 6d. a bird. But the public gets the
benefit, for they can purchase these costly-reared birds
for the price of chickens. One day those people, the
farmers, tradesmen, working-classes, and labourers, will
wake up to what they have lost, when they find the
country house shut up, and shooting, as it used to be, a
thing of the past.”</p>

</div>

<p>No doubt all these crumbs of blessing fall from
the rich man’s pocket on the happy gamekeepers,
beaters, and others who are employed by a shooting-party.
No doubt the country lads, servants,
and porters rejoice in the tips they receive. Much
money is spent on sport, and a great deal of it
finds its way as wages and gratuities into the
pockets of dependents, but to contend seriously
that sport checks depopulation is ludicrous. It
is an insult to our intelligence to argue that the
country is more prosperous and supports a larger
population when the land is portioned out in great
estates, many of which are only farmed to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
degree necessary to keep the game on the land;
when the people are driven from the country-side
into the town; when in Scotland whole counties
have been cleared of inhabitants in order to form
vast deer forests for the sport of a few rich men.</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">The Reality.</span></h3>

<p>Of the 56,000,000 acres in Great Britain something
less than 15,000,000 are actually cultivated,
although there are 35,000,000 acres of cultivable
land. Thirty years ago there were more than
2,000,000 agricultural labourers in Great Britain,
but in 1907 they had decreased to 1,311,000. In
the same year there were more than 17,000,000
acres of pasture. In “Fields, Factories, and
Workshops,” Prince Kropotkin estimates that the
soil of the United Kingdom would produce enough
food for 24,000,000 people, instead of for only
17,000,000 as at present, if it were cultivated as
thoroughly as it was only thirty-five years ago,
while if it were cultivated as thoroughly as Belgium
it would produce enough to feed 37,000,000.</p>

<p>Take, again, the question of Afforestation.
The Report of the Royal Commission, issued on
January 15, 1909, is a most important paper in
many ways. Of special interest are the references
made by the Commissioners to the responsibility
of blood-sports for much of the bad condition of
our woodlands.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
<div class="blockquote">

<p>“Considerations of sport have played an important
part in determining the method of management of our
woods. Clean boles, with high-pitched crowns, the
exclusion of the sun’s rays, and ground destitute of grass,
weeds, and bushes, are not conditions favourable to either
ground or winged game. On the contrary, trees that
are semi-isolated, and with low-reaching branches, and
a wood that is full of bracken, brambles, and similar
undergrowth, present conditions much more attractive
to the sportsman, and it is these conditions that many
landowners have arranged to secure. Ground game,
too, has been the cause of immense destruction amongst
the young trees, and thus it has, in a measure, directly
brought about that condition of under-stocking which
is so inimical to the growth of good timber and to the
successful results of forestry. Nor is it possible in the
presence of even a moderate head of ground game to
secure natural regeneration of woodlands, the young
seedling trees being nibbled over almost as soon as they
appear above ground. So intimate is the association in
the United Kingdom between sport and forestry that
even on an estate that is considered to possess some of
the best-managed woods in England, the sylvicultural
details have to be accommodated to the hunting and
shooting, and trees must be taken down in different
places to make cover for foxes, and so on.”</p>

</div>

<p>If, then, the land of our country, instead of
lying almost idle or in permanent pasture interspersed
with parks and copses as cover for game,
or left desolate as moor and deer forest, were
covered with the small farms of prosperous
peasants, like Belgium or Denmark, and the more
rugged and uncultivable districts turned into
national forests giving regular and healthy employment
to large numbers of men, would not far
better results be obtained, even from the purely
economic point of view? <i>Now</i> we have a few
gamekeepers and beaters, a few grooms, jockeys,
stablemen, and horse-dealers, and other dependents<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
of the sportsmen, and a few farmers,
breeding horses and growing fodder for them,
while the labourers are turned out of their native
village for want of work and house-room, and
drift into the already overcrowded and hideous
towns which daily absorb more and more of the
country, or are even forced to leave their native
land altogether and seek a livelihood in lands
beyond the sea, free, as yet, from the blessings of
sport; <i>then</i> we should have some millions of free
men earning an honest living in healthful surroundings,
and producing a thousandfold more
wealth for themselves than is distributed by the
aristocrats and plutocrats, who, according to the
protagonist of the Sporting League, so fully
“carry out the principles of Communism.”</p>

<p>But it is surely needless to labour the point.
The arguments of the economic defenders of sport
are so grotesque that it is difficult to believe that
a sensible man of business like Mr. Martin can
really be in earnest in his advocacy of sport as a
means of finding employment for the people.</p>

<p>But sports, and especially blood-sports, are not
only defended on the ground that they give
employment, circulate money, and confer other
economic advantages on an ungrateful nation.
As <i>The Field</i> contends, there are “assets which
cannot be calculated in shillings and pence,” and
the author of our entertaining tract challenges
those “who, with the bigotry characteristic of all
faddists,” attack the chasing of hares and foxes,
or the worship of the sacred bird, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> “look at the
matter straight and see what inestimable benefit
sport is to the nation. Should we ever lose our
love for sport,” he continues, “or be prevented
indulging it, we shall assuredly lose our manliness,
and very likely our wealth, and then what will
become of the nation?”</p>

<p>The word “sport” is a very loose and indefinite
word. It covers all kind of healthful and innocent
exercises as well as hunting, shooting, and racing.
No one doubts that an open-air life is a natural
and healthy life; that running and riding, and
swimming and sailing, and other outdoor exercises
and games, are good both for mind and body;
but the “moral and intellectual damages” of all
blood-sports are a very serious set-off against any
physical advantages they may have.</p>

<p>A staunch defender of sport was once dwelling&mdash;in
debate&mdash;on the glories of a day with the
hounds, and describing how a ride across country
in the fresh frosty air swept the cobwebs from the
brain of the jaded city man and sent the blood
coursing healthily through his veins. He was
met by the rejoinder that all these advantages
could be got by a gallop over the downs, or, at
any rate, by a “drag” hunt. “Ah, but that’s
not all,” he cried, “one must have the zest of
running down and killing an animal, and thus
satisfying a natural instinct.” The reply that
such an instinct was an echo of primeval savagery,
and just one of those which hinder the upward
progress of the race&mdash;one, also, more completely
gratified by the butcher or the slaughter-man&mdash;only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
provoked the anger of the sportsman, and
failed to shake his rooted belief in the blessings of
sport.</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“Ah, Sport is the pride of the nation!</div>
<div class="verse indent2">It made Britons the men that they be;</div>
<div class="verse">It does good to the whole population,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And knows neither class nor degree.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p class="noindent">This doggerel, with which Mr. Sargent concludes
his tract on sport, encourages the notion that
blood-sports develop manliness, and that if
Englishmen ceased to ride to hounds, to hunt the
hare or otter, or shoot the pheasant and partridge,
they would become effeminate. This superstition
ought surely to have received its death-blow
by the events of the Russo-Japanese war.
When we hear of the rice-eating, gentle Japanese,
who prefer taming wild creatures by kindness to
shooting or mangling them, performing prodigies
of valour apparently quite beyond the capacity of
the fiercer nations of the West, it is surely time
to revise our conceptions of what true courage is,
and how it is nurtured.</p>

<p>And any manliness which might be nurtured by
sport is steadily being reduced to a minimum.
The author of our ingenuous tract descants, indeed,
on the hardships endured by fox-hunters, grouse-shooters,
and deer-stalkers, but says nothing of
the noble sportsmen who merely wait till the
pheasants are driven past them, to slaughter them
at their ease as fast as loaded guns can be handed
them, or of those who find a manly pastime in
shooting pigeons let loose from cages. Shall we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
form a high opinion of the manly virtues of
the well-to-do cowards who chase tame stags,
or of the low-class ruffians who let frightened
and dazed rabbits out of bags for a hopeless
run for life before savage dogs? The insensibility
which delights in seeing a fox torn to
pieces by hounds, or which feels no pain when that
excessively sensitive and timorous creature, the
hare, is seen dropping from exhaustion with a
pack of harriers in full cry on its track, is not an
element of true manliness, but a survival from a
pre-human state. In the savage state the mighty
hunter was a hero because he bravely risked his
life for the defence of wife and child against
strong and fierce beasts that might else have
devoured them, or endured toil and hardship, and
encountered danger in the search for food and
clothing. But in England to-day hunting is an
anachronism, which survives only because land-monopoly,
and an unjust distribution of the
national inheritance, have led our “splendid barbarians,”
in the absence of the need for work,
through the pressure of social distinctions, and
the want of higher mental development, to seek
release from boredom and fill up an aimless life by
the indulgence and artificial stimulation of subhuman
instincts.</p>

<p>Even those sports which, like cricket and football,
take the form of health-giving games in the
open air, and may really help to develop manliness,
are to a large extent spoiled by the rise of professionalism
and gambling. The great crowds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
which assemble to see other men engage in the
hazardous game of football, and to exercise themselves
merely in betting on the players, are being
trained neither in manliness nor morals. We
should indeed do all in our power to cultivate
manliness, but it must be the quality which truly
answers to the name; a fortitude capable of enduring
hardships without whining, and a deliberate
human courage which realises the danger, and
consciously and resolutely faces it, not the mere
brute fearlessness of animal excitement, insensibility,
and stupidity.</p>

<p>It behoves all, therefore, who have the interest
of humanity at heart, and are striving to help it
on its upward way, to set themselves resolutely
against blood-sports in any form, as a relic of
savagery and an enemy to true manliness, and to
endeavour to dissociate manly and health-giving
sports from gambling, and to abolish the professional.
To do all this effectively we must work
for the abolition of the parasitic classes; we must
strive to give all a share in the national inheritance,
and such an education, mental, moral, and
physical, as may fit them for the work of life, and
for a wise and healthy use of the increased leisure
in which all should share.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>




<h2><a name="THE_ECONOMICS_OF_HUNTING" id="THE_ECONOMICS_OF_HUNTING"></a>THE ECONOMICS OF HUNTING</h2>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By W. H. S. MONCK</span></p>

<p>It is often maintained that hunting, whatever
objections may be raised to it on grounds of
humanity, is beneficial to the public. The
reasoning by which it is sought to establish this
thesis reminds one of that by which Dr. Mandeville
endeavoured to prove that private vices
were public benefits; but it is proposed in this
article to examine the subject more fully. Cruel
sports, generally speaking, are not, I believe,
public benefits, even from the pecuniary point of
view; but as the grounds for this assertion are not
the same in all instances, they cannot all be dealt
with in a single article. Nor do I propose in the
present instance to deal with all sports that come
under the head of hunting. I shall confine myself
to hunting animals with hounds, the men and
women who participate in the sport being usually
mounted.</p>

<p>Labour generally may be referred economically
to the two heads of productive and unproductive.
It is productive if it produces more than the cost
of the labourer’s maintenance (taking his past
maintenance preparatory to his work into consideration),
and unproductive if it produces less.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
And in general there is an objection to employing
labour in a less productive manner than it might
otherwise be employed. A great author or a
great statesman might be able to earn more than
his bread by breaking stones on a road, but
everyone would regard forcibly employing him
in this manner as a waste of labour. Horse-labour
and even dog-labour may be similarly
regarded; or, to put it otherwise, the labour of
every horse and every dog represents a certain
amount of human labour which must be regarded
as usefully employed or as wasted, according to
the work which the horse or dog does. If I set
a horse to draw a big stone to the top of a hill
and then down again, everyone would regard this
amount of horse-labour as wasted; but it would
be different if the same horse were employed in
drawing stones to the site of a building where they
were required. And in estimating the productiveness
or unproductiveness of labour in any given
case, we must have regard to the value of what
it produces to society in general, and not merely
to the amount which the labourer receives for
producing it. One might earn £100 by walking
a mile in the shortest period on record without
producing anything of the slightest utility to
mankind.</p>

<p>Human labour, however, in a country like this,
is capable of producing more than is required to
feed and clothe the population and to supply
them with fire and shelter. There remains a
surplus which may be devoted to mental improvement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
or to any innocent recreation. Recreation
must be regarded as a good thing, and labour
employed in producing recreation cannot be regarded
as absolutely unproductive. It may,
however, be unproductive in the wider sense in
which I have used the term&mdash;viz., the value of
the product does not suffice to pay for the maintenance
of the labourers. I mean, of course,
the value of the labour <i>to society</i>. Those who
employ it, I presume, consider it worth what they
expend on it&mdash;<i>to themselves</i>. But they might be
of a different opinion if they had less money to
expend.</p>

<p>Turning then to our recreations, I think I
may lay down in the first instance that the best
recreations are those in which the largest number
of persons can participate. And it is more
especially desirable that the working-classes
should participate in them, for the man who
spends most of his available time at hard labour
stands in much greater need of recreation than
the man or woman who has little or nothing to do&mdash;whose
ordinary life, perhaps, includes more
recreation (or, at least, idleness) than labour.
But working men cannot afford to keep or to
hire horses, and seldom possess any skill in horsemanship;
and if one of them did happen to
obtain a mount and was able to ride successfully,
his presence at a hunt would be resented as an
intrusion. Hunts are recreations for the wealthy
classes only, and this mainly results from their
expensiveness. The poor could not join in a hunt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
without paying more than they could afford to
pay. But money always represents labour, and
an expensive recreation means a recreation on
which a large amount of labour has been expended
without any useful result except this
recreation.</p>

<p>In these last remarks I have anticipated the
next condition of a good recreation&mdash;viz., that
the expenditure of labour on it should be small.
The more labour we can spare from recreation for
works of more abiding utility, the better. But
hunting is very expensive, and the promoters
are not philanthropic enough to expend the
additional sum which might enable a greater
number of persons to participate in it. The
hounds consume a large amount of food which
could be used to better purpose if they were out
of the way. A number of persons are employed
in looking after the hounds whose labour has no
productive result except in contributing remotely
to the pleasures of the chase. Kennels have to
be erected for keeping them, and horses and
machines are required for moving them. Great
numbers of horses used in hunting do no other
useful work whatever, and these are often high-class
and high-priced horses. Then there are
huntsmen, whippers-in, etc., to say nothing of the
food supplied to the horses, and of the persons
employed to look after the foxes or other animals
intended for the chase. Fox-coverts often occupy
land that would otherwise be valuable, and the
preservation of deer and hares prevents land from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
being put to the best agricultural uses. That
hunting always reduces, and very materially
reduces, the proceeds of labour available for the
use of the public cannot, I think, be seriously
disputed; and in many cases labour is diverted
from these productive uses to the production of
recreation for others, in which the labourer
himself does not participate. A similar remark
is often applicable to grooms.</p>

<p>Another condition of a good recreation is that
it should do no harm to others. But can this
be said of hunting? As regards fox-hunting in
particular, the fox is a mischievous animal, and
would have been exterminated like the wolf long
ago if he had not been preserved for the pleasure
of hunting him. He kills young lambs, fowl,
and anything of the kind that comes in his way;
and woe to the farmer who revenges himself by
killing the depredator! Even the hare and the
deer are far from innocuous. But the hunt
does more mischief than the animals that are
hunted. The hunters break down the farmer’s
fences and frighten his cattle and sheep, often
causing the loss of his calves or lambs, and injure
his crops, while he has no redress because the
landlord has reserved the right of hunting over
the land.</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">The Recreation of the Few.</span></h3>

<p>We are told that hunting necessitates a large
expenditure of money in the district. Every
expensive amusement must do that. But if the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
most expensive amusement was the most valuable
to society, it would follow that the way to
benefit society was to increase the amount of
unproductive labour. But even with productive
labour our great object is to obtain the desired
product with as little labour&mdash;as little expense&mdash;as
possible. The more cheaply we can produce
the necessaries and conveniences of life, the
better it will be for the people. This will hardly
be disputed. Why, then, should we apply a
contrary rule to recreations, and lay down that
the more expensive they are, the more beneficial
they will prove to society? Granted that a hunt
produces a large expenditure of money in the
district, that some deserving shopkeepers and
tradesmen make a profit thereby, and some
honest labourers are employed at better wages
than they would receive if the money in question
were not expended&mdash;what then? What would
become of the money thus expended if there
were no hunt? It is almost certain that it
would be expended in a manner more advantageous
to the community. Even if the owner
of the money wished to invest it rather than to
spend it, he would probably do so by employing
it in the working of a railway, or a mine, or some
other work of public utility. If he simply
lodged it in a bank it would enable the bank to
lend more money to its customers to be employed
by them for useful purposes; and if he kept it in
his house in bank-notes the results would be pretty
much the same as if he had lodged it in the bank.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
It might not, of course, be expended in the
district, but we should look to the interests of the
kingdom rather than those of the district. But
save in the few cases in which persons come from
a distance to enjoy the pleasures of hunting in
a particular district, I believe the money would
usually be expended in the same district, and
with greater advantage to the inhabitants, if there
were no hunt. The comparison should not be
made between the district with this expenditure
and the same district without it, but between the
district with this expenditure and the same district
with the same sum expended in a different
manner. Would the same sum, if otherwise expended,
be likely to prove less beneficial to the
district? I think not.</p>

<p>Hunting is, therefore, objectionable as a recreation
on many distinct grounds. It affords recreation
to only a small number of persons, these
being the very persons who are least in need of
recreation. It involves the expenditure of a
large amount of labour (direct or indirect) as
compared with the amount of recreation produced;
and, passing over the sufferings of the hunted
animal altogether, it involves no small amount of
injury and accidents both to men and animals.
But, in the wider view of the modern economist,
it is also objectionable as cultivating a callousness
of feeling and disregard of suffering which is in
the last degree undesirable&mdash;and especially as
cultivating this feeling among the class from
which our legislators are largely drawn. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
become inured to regard with indifference not
only the sufferings of the hunted animal, but
those of other animals and even people which they
witness. If there were less hunting and shooting
among the class from which the majority of the
legislature is drawn, the humanitarian cause would
receive a fairer hearing in Parliament, as would also
be the case if flogging were abolished at the public
schools, where the members of this class are for
the most part educated. But what are we to
think of education at a school like Eton, where
flogging is supplemented by a pack of beagles?
I would rather “teach the young idea how to
shoot” than how to hunt, or how to flog. How
often do we hear the argument&mdash;stated in somewhat
more circuitous terms&mdash;“I hunt, and therefore
hunting must be right. I was flogged, and
therefore flogging must be right!”</p>

<p>We have only to break down the barriers
between the different classes somewhat farther, in
order to put an end to all such class-amusements
as hunting undoubtedly is. In cricket, for example,
we see gentlemen and professionals playing
side by side and vying with each other as to who
will do the best service for his county, while
thousands of spectators of all ranks assemble to
watch the play. But in games conducted on
horseback the public can rarely participate.
When, like polo, they are conducted in a confined
space, the public can look on, but they
cannot keep the hunt in view for any considerable
time.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p>

<p>In dealing with sports and their cost, there is
a principle which we must never lose sight of:
Sports do not produce money or wealth. Their
function is merely to distribute money or wealth
when otherwise produced. Is the mode of distribution
which we are considering a good one?
It is certain that those who decided on expending
their money in this manner were not actuated
solely or chiefly by considerations of public
utility; and considering how difficult it often is
to determine what mode of expending a given
sum will on the whole prove most beneficial to
the public, the chance of our hitting on an
almost perfect distribution, when we are looking
at the whole subject from a totally different
standpoint, seems rather remote. This undesigned
coincidence may have taken place, but
it is one which, in the circumstances, requires to
be strictly proved. I assume that the majority
of sportsmen are not fools or bad people. How
would such men and women as they are have
spent this money if the hunting-field had been
closed against them? And would this new mode
of spending it be better or worse for the public
than the present one?</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>




<h2><a name="FACTS_ABOUT_THE_GAME_LAWS" id="FACTS_ABOUT_THE_GAME_LAWS"></a>FACTS ABOUT THE GAME LAWS</h2>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By J. CONNELL</span></p>


<div class="blockquote">

<p>“The Game Laws are the tribute paid by the over-worked
and over-taxed people of England to the Lords
of the Bread&mdash;to the predatory classes who have appropriated
the land and depopulated the hills and valleys,
to increase their own selfish pleasures. The destruction
of the Game Laws is as inevitable in the long-run as was
the destruction of Slavery, the repeal of the Corn Laws,
the overthrow of an alien Church in the sister isle; but
the fight will be a stiff one between the freemen of this
country and our savage or only semi-civilised aristocracy
and plutocracy.”&mdash;<span class="smcap">Robert Buchanan.</span></p>

</div>

<p>By the common law of England and Scotland,
following that of Rome, wild animals in a state
of nature are common to all mankind. A legal
writer says: “By the very nature of the case
wild animals cannot be made the subject of that
absolute kind of ownership which is generally
signified by the term <i>property</i>. The substantial
basis of the law of property is physical possession,
the actual power of dealing with things as we see
fit, and we can have no such power over animals
in a state of nature.”</p>

<p>It is, for instance, impossible to confine
pheasants, partridges, grouse, etc., to a particular
estate, and, taking fences as they are, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
same may be said of the great majority of hares
and deer in this country. Moreover, the individuals
of each species are so much alike that
it is impossible for anyone to identify them as
his property. All legal writers without exception
acknowledge that living wild creatures are not
property. Nevertheless, the Game Laws were
placed on the Statute Book to establish a proprietary
right in those animals, and, as Mr.
Barclay, Sheriff of Perthshire, once told a House of
Commons Committee, they “put game, which
was not property, in a higher scale than property.”
They did this by means of a system of licences for
killing and selling game, and by making trespass,
which, in itself, is only a civil offence, a criminal
offence of great magnitude.</p>

<p>At an early stage it was discovered that a free
right of hunting was incompatible with the
preservation of game in sufficient numbers to
afford enough sport to the monarch and the
nobles, and accordingly a series of laws known
as the Forest Laws were enacted, by means of
which certain districts were reserved for purposes
of sport to the sovereign. The increase of
population soon rendered protection necessary
for areas outside the Royal Forests if the supply
of game was to be kept up, and the result was
a series of enactments known as the Game Laws.
It will thus be seen that the right of taking wild
animals, which originally belonged to the whole
people, was filched from them by a selfish and
privileged class, who, we need hardly add, stole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
the common lands, by means of “Enclosure
Acts,” in much the same manner. It is strange
but true that, except in Ireland, and in the north
of Scotland, the people have come to acquiesce
more readily in the robbery of the land than in
the robbery of the game.</p>

<p>The Act which is considered the first or oldest
of the Game Laws became law in the thirteenth
year of Richard II., and it is interesting to observe
the reasons for placing it on the Statute
Book which the legislators of the time advanced.
Said they:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“It is the practice of divers artificers, labourers, servants,
and grooms to keep greyhounds and other dogs,
and on the holidays when good Christian people be at
church, hearing Divine service, they go hunting in parks,
warrens, etc., of lords and others, to the very great
destruction of the game.”</p>

</div>

<p>We know hundreds of districts, from Kent to
Caithness, of which the same might be written
to-day, thus showing that the Game Laws have
utterly failed to obtain a moral sway over the
people.</p>

<p>The term “game” includes hares, pheasants,
partridges, grouse, black-game, ptarmigan, and
bustards. In addition to these there are a number
of animals to which one or other of the game
statutes extends protection. These are rabbits,
deer, roe, woodcock, snipe, quail, landrails, and
wild duck. Although there is no property in
wild animals, it has been settled by the Courts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
that the right to pursue or take game is a private
privilege. In England this privilege belongs to
the occupier of the soil, in the absence of any
agreement to the contrary, and in Scotland to
the owner. In the former country agreements reserving
the game to the owner are almost universal.
The occupier or the owner of the soil has the right
to claim any game killed on his land; but such is
the curious state of the law that the poacher
who takes away what he kills is not guilty of
theft.</p>

<p>The Game Laws are held in abhorrence by the
majority of people, chiefly for two reasons: first,
on account of their injurious economic effects, and,
second, because of the harsh punishments which
they inflict for trivial offences. By their action
large tracts of land have been rendered almost
totally unproductive, cultivation has been abandoned
and immense numbers of labourers thrown
out of employment; the crops of farmers near
preserves, although often on a different estate,
have been injured or even destroyed; ill-feeling
has been engendered between the authors and
the victims of game preserving, and not infrequently
the landless, workless labourer has been
driven to break the law in order to procure food,
thus landing himself in violence, or even murder.
In addition to all this, the irrepressible sporting
appetite of the people, sustained by a consciousness
of having moral right on its side, leads to
a reckless love of breaking laws which are unjust,
unfair, and injurious. No believer in democratic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
government, no lover of order, can uphold
statutes which demoralise those who live under
them.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Administration of the Game Laws.</span></h3>

<p>But bad as are the Game Laws in essence, the
manner in which they are administered makes them
far worse and more hateful. It is notorious that
a large number of Justices of the Peace are game
preservers. The people who break the Game Laws
almost all belong to one class, the people who
sit in judgment on them almost all belong to
another and hostile class. The effect of this arrangement
is made very clear by the following
questions and answers:&mdash;</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>When Mr. J. S. Nowlson was asked by a Select Committee
of the House of Commons, “Do game preservers
ever act as magistrates in cases of offences against the
Game Laws?” he replied, “Yes, but not in their own
cases. For instance, if A has got a case B will take it,
and if B has got a case A will take it.” Again, “In
case a man was brought up for an offence against the
Game Laws, and there was a certain amount of evidence
given, do you think he would stand a greater chance of
conviction than if it were an offence against some other
law?” Reply: “We do consider so.”</p>

</div>

<p>Everybody acquainted with agricultural labourers
is aware that a strong feeling prevails
among them that justice is not to be expected in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
cases of offence against the Game Laws. A House
of Commons Committee reported that “very
few of the Game Law convictions are regular in
point of form, and they would have to be set
aside had they gone before the Judges.” It was
a common occurrence for justices to sentence
poachers to longer terms of imprisonment than
the law allowed. For this and other reasons the
Home Office has liberated a vastly greater proportion
of offenders against the Game Laws than
of any other class of offenders. An impartial
observer might be excused for thinking that the
penalties for poaching are high enough to satisfy
the most exacting. For instance, the penalty for
trespass in pursuit of game in the daytime is a
fine of two pounds with imprisonment in default,
and if the offence be committed by a party of five
or more the penalty is five pounds each with imprisonment
in default. In the case of night
poaching, the penalty for a first offence is three
months’ imprisonment with hard labour, and at
the expiration of that period the offender is compelled
to find sureties for his good behaviour for
a year, or undergo a further imprisonment for
six months with hard labour. For a second
offence the penalty is six months’ imprisonment
with hard labour, and at the end of that time the
offender must find sureties for his good behaviour
for two years or undergo a further twelve months’
imprisonment with hard labour. For a third
offence the penalty is seven years’ penal servitude.
But this is not all. If a party of three or more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
enter land at night for the purpose of taking
game or rabbits, and if any of the party be armed
with gun, crossbow, firearms, bludgeons, <i>or any
offensive weapon</i>, each and everyone of such
persons shall be liable to penal servitude for
fourteen years.</p>

<p>Yet there are persons who think that those
laws are not severe enough. A witness, for
instance, before that Select Committee cheerfully
proposed that poaching be made felony all round.
It is needless to say that the harshness, or rather
barbarity, of the punishment in store for them
renders poachers but little inclined to yield themselves
up when they find themselves confronted
by gamekeepers. This accounts for much of the
bloodshed of which we read in connection with
poaching. It also accounts for much of the
sympathy which is felt for poachers by all classes
of the population except game preservers and
their agents.</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">The Gamekeeper.</span></h3>

<p>Among the many unsatisfactory products of
the Game Laws not the least objectionable is
the gamekeeper. Mr. Joseph Arch once said:
“Keepers are generally taken from the louting
men one sees idling about.” The knowledge
that their masters sit on the Bench of Justice,
and that their evidence will be believed in preference
to that of trespassers, frequently emboldens
them to acts of the worst brutality. Some years
ago, in charging a Grand Jury at the Nottingham<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
Assizes on certain indictments for malicious
wounding and murder, arising out of poaching
affrays, Mr. Justice Vaughan Williams commented
on the way in which these private police
of individuals go out armed to the teeth, accompanied
by savage dogs, <i>and without any code of
instructions to regulate their proceedings</i>. Dr.
Alfred Russel Wallace, referring to arrests, etc.,
said: “I believe myself that in three cases out
of four, the gamekeepers act illegally.” Whatever
the men may have been originally, it is
certain that their method of living demoralises
the great majority of keepers. They are often
selected at first because of their brutality. A
humane man would be useless in such a post.
Head-keepers, who are generally well paid, as a
rule act honestly by their employers, but it is
a fact known to the writer that the more poorly
paid ones not only take game for their own use,
but frequently sell it in order to provide themselves
with drink. In almost every district in
which game is preserved it is well known to the
working people that the keepers will purchase,
on behalf of their masters, eggs which they know
to have been stolen.</p>

<p>In August, 1900, a show of gamekeepers’ dogs
was held at the Royal Aquarium, London. We
quote from a London paper:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“I would rather have one of these dogs with me in a
night row than three men,” said Mr. W. Burton to a
representative yesterday. He was gazing fondly at five
ferocious-looking bull mastiffs in the Westminster<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
Aquarium, where a show of gamekeepers’ dogs is being
held. “If they were unmuzzled,” he added, “one alone
could tear a strong man to pieces in five minutes. At
Thorneywood Kennels, Nottingham, I have trained these
dogs to help the gamekeeper in catching night poachers,
and although they are kept muzzled a man has no chance
with them. If he attempts to run away he is knocked
down instantly and kept a prisoner until the keeper
arrives. They are the same breed of dogs that were used
for bull-baiting in the last century.”</p>

</div>

<p>With long imprisonment, or even penal servitude
staring him in the face, and the prospect
of immediate violence from man, or dog, or both,
it is not to be wondered at that the poacher often
turns out “a rough handful.” All will remember
Kingsley’s lines:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“There’s blood on your new foreign shrubs, squire,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">There’s blood on your pointer’s feet;</div>
<div class="verse">There’s blood on the game you sell, squire,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And there’s blood on the game you eat.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>It is probably not too much to say that hundreds
of encounters between poachers and gamekeepers
occur every winter in this country. Except in
cases where life is lost, the London papers do
not report them, and even then they do not
always do so. Local papers, published in districts
where game is preserved, are the sheets to search
for such records.</p>

<p>It may be mentioned here that in the neighbourhood
of London gamekeepers are much less aggressive
and brutal than in remote districts. Near
London they seldom attempt to arrest poachers.
Acting under orders, presumably, they content<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
themselves with following poachers and identifying
them if possible, for the purpose of summoning
them afterwards. Moreover, the punishment
meted out to poachers in the neighbourhood
of the Metropolis is much lighter, as a rule, than in
the provinces. This is believed on all hands to be
due to the criticism and denunciation of harsh
sentences by <i>Reynolds’s Newspaper</i> and other
Radical organs. Such is the effect of this criticism
that some years ago, after the occurrence of
some bloody affrays, orders were given on some
estates near Croydon, that in future poachers
were to be simply ordered off the land, and were
not even to be summoned unless they resorted to
violence. These orders were afterwards withdrawn,
but the fact that they were given shows
that game-preservers are fearful of losing their
privileges if public attention is directed to them.</p>

<p>In reading reports of poaching affrays it is well
to remember that it is almost invariably the gamekeeper’s
side of the case that is presented to the
public. If the poacher escapes, he of course is
never heard from. Even if he be caught he is
seldom believed, and his description of the encounter
seldom reported. There are exceptions
to every rule, but it is the sincere belief of the
present writer that, when they find themselves
confronted by keepers, the vast majority of
poachers would go away quietly if allowed. The
abolition of the power of arrest would, therefore,
be a long step in the direction of peace. The
poacher, whether he poach for food or for sport,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
never believes that he is guilty of a moral crime.
For this reason, the gamekeeper will never command
the respect which is almost invariably
accorded the policeman, even by the most hardened
criminals. Policemen, as a rule, are humane
in their treatment of prisoners, and chiefly because
they do not suffer from any sense of personal
wrong. With gamekeepers the case is widely
different. From the depredations of the poacher
they suffer, or think they may suffer, in repute or
convenience, or even in pocket. In the circumstances
it is little wonder that they frequently act
brutally. As there are exceptions to all rules,
there are, of course, exceptional magistrates who
occasionally let light in on the dark ways of
game-preserving. The following paragraph,
culled from the <i>Airdrie Advertiser</i> of March 5, 1898,
reveals a case in point:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“<span class="smcap">Charge against Gamekeepers.</span>&mdash;On Thursday,
before Sheriff Mair, at Airdrie, Robert Connor M’Guire,
steelworker, 14, Watt Street, Mossend, pleaded guilty
to a charge of daylight poaching. He was fined
31s., including expenses. Accused complained to the
Sheriff that he had been assaulted by the two gamekeepers,
and that he still bore marks of their violence
upon his arms, which he was desirous of showing. The
gamekeepers were called in and appeared to treat the
accusation lightly, one of them remarking that ‘it was
immaterial to him.’ The Sheriff sent for the Inspector
of Police, whom he directed to take the gamekeepers
into custody and M’Guire to make the charge of assault
against them.”</p>

</div>

<p>We may here mention that all appointments of
gamekeepers are invalid unless registered with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
Clerk of the Peace. Very many of them are not
so registered, and, therefore, their arrests, and
attempted arrests, of poachers are illegal. The
truth is that on many preserves nearly all the
young labourers are keepers’ assistants. Many of
them are desirous of getting appointed as keepers
so as to escape from hard work, and these are
often anxious to distinguish themselves by brutal
conduct towards not only poachers, but the most
harmless trespassers.</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">The Poacher.</span></h3>

<p>And what sort of man is he against whom all
this machinery of law and authority and brutality
is directed? We refer to the poacher. There is
probably no better-abused individual on earth;
but abuse is not argument, and still less is it
evidence. If the reader will turn to the report
of the Select Committee of 1846, he will see that
after carefully sifting the evidence the conclusions
arrived at were: (1) That the poacher
was generally far superior to the average agricultural
labourer in intelligence and activity;
(2) that the great majority of poachers would
break no law other than the Game Laws; (3) that
the poacher was not regarded as a criminal, either
by himself or the people amongst whom he lived;
and (4) that this opinion was shared even by the
game-preserver, who not infrequently offered him
employment as gamekeeper. The reader may not
be aware that many poachers become keepers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
The well-known writer, “Stonehenge,” remarks
on this:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“Reformed poachers, if really reformed, make the
best keepers, but it is only when worn out as poachers
that they think of turning round and becoming keepers.”</p>

</div>

<p>It is worthy of remark that every writer on
sport of any ability (as far as we are aware) feels
himself constrained to say a good word of the
poacher. We have just now at our elbow a well-known
and standard work, entitled “The Moor
and the Loch,” by John Colquhoun. Writing of
poachers in bulk (so to speak) the author denounces
them in unmeasured terms, but when he
comes to speak of individual poachers whom he
had known, his tone is altogether different. We
quote from vol. ii., p. 146:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“When I first knew Gregor More, of Callander, his
poaching days were over, for he had a mortal disease
from having lain out in the fields one cold night. He
still managed to saunter down the river and give those
beautiful sweeps with his line and salmon fly which were
the admiration of the whole clachan.… I looked at
him with some curiosity; a nobler specimen of manhood
I never beheld. Upwards of six feet high, of the finest
herculean proportions, and straight as an arrow, he
seemed equally formed for activity and strength. There
was nothing mean or sneaking about his manner. His
face was open and manly, and, despite the sad discipline
to which he had exposed both mind and body, he had
not effaced the natural and sure marks of force and truth
from his countenance. Although wan and emaciated,
there was a coolness, a will to dare in his eye, backed
by his tremendous shoulders and still powerful frame,
so that I could not look at him without thinking of the
words,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> ‘Majestic though in ruins.’</p>

<p>“Very unlike Gregor More was &mdash;&mdash;. Strange to say,
he had once been a placed minister of the Kirk (answering
to a beneficed clergyman), and although he often
returned late on the Saturday night, after being all the
week poaching the deer, his sermons were both clever
and popular. I met him once when traversing a wild
range of hills, and was impressed both with his general
information and the courtesy of his address.”</p>

</div>

<h3><span class="smcap">Some Results of Game-Preserving.</span></h3>

<p>Among the evils incidental to game-preserving,
not the least is the destruction of rare and beautiful
birds and beasts. I remember how there was
on exhibition in the window of a Liverpool taxidermist
a splendid specimen of the golden eagle,
measuring 7 feet 2 inches from tip to tip of the
wings, and 3 feet 2 inches from beak to tail. It
had built its eyrie in a small cave in the face of a
high cliff at Benula Forest, Glencannich, Beauly,
N.B. It was watched by a keeper, who descended
the face of the cliff after dark, killed the mother
bird, and carried away the only eaglet from the
nest.</p>

<p>In most preserves steel traps are set for the
purpose of catching birds or beasts of prey. When
they are caught they are often allowed to linger
in agony for hours, or even days before being
despatched. The writer has seen dozens of hares
which had each lost a leg in these traps. When a
fox is caught in this manner it will often gnaw the
leg off.</p>

<p>The horrors of the battue have been described
and denounced so often that little need be said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
about it here. It is simple butchery, often very
clumsily performed. For days after a battue
hares may be seen with broken backs, dragging
their hind-quarters after them among the bushes,
and pheasants may be seen running about with
broken wings trailing the ground. Pigeon-shooting
from traps is justly condemned, but the evils
attending it are small compared with those
inseparable from the battue. Mr. Frederick Gale,
in “Modern English Sports,” says: “At the Gun
Club Grounds and similar places, which are frequented
by noblemen and gentlemen, the cruelty
is comparatively <i>nil</i> to that occasioned by the
battue.” It is within our knowledge that the
battue is condemned even by gamekeepers. They
cannot be expected to speak their minds freely
before their employers, but if questioned privately
many will be found to condemn it as affording no
test of marksmanship, no opportunity for exercise
or excitement, and as being wasteful of the game.
The animals that escape wounded often become
emaciated, or even die of hunger before being
found.</p>

<p>The game preservers are never tired of arguing
that the preservation of game increases the food-supply
of the people. To this there are two
answers, either of which is crushing. In the first
place, with the exception of rabbits, game is
scarcely ever touched by the masses, for the very
good reason that its price is far beyond their
ability to pay. In the second place, that which
they do buy occasionally, rabbit, in order to come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
within their reach has to be sold at a price far
below its cost of production. This is equivalent
to saying that the same amount of time, energy,
capital, etc., employed in the production of any
other sort of food, would increase the food-supply
to a much greater extent.</p>

<p>It seems impossible to obtain an accurate estimate
of the loss and damage occasioned by game-preserving.
We know, however, that the Scottish
deer forests alone cover an area of over two million
acres, and the best authorities assure us that all
land which will rear deer will rear sheep. The
latter are vastly more profitable to the community,
although not always so to the landowner.
But all must be sacrificed to game-preserving. For
this purpose are footpaths closed, and labourers
compelled to walk long distances to their work.
For this are children debarred from playing or
picking flowers in the woods or the glens. For
this is the factory-worker or the slum-dweller
forbidden to breathe the pure air of the hills.
For this are vast areas kept barren, whilst millions
hunger for the produce which they might have
yielded, and willing hands, only too anxious to
till them, are driven to seek employment in the
already overcrowded docks.</p>

<p>And we think ourselves a practical people!</p>

<div class="footnotes">

<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> See the “Report of the Land Enquiry Committee,”
vol. i. (1913), Ch. “Game.” Also, for some descriptions
of Highland “Clearances,” the Rev. Donald Sage’s book,
“Memorabilia Domestica,” and “Gloomy Memories,”
by Donald McLeod.</p>

</div>

</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>

<h2><a name="THE_DESTRUCTION_OF_WILD_LIFE" id="THE_DESTRUCTION_OF_WILD_LIFE"></a>THE DESTRUCTION OF WILD LIFE</h2>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By E. B. LLOYD</span></p>

<p>There is one most regrettable result of killing
for sport (and more especially of game-bird
shooting) which, though important in itself, is
yet frequently overlooked in discussing the
question. This is the destruction of wild life involved,
other than those forms directly slaughtered
for pleasure. Sir Harry Johnston has written
forcibly of the necessity of insisting on the
æsthetic value of wild animals in our landscape,
and the desirability of preserving the species
that remain, because they are beautiful and
intellectually stimulating;<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> and the ordinary
Nature lover, not to mention the naturalist,
cannot but regard with detestation the ceaseless
war of extermination waged by the devotees of
“shooting” on so many of our finest and most
interesting birds and mammals. Indeed, numbers
of so-called bird-lovers not actively opposed to
shooting might change their views if they would
but reflect seriously on the damage to our native
fauna, and the consequent dulling of the charm
of our country-side, which game-preserving inevitably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
brings in its train. For&mdash;putting on one
side the moral issue&mdash;our British “game birds”
cannot compare, for interest and beauty, with
many of the species which are sacrificed on their
behalf, or rather on behalf of the thoughtless folk
who slaughter them for amusement. Moreover,
it must be remembered that we do not even
possess any great tract of natural country as a
National Park or reserve, such as Yellowstone
Park in the United States of America, or its
Canadian equivalent, or the grand Swedish Wild
Park in Lapland.</p>

<p>The gamekeeper, generally speaking, is the
most ruthless of beasts of prey. If he is a good
gamekeeper his great aim is to see that there is
always a plentiful supply of partridges in his
master’s fields, pheasants in his master’s coverts,
or grouse on his master’s moors, as the case may
be. With this object in view he endeavours to
extirpate all wild life which either is, or is supposed
by him to be, in any way inimical to the
birds in his charge; and, unfortunately, owing to
the abysmal ignorance of the average keeper in
all that relates to Nature’s intricate interplay of
what we choose to call useful, harmless, and
harmful forms, the list of <i>supposed</i> enemies is a
long one.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> Moreover, the special position occupied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
by the gamekeeper gives him the power (a power
all too frequently exercised) of shooting, either
for amusement or profit, any strange or rare bird
that strikes his fancy, besides making it very
difficult to restrain his murderous propensities
even in the case of legally protected species. On
the whole it may safely be said that gamekeepers
as a class are just as unappreciative of the true
beauty and interest of animal life as are their
masters the sportsmen. To quote one who, among
all living writers, is probably at once the most
sympathetic and penetrating observer and the
most delightful interpreter of wild bird life:
“The gentleman, like the gamekeeper, cannot
escape the reflex action of the gun in his hand.
He, too, has grown incapable of pleasure in any
rare or noble or beautiful form of life until he
has it in his hand&mdash;until he has exercised his
awful power and blotted out its existence.”<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Some “Vermin.”</span></h3>

<p>To come now to the <i>species</i> which are thus
warred upon on the plea of facilitating “sport.”
Taking the mammals first&mdash;and the list of our
British mammals is at best a miserably scanty
one&mdash;we find that, leaving out of consideration<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
such exceedingly scarce ones as the wild cat,
polecat, and pine-marten, and such admitted
marauders as the stoat and rat, there still remain
among those classed by gamekeepers as “vermin,”
the badger, the weasel, and the hedgehog:
the first perhaps the most interesting of all our
wild quadrupeds, the two latter certainly not
the least interesting and charming. Yet although
the best authorities are agreed that the harm
done by the badger to “game” is almost infinitesimal,
the keeper is usually his sworn foe.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>
Badgers also suffer at the hands of the fox-hunting
fraternity, being destroyed because they
are said to be harmful to young foxes, and because
they sometimes open up fox-earths which have
been “stopped” in readiness for the hunt.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>
This, it may be noted, affords another example of
the falseness of the argument so often advanced
that fox-hunting is “fair” because the fox has
every chance left him to escape. Fortunately
the badger is a very shy, nocturnal animal,
exceedingly wary and clever, and in some few
districts the landlords are enlightened enough to
see to it that he is left in peace.</p>

<p>The fiery little weasel&mdash;ruthlessly persecuted&mdash;is
one of the farmers’ most trusty allies, for its food
consists chiefly of voles, mice, and rats. As for the
hedgehog, deadly enemy of slugs and snails and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
insects though it be, the fact that it will suck eggs
if it gets the chance suffices to make its corpse a
welcome addition to the gamekeeper’s museum&mdash;that
collection of the rotting bodies of birds and
small mammals nailed or hung on to a tree or
fence, with which all who have rambled much in
the woods and fields of our country-side must be
familiar. What a motley company may often
be seen thus strung up on one of these gibbets in
some upland hedgerow or woodland glade: a selection
of stoats, weasels, moles, hedgehogs, crows,
jackdaws, magpies, jays, owls, sparrow-hawks,
kestrels, merlins, and so forth, according to the
locality. The writer has actually seen&mdash;and it is
not an isolated instance&mdash;that delightful bird,
the green woodpecker, occupying a place among
these trophies of the keeper’s prowess; and with
regard to another victim, the harmless nightjar
(Wordsworth’s “buzzing dor-hawk, twirling his
watchman’s rattle about”), whose strange, churning
note is so pleasant a feature of an evening
ramble in woody or heathy districts, one keeper
told Mr. Hudson: “I don’t believe a word about
their swallowing pheasants’ eggs, though many
keepers think they do. I shoot them, it’s true,
but only for pleasure.”<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> The kestrel again&mdash;the
expressively named “windhover,” which hangs
aloft poised so gracefully against the wind&mdash;</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“As if let down from heaven there</div>
<div class="verse">By a viewless silken thread”&mdash;</div>
</div>
</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p>

<p class="noindent">a little hawk which preys almost exclusively on
voles, mice, insects, etc., is a valuable friend to
the farmer, and certainly no enemy to the gamekeeper.
Yet large numbers are destroyed by
the latter; for as Charles St. John, himself an
ardent sportsman, wrote in his well-known
“Wild Sports of the Highlands”:<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> “It is impossible
to persuade a keeper that any bird
called a hawk can be harmless; much less …
that a hawk can be useful.” And much the same
still applies, it is shameful to relate, to other
extremely useful species, such as the barn-owl&mdash;which
farmers ought to encourage&mdash;and the
tawny-owl, etc. Worse than this: incredible as
it may sound, there are several well-authenticated
cases of <i>nightingales</i> having been destroyed by
keepers because their singing kept the pheasants
awake at night! And Mr. Hudson, among other
instances, records a case where a whole heronry
was blotted out, the birds being shot on their
nests after breeding had begun, because their
cries disturbed the pheasants; and yet another,
where a whole tract of woodland estate was denuded
of doves, woodpeckers, nuthatches, blackbirds,
missel and song thrushes, chaffinches, and
many other smaller birds, all of which were shot,
any nests found being also destroyed. The
keeper said he was not going to have the place
swarming with birds that were no good for anything,
and were always eating the pheasants’ food.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>
Though these, of course, are extreme cases, they
are notable as showing to what lengths this folly
may be carried&mdash;what monstrous sacrifices are
made to the insatiable Moloch of game-preserving.</p>

<p>Besides such striking birds as the brilliant,
eager jay, the elvish magpie, the crows, the fierce
sparrow-hawk, and the bold little merlin, which
are still, relatively speaking, common, and the
various beautiful birds of prey&mdash;the kite, the
harriers, the peregrine falcon, and many others
now almost exterminated&mdash;the British craze for
game-preserving has led to the bitter persecution
of two especially fine species, both of which have
been almost extirpated in Southern England, at
any rate&mdash;the raven and the absolutely innocent
buzzard. The former, round which centres so
much of myth, legend, and story, is now seldom
met with, save in a few secluded mountainous
districts, though less than forty years ago the
head-keeper of Exmoor Forest was able to record
the destruction of fifty-two of these grand birds
in a single year;<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> while the Common Buzzard,
which in virtue of its voice, appearance, large size,
and grandeur of flight, is about the nearest
approach to the eagle still left to us, is now, alas!
exceedingly uncommon. Not long ago, while
wandering near Dartmoor, I was fortunate enough
to watch six buzzards floating high in the air
together, circling round above one another in
great spirals, and uttering from time to time
their wild plaintive cry: an extremely rare sight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
in England to-day, and one the beauty and
impressiveness of which I shall not soon forget.
Any true nature-lover who has watched these
splendid soaring birds on the wing will readily
understand what an irreparable loss the gamekeeper’s
ban on them is inflicting on our landscape,
more especially in these days when, in
spite of the trammels of modern civilisation, an
ever-increasing number of people are learning to
appreciate the joy of a more direct communion
with wild nature, and, incidentally, are discovering
the truth of the poet’s words:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“… that such beauty varying in the light</div>
<div class="verse">Of living Nature, cannot be portrayed</div>
<div class="verse">By words, nor by the pencil’s silent skill;</div>
<div class="verse">But is the property of him alone</div>
<div class="verse">Who hath beheld it, noted it with care,</div>
<div class="verse">And in his mind recorded it with love.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<h3><span class="smcap">The Killing Mania.</span></h3>

<p>Next to the gamekeeper, who, after all, is but
the instrument of the game-shooter, and the
“collector” (whose crimes in respect of our
rarer avifauna would fill a volume), the worst
sinners are those gun-sportsmen whose amusement
is the wanton destruction of wild life,
without even the flimsy pretext that their victims
are eatable. Nothing comes amiss to them&mdash;from
seals,<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> and rare birds like the osprey and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
great northern diver, to seagulls, shore-birds,
and waders, and even poor little pipits and
thrushes. These are the folk of whom Sir Harry
Johnston has truly observed that “they are
often not nearly so interesting, physically and
mentally, as the creatures they destroy.” They
are dingy-souled Philistines, to whom a dead bird
in the hand is worth more than many living birds
in the bush. Some even profess themselves bird-lovers.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a>
A West Country farmer’s wife once
observed to me: “My husband is a great lover of
birds; he’s got several cases full of stuffed ones
that he shot himself.” This is as though one
should prefer an ancient Egyptian mummy to the
chance of watching and studying a living breathing
being of that race. Little wonder if, when
thinking of this senseless and careless and callous
destruction of so much feathered loveliness, we
should feel inclined to echo Robert Burns’s angry
words:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“Inhuman man, curse on thy barb’rous art,</div>
<div class="verse">And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>Moreover, the “deep-rooted instinct,” about
which we hear so much, can easily be diverted to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
a far finer, more beautiful, and more useful
pleasure than the absurd, antiquated, and useless
one of <i>killing</i> for sport. I can speak from my
own personal experience in saying that the actual
thrill and joy of tracking and watching wild
creatures for study and observation is far superior
to that which is derived from tracking and watching
them for slaughter. In other words, hunting
animals to see how they <i>live</i> is finer sport than
hunting them to see how they <i>die</i>.</p>

<p>It seems, therefore, that the real issue is between
Natural History as opposed to <i>Unnatural</i>
History. On the one hand, grouse, pheasants
(“semi-domesticated exotics”), and partridges
(very likely imported), reared at immense cost
for slaughter: on the other, all these infinitely
more varied and natural and gracious creatures&mdash;the
true sylphs and elves of our woodlands&mdash;whose
glad, free beauty so thrilled Meredith, and drew
from him that impassioned cry:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“For joy in the beating of wings on high,</div>
<div class="verse">…</div>
<div class="verse">My soul shoots into the breast of a bird,</div>
<div class="verse">As it will for sheer love till the last long sigh.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>And all this wild, winged life possesses a twofold
beauty: for it is beautiful both in itself, and&mdash;as
poetry all down the ages has borne witness&mdash;in its
influence on the mind of man.</p>

<div class="footnotes">

<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> “British Mammals,” 1903.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> I can speak from a fairly extensive acquaintance
with keepers in various districts; and (to quote impartial
opinion) a pheasant-shooting friend lately observed to
me, while discussing the absurd destruction of kestrels:
“The English gamekeeper is a fool: there’s nothing to
be said for him.” And Mr. J. G. Millais, another
sportsman, in his great work on “British Mammals,”
remarks that “gamekeepers are often among the most
unobservant of men” (vol. ii., 1905). <i>Cf.</i> also, <i>e.g.</i>,
Seebohm’s “British Birds” (Falconidæ, <i>passim</i>).</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> W. H. Hudson, “The Land’s End,” 1908.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> See, <i>e.g.</i>, Sir A. Pease, “The Badger,” 1896.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Similarly, one of the reasons often given for otter-hunting
is that otters eat trout and salmon, and so
lessen the angler’s chance of killing more of them.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> “Adventures among Birds,” 1912.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Ninth edition, 1907.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> “Adventures among Birds,” 1912.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> W. H. Hudson, “Birds and Man,” 1901.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Here is one instance selected from many. “During
a yachting cruise in the summer of 1902, the suite accompanying
‘very distinguished persons’ gleefully took
advantage of their proximity to little frequented Scotch
islands, to shoot and leave, to kill uselessly without
excuse, quite a large number of the seals which still
remain in Scottish waters” (Sir H. H. Johnston, <i>op. cit.</i>).</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Perhaps from similar causes to those which lead Sir
Alfred Pease, in defending his hunting habits, to inform
us, “I hunt, paradoxical as it seems, because I love the
animals” (see “The Badger,” 1896).</p>

</div>

</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p>

<h2><a name="THE_CALLOUSNESS_OF_FOX-HUNTING" id="THE_CALLOUSNESS_OF_FOX-HUNTING"></a>THE CALLOUSNESS OF FOX-HUNTING<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></h2>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON</span></p>

<p>Undoubtedly we are a complacent and unimaginative
nation, which defects probably explain and
excuse certain indictments brought against us by
foreigners.</p>

<p>Complacency and practicality may have raised
us commercially and politically, but they do not
breed the finer graces, and they are apt to misrepresent
us. No one, for example, would say
that the English or British race was callous or
cruel in comparison with other races. On the
contrary, its reputation for kind-heartedness
stands higher than that of its compeers and
rivals. Yet this same race is engaged to-day in
the practice and pursuit of the most brutal sport
conceivable.</p>

<p>Of bull-baiting, of cock-fighting, of various barbarous
pastimes of our fathers we know nothing
now save by hearsay; but it is safe to say that
whereas bull-baiting and cock-mains have long
been prohibited by law, the most cruel sport remains
unpenalised and undiscouraged; nay, even
protected by the law. I can only attribute the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
continued existence of fox-hunting to that lack
of imagination to which I have referred.</p>

<p>It is necessary for one making a desperate protest
of this kind against an inhuman sport to
dissociate himself at the outset from sentimentalism
and the sentimentalist. Death is inevitable.
We must look facts in the face. The law
of life is Death, and Nature has ordained that
the strong should prey on the weak throughout
her serried ranks of organic life. The sentimentalist
will shriek in vain against the destruction
of animal life, simply because he is shrieking
against an ultimate law of Nature. Nature destroys
ruthlessly, and so does man, who is part of
Nature. But what civilisation may and must
demand, what humanitarianism should and does
demand, is that this inevitable accomplishment of
death should happen with the least possible pain.</p>

<p>Death, in short, is necessary, but torture is not.
And fox-hunting is framed to produce the maximum
of torture to the quarry. A fox is “vermin,”
they say; then in Heaven’s name let it be classed
as vermin, and destroyed as such. But what
happens is precisely the reverse of this. Foxes
are carefully preserved in order that they may be
hounded to a hapless, miserable death, the conception
of which transcends any ordinary imagination.
Gamekeepers and farmers, to whom foxes
are a grave nuisance, are paid <i>not</i> to destroy them
painlessly by gun or otherwise. Gamekeepers,
indeed, receive so much for each fox found on their
preserves.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>

<p>The object, then, of the hunt is to keep foxes
from being destroyed in the natural course of
that warfare between item and item of human and
feral life, and to preserve them for a more cruel
fate. Let us see how cruel that is. The gamekeeper
on land which is announced to be hunted
on a certain day has carefully during the night
earthed up a fox’s hole so that the beast cannot
get back to it in the morning. At a certain hour
pack and company arrive, and the master learns
from the gamekeeper that he is likely to “find”
in such and such a spinney. Thither all proceed,
gay ladies and fresh-coloured men, and presently
hounds give tongue and are in cry. They have
“found.”</p>

<p>Immediately the field is in commotion. Gay
ladies and fresh-faced men thunder off irregularly.
The fun has begun; they are going to
enjoy themselves. But what is the fun? To each
of those amiable people it no doubt is involved
in the music of the hounds, in the company, in
the cross-country ride, in the excitements and
hazards and humours of the run. To the master
and his huntsmen it involves in addition the
responsibility for keeping hounds in hand&mdash;a
matter of considerable skill.</p>

<p>But what does it involve to the fox? This
sleek, furry creature that steals chickens and
ducks, and young pheasants and partridges, who
is a nuisance to farmer and gamekeeper alike,
but to preserve whom is made worth their while&mdash;this
poor “vermin,” having no “earth” to hide in,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
is flying for his life before a pack of strong dogs,
any one of which would be capable of answering
for him.</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">The Death.</span></h3>

<p>He has (it may be) three or four hours’ run
before him, with that terrible bell-tongued chorus
behind him. One can conceive him towards the
close, his strength failing, even his vulpine cunning,
his eyes starting from his head and glassy
with terror, his jaws dropping foam, his heart
like a hammer that must break, straining&mdash;straining,
helplessly, hopelessly towards some covert
that he knows now is not. And upon that at
last the more merciful rush, the feeble turn at bay
of an exhausted creature, the mellay of hounds,
and&mdash;Death. Is it possible to conceive that to a
creature any greater torture could be applied?</p>

<p>Is it really necessary to deal with that fatuous
argument&mdash;the argument of minds that are either
wholly dishonest or ignobly unintelligent&mdash;that
the fox is “vermin,” and that he enjoys the run?
Surely it has only to be stated to glare at one in
all its farcical absurdity. I know of a household
in which it is considered cruel to allow the cat
to play with the mouse she has caught, and yet
this household&mdash;men and women&mdash;is engaged in
hunting other “vermin”&mdash;the fox&mdash;three days a
week during the season.</p>

<p>Is it credible? But it is true. Women, who
I have no reason to suppose are not kind daughters
and affectionate mothers, will gleefully boast how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
they were in at the death&mdash;to see, that is, one
poor furry creature torn into pieces by a swarm
of hounds while in the throes of exhaustion, of
terror, and of despair. Is it lack of imagination,
or is it worse?</p>

<p>And that time-worn defence of all sport is no
defence here&mdash;I mean the plea that men are improved
in health and certain lofty animal qualities
by the pursuit of this savage sport. For, to speak
plainly, the fox is wholly unnecessary. The
essentials of hunting are the hounds, who enjoy
themselves, the horses, who as a rule must be
admitted to do likewise, unless over-ridden, and
the hunters, to whom the gratification of the hunt
is the ride through brisk air, the cross-country
fences, the air of adventure surrounding the run.</p>

<p>All these essentials are found equally in a drag
hunt. Those who have had experience of drag
hunts (from which an animal quarry is eliminated)
will admit that there is as much pleasure
in them as in the fox-hunt. Nay, they are more
advantageous, and for two reasons. In a “drag”
you are sure of a run; you are not dependent on
the accident of a “find.” And, secondly, you
have the benefit of knowing when you may order
your change to meet you, and thus avoid inflicting
pain on your horse. The drag obviates all cruelty
in a sport which is otherwise invigorating and
virile. Therefore, in Heaven’s name, let the
masters of hounds, who are also men of feeling,
cease to preserve the fox, and cultivate the
drag.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>

<p>The abolition of the Royal Buckhounds did
much to throw into disfavour the abominable
sport of hunting a tame stag, and it is known
that aristocratic circles do not look with favour
on the atrocious sport of coursing. Is it impossible
to enlist the sense of the upper classes in
this country in the abolition of fox-hunting?</p>

<div class="footnotes">

<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> This article originally appeared in the <i>Daily Mail</i>
of February 8, 1905.</p>

</div>

</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p>

<h2><a name="BIG-GAME_HUNTING" id="BIG-GAME_HUNTING"></a>BIG-GAME HUNTING</h2>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By ERNEST BELL</span></p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“If asked why I had gone elephant-hunting at the
age of nineteen, I would say that it is simply because I
am the lineal descendant of a prehistoric man.”</p>

<p class="right"><span class="smcap">F. C. Selous.</span></p>

</div>

<p>Apparently there is a considerable public who
like reading books about the slaughter of what
is called “big game,” or we should hardly have
such a continuous supply of them issued from the
press. As, however, vanity is apparently no small
incentive to the deeds of the big-game hunters,
it is perhaps a fair deduction that the same feeling
may have something to do with the publication
of their records, and that such books are in fact
not always speculations on the part of publishers,
but are sometimes printed by the authors themselves.</p>

<p>Certainly the unbiassed reader might be excused
for agreeing with the sentiment expressed in the
preface of one of the exponents of the art, when he
writes:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> “I shall guard myself against the desire to
make the reader be present at the death of my
500 victims, which would be very monotonous to
him, for after all, though circumstances may vary,
the result of a hunt after wild animals is always
the same.”</p>

<p>A study of several books of the sort certainly
confirms the impression that the subject is a very
monotonous one. The illustrations also share
the same want of variety, for almost all represent
dead animals, varied only by the arrangement
of guns and naked savages about them. They
apparently illustrate nothing at all but the one
fact&mdash;which one would think was neither surprising
nor creditable&mdash;that the perpetrators,
with the aid of Express double-barrelled rifles,
Winchester six-shot repeaters, revolvers, explosive
bullets, smokeless powder, rockets, the
electric projector, Bengal lights, etc., and a
band of natives to load and work the machinery,
succeed in destroying the lives of some more
beautiful animals. As it is expressed by one
author: “At the very spot where a minute before
there rose, in all its savage beauty, this majestic
conception of Nature, the largest and the most
powerful of the animals of the earth, nothing
more than a mass of grey flesh appears in the
blood-spattered grass.” The climax is reached
when we see the “hero,” as sometimes happens,
sitting with proud mien on the top of some huge
animal, not apparently realizing that the same
juxtaposition which brings out the size of the
animal is apt to suggest also the <i>smallness</i> of the
man whose greatest pride and delight can be
wantonly to destroy so grand a creature. We
must beg to differ with this writer’s enthusiastic
exclamation that elephant-hunting is certainly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
“the greatest and noblest sport in the world.”
Rather we should be inclined to call it the meanest
and most contemptible abuse of man’s superior
powers.</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Explosive Bullets.</span></h3>

<p>Of the means employed to accomplish the
hunters’ ends let us say a few words. Explosive
bullets we know have been universally condemned
in human warfare on account of their barbarity,
but against defenceless animals they are still held
to be legitimate by so-called sportsmen. Thus,
we read: “The impact causes the bullet to expand.
Often it breaks into pieces or else takes a mushroom
shape, the head in its tremendous velocity
dragging and catching with its edges the flesh and
viscera; and it often happens in the case of delicate
animals that upon leaving the body it makes a hole
as big as the crown of a hat.” That a sportsman
writing for other sportsmen should feel no shame
in making such a statement shows only how we
take our morality from our surroundings, and how
demoralising in this case the surroundings must
be. After this, we cannot expect to find much
chivalry displayed in this “the greatest and
noblest” of sports, and we cannot be surprised
to find the author telling us with pleasure how
in pure wantonness he hid behind a tree within
10 yards of a female elephant and lodged a bullet
in her heart. This, however, is outdone by an
incident in another volume we remember, where
we were told that the finest stag was shot by a
certain Grand Duke,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> “while it was asleep, at
20 yards.” In fact, most big-game hunters seem&mdash;perhaps
not unnaturally&mdash;to suffer from a
similar want of chivalry. We find Mr. Seton-Karr,
an authority on the subject, relating how
one of his party imitated the young fawn’s cry
of distress, when, as he says: “The immediate
result was to entice within range numbers of
Virginian deer or blacktail, most of them does,
and eight fell victims to this somewhat unsportsmanlike
device.” Whether such treachery
is to be considered “unsportsmanlike” must
depend on what meaning we attach to the word,
but if it means “unlike a sportsman,” we fear the
word is misused here.</p>

<p>Of the impartiality of the big-game hunter in
his slaughter we have many instances. Any
creature that can be shot is fitting game for him,
and he delights in shooting it. One well-known
writer gives the following list of creatures killed by
him during six weeks:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“Five elephants, 2 lions (male), 8 leopards, 2 wart
hogs, 11 great spotted hyænas, 7 striped hyænas, 4 oryx
beisa antelope, 10 awal antelope, 2 common gazelle,
2 bottlenose antelope, 2 gerenuk antelope, 1 lesser koodoo,
18 dig-dig antelope, 4 bustard, 2 small bustard,
2 sand grouse, 3 genet, 14 guinea fowl, 22 partridge,
4 hares, 30 various.”</p>

</div>

<p>Thus 155 animals&mdash;mostly wholly unoffending
creatures&mdash;were slaughtered by one man in six
weeks. We are assured that on a second expedition
much the same bag was made, but that he
then got no elephants (which are rapidly being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
exterminated in that country). To further whet
the appetite, the would-be young slaughterer is
favoured with a view of a room in the mighty
hunter’s house, which is decorated (or disfigured)
apparently from floor to ceiling with the heads,
skulls, and skins of these slaughtered animals&mdash;“trophies,”
they are called&mdash;with a lavishness
hardly inferior to that exhibited in a butcher’s or
poulterer’s shop at the season when we commemorate
the birth of Christ.</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Temporary Remorse.</span></h3>

<p>Of the actual cruelty involved in this kind of
amusement&mdash;for it professes to be nothing more&mdash;we
may give a few specimens:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“My victim, which I see only through a curtain of
raindrops, visibly suffers, her flank swelling out abnormally
and then subsiding; she is shot in the lungs. We
pass round her in such a way that she shall not see us
approach, but she seems more taken up with her sufferings
than with us, and at the moment I am going to fire
she falls down on the grass, still breathing. I draw
near and give her the <i>coup de grâce</i> behind the ear.
Around her is a large pool of blood, which the rain carries
in a red stream towards the bottom of the little valley.</p>

<p>“It is the male at which I fired first of all. As I afterwards
found, his shoulder was broken. Maddened by
pain and his feeble efforts, the animal roars with rage,
and, blowing furiously with his trunk, tears at everything
within reach.… His cries and groans become
so terrible that they must be heard a mile away.</p>

<p>“Poor beast!… Never have I been able to contemplate
so near the death of an elephant in all its
details. She is lying eight yards from us in the full sunlight
at the edge of the water, which is tinged with red,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
and we look on in silence while life leaves the enormous
body; her flank heaves, blood flows from breast and
shoulder, her mouth opens and shuts, her lip trembles,
tears flow from her eyes, her limbs quiver; with her
trunk hanging down, her head low, she sways to right
and left, then falls heavily on one side, shaking the
ground and spattering blood in every direction.…
All is over!</p>

<p>“Such a spectacle is enough to make the most hardened
hunter feel remorse. It seemed to me that I had
done a bad action. Several times have I said to myself,
upon seeing those splendid animals suffer, that I ought
to place my rifle in the gun-rack for ever.”</p>

</div>

<p>That a man who has spent several years in
little else but the destruction of animals for his
own pleasure should feel even a temporary remorse
is evidence of the brutality of this particular
scene, but we do not know how to characterise
the combination of easy sentiment, costing
nothing, with the cruel selfishness which immediately
turns to the account of fresh slaughter.</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">The Hunter’s Joy.</span></h3>

<p>Or take the following bloody tale, told with
evident pride:</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p>
<div class="blockquote">

<p>“As I came round a bush, I saw at the bottom of a
kind of natural alley in the forest, framed in like a picture
by the trees, a massive old female rhinoceros. She was
facing me, and standing half in sunshine, half in shadow.
From a bush protruded the hind-quarters of another.
The distance was about seventy yards. I at once sat
down and ‘drew a bead’ upon her chest. However, she
swerved off, and the two broke away across the forest,
crash after crash, dying away in the distance, marking
their course as they receded. I followed, and once
again caught sight of the animal standing motionless
behind a bush; I fired, and the shot was followed by a
couple of short, angry snorts, the stamp of heavy feet,
and an appalling crashing which advanced and then
swept round toward the left. A shot delivered standing,
from the shoulder, was followed by two shrill squeaks,
as the animal tottered a few paces and fell over on its
side; I shall not easily forget that cry, a sound most
disproportionate to the size and bulk of so large a creature,
but which I instantly recognised, from Sir Samuel
Baker’s description, as the death-cry of the rhinoceros;
and the hearing of it filled me with a hunter’s joy!”</p>

</div>

<p>The hunter’s joy is in the death-cry of his
victim, and he glories in the fact that he is the
descendant of a line of prehistoric savages. What
more evidence can we want of the barbarity of
the whole proceeding?</p>

<p>Or, again, take and ponder the following extract
from Ex-President Roosevelt’s recent book,
“African Game Trails”:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“Right in front of me, thirty yards off, there appeared
from behind the bushes, which had first screened him
from my eyes, the tawny, galloping form of a big maneless
lion. Crack! the Winchester spoke; and as the
soft-nosed bullet ploughed forward through his flank
the lion swerved so that I missed him with the second
shot; but my third bullet went through the spine and
forward into his chest. Down he came, sixty yards off,
his hind-quarters dragging, his head up, his ears back,
his jaws open, and lips drawn up in a prodigious snarl,
as he endeavoured to turn to face us. His back was
broken, but of this we could not at the moment be sure;
and if it had merely been grazed he might have recovered,
and then, even though dying, his charge might have
done mischief. So Kermit, Sir Alfred, and I fired,
almost together, into his chest. His head sank, and he
died.”</p>

</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>

<p>Is it right, seriously speaking, that people who,
by their own admission, are still under the influence
of very primitive impulses, should be allowed to
take their pleasure in this barbarous fashion
without some voice being raised on behalf of the
innocent victims?</p>

<h3>“<span class="smcap">Live Bait.</span>”</h3>

<p>It appears that there are various ways of hunting
the lion. One is to track him to some thick
part of the jungle, and having set fire to it at one
end to wait at the other with several guns until
the terrified beast rushes out and meets his fate.</p>

<p>Another method, which seems to us a specially
dastardly one, is the tying up of some domestic
animal&mdash;donkey, bullock, or goat&mdash;as a “live
bait” for the larger carnivora, while the sportsman
lies in wait, safely concealed, to shoot the
“game” or afterwards to track him out to his
lair. We read in one instance as follows:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“I woke up to find myself being vigorously shaken
by the watchman. A terrible struggle was going on
between the donkey and the lion, but a cloud of dust
completely obscured them, notwithstanding the brilliant
light of a tropical moon. The lion succeeded in breaking
the ropes and carrying off the struggling animal for some
distance. The latter, however, gaining his legs, emerged
from the cloud of dust and made slowly for the camp.
Before he had gone many yards the lion had got him
again, and this time he killed him without giving me a
chance of aiming at all on account of the great cloud of
dust.”</p>

</div>

<p>This practice is also mentioned in the Hon. J.
Fortescu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>e’s “Narrative of the Visit to India of
Their Majesties King George V. and Queen Mary,”
where we read:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“Overnight, or in the afternoon, bullocks are tied up
in likely places for a tiger, generally at the edge of thick
jungle; and in the morning the shikaris (or gamekeepers,
as we should call them) go round to see if any of these
have been killed.”</p>

</div>

<p>Mr. Fortescue mentions that “the reports of
the morning of December 26 set forth that,
though sixty bullocks had been tethered in the
jungle on the previous night, only one had been
killed.” The paucity of the kills on this occasion
is explained by the fact that many tigers had
already been shot and the “game” was becoming
scarce. It is not stated how many oxen in all
were thus sacrificed.</p>

<p>Now we submit that, whatever may be said in
defence of big-game shooting in general, this usage
of domestic animals&mdash;animals towards whom in
all civilised countries it is recognised that mankind
has moral, and often legal, obligations&mdash;is a
very shocking malpractice.</p>

<p>That the actual suffering witnessed and chronicled
is a small part only of the whole is everywhere
obvious. These books teem with cases in
which the animals escape wounded, to linger for
days, or perhaps weeks. We read, for instance:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
“I kill a big male (elephant). As to the other
male and a female, I wound but lose them both
after a day’s pursuit. However, as the male
seemed to me to be doomed, I send four men in
search of it. They return without result after
passing the night out of doors. I found this
elephant dead on the 26th”&mdash;that is, after seventeen
days in a climate where bodies do not lie
long on the ground. We can quite believe that
this author does not overstate the case when he
candidly admits: “A good hunter, however careful,
adroit, or well seconded he may be, must
count one out of every two animals which he
pursues as lost, owing to the many difficulties of
his profession. This is the minimum, for how
many wound or miss three or four animals before
killing one!”</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Primitive Instincts.</span></h3>

<p>It remains only to say a few words about the
morality of this form of amusement. It is often
said amongst humane people that hunting is only
a relic of more barbarous times, but it seems to
us to be something more than this. It may have
taken its origin with primitive man, but it has
certainly made important developments of its own
in recent times. There is little in common
between the act of the primitive savage, who, for
the sake of his food, pitted his strength and skill
against an animal, and the wholesale and reckless
slaughter, aided by the appliances of modern
science, and carried on merely for the pleasure
of killing. Acts otherwise disagreeable and disgusting
may sometimes be justified by the motive,
but a search through several volumes devoted to
this sport has failed to reveal any more exalted
motive than the desire for trophies&mdash;as they are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
called&mdash;to show to admiring friends, and the love
of killing. “At daylight we start on the trail,
on which there are spots of blood, followed by
spurts and large clots. When we see that, ‘the
heart laughs,’ as the natives say, and victory is
almost certain.” We learn that “to bring down
an animal as big as an omnibus horse with each
barrel, to roll it over as though it were a rabbit, is a
pleasure which one does not often experience”;
and we are also told how the author had “the
pleasure of looking at a magnificent maneless lion
stretched in a pool of blood.”</p>

<p>Of the real motive there can unfortunately be
little doubt, and the excuses that are made by
the perpetrators for their murderous work are
hardly worthy of serious consideration.</p>

<p>The moral defences for this kind of sport are of
the same nature as the famous snakes in Iceland&mdash;there
are none; and the flounderings of the big-game
hunter, when he tries to defend himself,
show that his ethics and theology are of the same
primitive kind as are his other springs of action,
handed down from barbarous ancestors.</p>

<p>One writer quoted above tells us, of course,
that he gives place to no one in his “love of all
dumb creatures collectively”&mdash;whatever that may
mean&mdash;which he seems to think justifies his putting
bullets into them <i>individually</i> whenever he
has a chance, and letting them crash through the
forests, as he describes, in pain and terror, very
likely to die in agonies days afterwards.</p>

<p>Another excuse urged is that the hunting instinct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
in us has been given us by God, and therefore
should be followed. It apparently never occurred
to the writer that pity for the unoffending animals
“butchered to make a sportsman’s holiday” may
also be a God-planted instinct, no less than the
love of slaughtering them, though apparently he
vastly prefers the latter.</p>

<p>That blood-sports develop and encourage a
manly spirit, necessary for the progress of the
race and especially of the British nation, is perhaps
the most common. But here, surely, at the
outset we need a definition of terms. If manliness
is synonymous with indifference to the
suffering of the weaker, and selfish gratification
at the cost of others, if it is manly to blow a piece
“as big as the crown of a hat” out of the side
of a timid deer, just for amusement, then certainly
this sport is eminently manly. If, on the
other hand, the qualities which differentiate the
civilised man from the barbarian are a greater
regard for the rights of the weak and a deeper
sympathy with the feelings of others, then without
doubt these amateur butchers should be regarded
as an anachronism in civilised communities.</p>

<p>The chocolate-coloured native, we read in one
book, “would not and could not understand that
we had not come to fight elephants and lions like
gladiators in the arena, but to overcome them by
superior tactics <i>without more risk than was necessary</i>,
and by the judicious handling of arms of
precision” (italics ours). Certainly we think the
naked savage here shows a finer instinct for what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
may be noble and manly in warfare than his so-called
civilised brother. For the gladiator who
has the hardihood to meet his enemy in fair single
combat, at mortal risk to himself, we can feel some
admiration, even though the game is a barbarous
one; but for the butcher who skulks behind a tree
and slays his innocuous victim by mechanical contrivances
with as little risk to himself as possible,
we can feel nothing but contempt. “In a short
time,” we are told by our hero, “four elephants
were lying dead, shot through the head or heart,
never having caught sight of us. The remainder
of the herd decamped.” A glorious achievement
in the estimation of the perpetrators apparently,
but one to which we personally should be ashamed
to see our name attached.</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">The Blood Lust.</span></h3>

<p>In the preface to one of the books from which
we have quoted, we are told the story of a certain
French hunter who, having been made an officer,
was asked by a friend if he intended now to give
up killing lions, to which he replied: “It is impossible;
it seizes me like a fever, and then I absolutely
must go and lie in wait.” This does seem
in some cases to be the most charitable explanation
of a strange mental condition, and in view
of the harm which these so-called sportsmen are
doing, it is becoming a question for the community,
whether they should not be temporarily
confined, like others suffering from dangerous and
destructive mania. With shooting-galleries and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
a continuous series of tin elephants and antelopes
they could be allowed to indulge their mania quite
harmlessly, and in the evenings they could write
up their diaries and chronicle their wonderful
adventures without fear of contradiction.</p>

<p>Apart from the question of the cruelty involved,
we have now the sad spectacle of the rapid
extermination of many animals merely for the
selfish gratification of a very small section of the
public. The recent efforts of Governments to
save them are not likely to have much effect.
They are not based on any humane principles, of
course, but are directed apparently to preventing
the total extermination of certain animals, in order,
at any rate partly, that a favoured few may still
have the pleasure of killing them under game
restrictions.</p>

<p>Thus <i>The Times</i> drew attention to the fact that
in Nyasaland for a £10 licence you may kill 6
buffaloes, 4 hippopotamus, 6 eland, and so on
up to a total of 94 animals. For £10 you may
buy the privilege to deprive the world of 1 elephant,
while you may kill 4 for £60. The writer
of the article from which we quote tries to show
that the ivory of the tusks will pay expenses.</p>

<p>We may quote here the following from an
article by Sir H. H. Johnston, on “The Protection
of Fauna, Flora, and Scenery,” in the <i>Nineteenth
Century</i>, of September, 1913:</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>
<div class="blockquote">

<p>“An agitation is again arising for leave to destroy the
big game of Africa&mdash;especially in Rhodesia, Nyasaland,
and East Africa&mdash;wherever there are possibilities of
European settlement. The plea advanced now is that
the big game, more than man or the smaller mammals and
birds, serve as reservoirs for trypanosomatous or bacillic
disease-germs, which are then conveyed by tsetse-flies
or ticks to the blood of domestic animals and man.
This argument should be examined with scientific impartiality,
because so great is the blood-lust on the part
of young Englishmen or their Colonial-born cousins that
they are for ever trying to find some excuse to destroy
whatever is large or striking in the local fauna.”</p>

</div>

<p>The only method which would have any likelihood
of really protecting the animals would be to
make it penal for anyone to kill any of them, or
to have in his possession any skin, skull, or other
“souvenir.” Without their trophies and without
the possibility of recounting their exploits to their
admiring readers, the big-game hunters would
lose their main stimulus, and might devote their
time and energies to some more useful and less
barbarous pursuit.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p>




<h2><a name="BLOOD-SPORTS_AT_SCHOOLS" id="BLOOD-SPORTS_AT_SCHOOLS"></a>BLOOD-SPORTS AT SCHOOLS</h2>

<h3><span class="smcap">The Eton Hare-Hunt.</span></h3>

<p>We are often told that the true way to teach
kindness to animals is “to begin with the young.”
Let us see how they begin with the young at the
chief of English public schools.</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“I have told the Master of the Beagles that he must
not do anything which is unlawful. I am sure that he
would not do anything cruel willingly. But until the
common sense of the nation expresses itself in the shape
of a law forbidding the hunting of wild animals, I cannot
interfere with the Beagles, which are here an old institution.”</p>

</div>

<p>Such were the terms in which Dr. Warre, when
Headmaster of Eton, expressed his refusal&mdash;his
first of many refusals&mdash;to substitute a drag-hunt
for the hare-hunt now in favour at Eton College;
and his argument has since been the subject of
much humanitarian protest, and of not a few
memorials to the Governing Body. But there is
one point concerning Dr. Warre’s remarks which
seems to have almost escaped attention&mdash;that
the Eton Beagles are not, after all, so old an
“institution” as his words would imply, in the
sense of being recognised and encouraged by the
school authorities, for, as a matter of fact, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
have only been openly permitted since about
sixty years ago, and they were not actually
legalised until 1871. In the old Eton Statutes of
Henry VI. it was ordained under the head of
“Discipline” that “no one shall keep in the
college any hounds, nets, ferrets, hawks, or falcons
for sport,” and for this reason the authorities long
refused to give official recognition to the Beagles.
In the reign of Dr. Keate the hunt, according to
Mr. Wasey Sterry’s book on Eton, was “unlawful,
though winked at,” and this state of affairs continued
until about the middle of the past century,
when the Beagles began to be regarded as on a
par with cricket and football. At last, under the
revised Statutes framed by the new Governing
Body, which was called into being by the Public
Schools Act of 1868, all earlier regulations were
repealed, and the Beagles became legalised, having
thus passed through the three successive stages
of being prohibited, winked at, and recognised as
“an old Eton institution.”</p>

<p>It may seem strange that the sporting propensity
of schoolboys should have thus defied and
survived the ban placed upon it by the pious
Founder; but the history of Eton shows it to have
been always the home of cruel sports. We are
told by Sir H. Maxwell Lyte, the historian of the
school, that “sports which would now be considered
reprehensible were tolerated and even
encouraged at Eton in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.” “No work,” he says,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
“was done on Shrove Tuesday after 8 a.m., and
at Eton, as elsewhere on this day, the practice
prevailed of torturing some live bird. The
college cook carried off a crow from its nest, and,
fastening it to a pancake, hung it up on the school
door, doubtless to serve as a target.” Then,
again, there was the once famous and popular
ram-hunt. “The college butcher had to provide
a ram annually at election-tide, to be hunted and
killed by the scholars,” the unfortunate animal
being hamstrung and beaten to death in Weston’s
Yard. Even in the nineteenth century such
sports as bull-baiting, badger-baits, dog-fights,
and cat and duck hunts, were “organised for the
special edification of the Eton boys.”</p>

<p>It is from these good old times that the present
hare-hunt is a survival, and though it may now be
conducted, as Dr. Warre has stated, in a legal and
“sportsmanlike” manner, this certainly was not
the case at a period no more remote than the
headmastership of Dr. Balston (1857-1864), as we
learn from Mr. Brinsley Richards’ well-known
book, “Seven Years at Eton,” from which the
following passage is quoted:</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p>
<div class="blockquote">

<p>“It is not pleasant to have to write that the Beagles
were often made to hunt a miserable trapped fox which
had lost one of its pads. Those who bought maimed
foxes, as more convenient for beagles to hunt than strong,
sound foxes, should have reflected that they might
thereby tempt their purveyors to mutilate these animals.
How could it be ascertained whether the fox supplied
by a Brocas ‘cad’ had been maimed by accident or
design? It was an exciting thing for jumping parties
of Lower Boys, when out in the fields they saw the
beagle-hunt pass them in full cry&mdash;first the fox, lolloping
along as best he could, but contriving somehow to keep
ahead of his pursuers; then the pack of about ten couples
of short, long-eared, piebald, or liver-streaked hounds,
all yelping; then the Master of the Hunt, with his short
copper horn; the Whips, who cracked their hunting-crops
and bawled admonition to the dogs with perhaps
unnecessary vehemence; and lastly the Field of about
fifty.”</p>

</div>

<p>It is specially worthy of note, as bearing upon
a later controversy, that Mr. Brinsley Richards
states that “runs were far better when a man was
sent out with a drag.” The drag is thus proved
to have been in successful use at Eton almost as
long ago as when the Beagles were first openly
tolerated.</p>

<p>The prohibition once being cancelled, the popularity
of the hare-hunt grew apace until it reached
its zenith in the reign of Dr. Warre, when the
doings of the hunt were regularly reported&mdash;in
choice sporting jargon&mdash;in the <i>Eton College
Chronicle</i>, so that the whole school, even to the
youngest boys, was made aware of them. A
reference to old numbers of the <i>Chronicle</i> will
show plenty of instances. Here are one or two
extracts taken almost at random from these
records of the chase:</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>
<div class="blockquote">

<p>“<i>March 20, 1897.</i>&mdash;A hare was soon put up in the
first wheat-field, and, running back through two small
spinneys in the field she was found in, went away towards
Ditton Park. Hounds ran very fast over the Bath Road
and straight away into Turner’s gardens. After being
bustled about for fifteen minutes in the gardens, our hare
went away at the far end. Turning left-handed, our
hare was viewed running parallel with the road and into
some brickfields.… After we had been casting
round for some time without success among the rows of
bricks, hounds were taken back into a small hut. Hardly
had they got inside before old Varlet pulled her out from
under a rafter, absolutely stiff.”</p>

<p>“<i>February 23, 1899.</i>&mdash;Time, one hour, fifty minutes.
A very good hunt, since scent was only fair, and we
were especially unlucky to lose this hare, which was beat
when she got back to Salt Hill. On the next day we
heard that our hare had crawled up the High Street to
Burnham, and entered a public-house so done that it
could not stand, and was caught by some boys, who came
to tell us half an hour afterwards, but we had just gone
home. Too bad luck for words!”</p>

</div>

<p>And so on, with repeated references to “breaking
her up,” and hounds “thoroughly deserving
blood.”<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p>

<p>Here, again, is the published testimony of a
spectator of one of these successful runs:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“On February 4, 1899, being in the vicinity of Eton,
I had an opportunity of seeing one of these hare-hunts,
and I will give a short and exact description of what took
place.</p>

<p>“At three o’clock some 180 boys, many of them quite
young, sallied forth for an afternoon’s sport with eight
couples of the College Beagles. A hare was found at
3.15 near the main road leading to Slough. It was chased
through the churchyard and workhouse grounds at this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
town into a domain dotted with villas, called Upton
Park. Escaping from this spot, it ran towards Eton,
but soon doubled back to Upton Park, the numerous
onlookers in the Slough Road lustily shouting at the
dazed creature all the time. These circular chases were
thrice repeated, the hare always getting back to Upton
Park.</p>

<p>“Twice did the animal come within a few paces of
where I was standing, and its condition of terror and
exhaustion was painful to behold. The boys, running
after the hounds, were thoroughly enjoying the thing,
and two masters of the College, I was told, were amongst
them. Now for the final scene, at which a friend of mine
was present.</p>

<p>“The hare, which had been hunted for two hours,
having got into a corner at Upton Park which was
bounded with wire-netting, was seized by the hounds and
torn. The master of the pack then ran up, got hold of
her, and broke her neck. The carcass was handed to
one of the dog-keepers, who cut off the head and feet,
which trophies were divided among the followers. The
keeper with his knife then opened the body, and the
master, taking it in his hands and holding it high above
the hounds, rallied them with cries, and finally threw
it into their midst, as they had, in the language of the
<i>Eton College Chronicle</i>, ‘thoroughly deserved blood.’</p>

<p>“I make no comments upon these doings; I only say
that I think the British public ought to know how boys
are being trained at our foremost school in respect to
the cultivation of compassionate instincts towards the
beings beneath us.”</p>

</div>

<p>It is not surprising that the Humanitarian
League should have addressed remonstrances to
Dr. Warre on the subject of the Beagles; one
wonders rather that this “old Eton institution”
should have so long remained unchallenged by
societies which profess to protect animals from
injury, and to teach humanity to the young,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
especially as Dr. Warre was himself a member of
the committee of the Windsor and Eton Branch
of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals, and as Etonian subscriptions go
yearly to provide a fund for prosecuting carters
and drovers who ill-use the animals under their
charge!</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">The Liberty of the Boys.</span></h3>

<p>To all these protests Dr. Warre had practically
but one answer&mdash;that hare-hunting not being
<i>illegal</i>, he could not interfere with the liberty of
the boys in the matter, many of whom, he stated,
are in the habit of hunting “when at home in the
holidays, and with the approval of their parents.”
But this plea is at once invalidated by the fact
that many things are prohibited to schoolboys
which may (or may not) be permitted to them at
home, and which are not in themselves illegal.
Some of the elder boys, for example, smoke when
at home in the holidays, and with the approval of
their parents; yet if these young gentlemen,
relying on Dr. Warre’s argument, had started a
smoking-club at Eton, he would not have hesitated
to interfere very promptly with their freedom.
Why, then, should an excuse which is not nearly
good enough to justify a smoking-club be seriously
put forward by the headmaster of a great public
school when a cruelty-club is in question?</p>

<p>On one point only would Dr. Warre make any
concession&mdash;viz., with regard to the reports that
appeared in the <i>Eton College Chronicle</i> of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
“breaking up” of hares and the “blooding” of
hounds. “The phrases in question,” he said,
“are among those current in sporting papers, and
I regret that they should have found their way
into the pages of the <i>Eton College Chronicle</i>, being
objectionable in sound, and liable to misinterpretation.
I understand, however, that these phrases
do not imply anything more than that the dead
hare is devoured by the hounds.” This led to a
pertinent inquiry in the press, whether the Eton
boys were in the habit of hunting “a dead hare.”
The cruelty of the sport obviously consists less in
the actual killing of the hunted animal than in
the prolonged torture of the hunt that precedes
the death&mdash;the “bustling” which, as we have
seen in the extracts from the <i>Eton College
Chronicle</i>, often renders the panic-stricken little
animal “dead beat,” “absolutely stiff,” “so
done that it cannot stand.” And, really, if the
boys are encouraged to <i>do</i> this thing, it is a somewhat
dubious morality which is content with forbidding
them to <i>speak</i> of it! “Objectionable in
sound” such practices are, beyond question; but
are they not also somewhat objectionable in fact?</p>

<p>Thus, while on the one side Dr. Warre hardened
his heart and would not lay a sacrilegious
finger on the time-honoured institution which had
been forbidden in the Statutes of the Founder,
humanitarian feeling, on the other side, became
more and more aroused, and memorial after
memorial was presented to the Eton authorities,
suggesting that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> “as there is now an increasing
tendency among teachers to inculcate a more
sympathetic regard for animals, it is desirable that
Eton College should no longer stand aloof from
this humane spirit.” It is significant of the
growth of public opinion on this subject that,
whereas, some twenty years ago, the very existence
of the Eton Hunt was unknown to many
except Etonians, we now find among the signatures
appended from time to time to these
memorials such diverse names as those of Mr.
Herbert Spencer, Archbishop Temple, the Bishops
of Durham, Ely, and Newcastle, Dr. Clifford, Mr.
Thomas Hardy, Mr. William Watson, Mr. Frederic
Harrison, Sir A. Conan Doyle, Sir John Gorst, Sir
Frederick Treves, and Lord Wolseley, also a
number of heads of colleges at Oxford and Cambridge,
the headmasters of numerous grammar
schools and training colleges, officials of the
branches of the Royal Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals, and many distinguished
clergy and laymen, representative of almost every
shade of opinion.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p>

<p>When it was known that Mr. Lyttelton was to
be Dr. Warre’s successor in the headmastership
of Eton, it was thought probable that his notorious
humanitarian sympathies would lead him to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
desired reform; but these expectations proved to
be too sanguine. The immense stability of an
“old institution,” in so conservative a stronghold
as Eton, is a fact that must be reckoned with; for
Eton is not like Rugby, where a reforming headmaster
might venture, as Dr. Arnold did, to sweep
away at a stroke an ancient sporting custom which
had nothing but its age to recommend it. We all
know the passage in “Tom Brown’s Schooldays”&mdash;the
speech of “old Brooke”&mdash;where Arnold’s
abolition of the Rugby Beagles is incidentally
referred to:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“A lot of you think and say, for I’ve heard you,
‘There’s this new doctor hasn’t been here so long as some
of us, and he’s changing all the old customs.…’ But
come, now, any of you, name a custom that he has put
down.</p>

<p>“‘The hounds,’ calls out a fifth-form boy, clad in a
green cutaway, with brass buttons, and cord trousers,
the leader of the sporting interest.</p>

<p>“Well, we had six or seven mangy harriers and
beagles, I’ll allow, and had had them for years, and the
doctor put them down. But what good ever came of
them? Only rows with all the keepers for ten miles
round; and big-side Hare and Hounds is better fun ten
times over.”</p>

</div>

<p>If we compare this passage with the report of
Mr. Lyttelton’s address to the Eton boys at the
commencement of his headmastership, in which
he frankly avowed his own “strong opinions” on
the subject of the hare-hunt, but added that he
did not hold these views in his boyhood, and did
not see why he should force them on the boys, we
see the difference, not so much between an Arnold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
and a Lyttelton, as between a Rugby and an
Eton. It is doubtful if even an Arnold could
have safely flouted Etonian susceptibilities in
this matter of worrying hares with hounds. The
reason given by Mr. Lyttelton for allowing the
hare-hunt to continue is that all legislation which
outstrips “public opinion” is injurious and unwise,
by which he presumably means the “public
opinion” of Eton itself&mdash;for it is certain enough
that public opinion outside Eton would bear the
disappearance of the hare-hunt with equanimity&mdash;and
undoubtedly Eton opinion, to those who
dwell under the shadow of the “antique towers,”
is a matter of serious consideration, however
medieval it may be. It is a curious fact that the
large majority of Etonians, though nowadays a
bit ashamed of the ram-hunt and other sporting
pleasantries of a bygone period, do not in the
least suspect that their beloved hare-hunt belongs
in effect to the same category of amusement.
Thus, Sir H. Maxwell Lyte, in his history of the
school, referring to the earlier barbarities, remarks
that “it is evident that in the time of Elizabeth
cruelty to animals was not counted among the
sins for which penitents require to be shriven.”
But what, it may be asked, of the time of
George V.? It is entertaining to find the <i>Eton
College Chronicle</i> itself referring to the ram-hunt
of the eighteenth century as a “brutal custom,”
and remarking that Etonians were “once so
barbarous.” Once!</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Moral Instruction of the Young.</span></h3>

<p>The value of the moral instruction given at
Eton, as far as the duties of mankind towards the
lower races are concerned, may be estimated from
the following sentiment of an Eton boy, quoted
from a letter of dignified remonstrance addressed
to the interfering humanitarians: “A hare is a
useless animal, you must own, and the only use to
be made of it is for the exercise of human beings.”
It will be seen that Etonian philosophy is still
decidedly in the anthropocentric stage. It is not
easy, even for the most progressively minded
headmaster, to make any immediate impression
on such dense and colossal prejudice.</p>

<p>But let us at least take courage from the fact
that the ram-hunt is no more, that the college
cook no longer hangs up a live crow to be pelted
to death on Shrove Tuesday, and that the Eton
boys are not now invited to indulge in the manly
sports of bull-baiting, dog-fighting, and cat-hunts.
These recreations have gone, never to return, and
it is equally certain that, sooner or later, the hare-hunt
will also have to go. It is not to be supposed
that Mr. Lyttelton, who is keenly alive to the
best and most humane tendencies of the age, is
insensible to the discredit which Eton incurs by
thus prolonging into the twentieth century a
piece of savagery which Rugby, Harrow, and the
other great public schools have long outgrown and
abandoned; or that he does not feel the sting of
Mr. W. J. Stillman’s remark that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> “the permission
given to the boys of Eton to begin their education
in brutality, when they ought to be learning to
say their prayers, is the crowning disgrace of all
the educational abuses of a nation which instituted
the Royal Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals.”</p>

<p>To those, of course, who regard blood-sports as
not only a proper pastime for men, but a desirable
recreation for schoolboys, and a fit form of training
for military service, the whole protest against the
Eton hare-hunts must needs seem ridiculous; but
even these thoroughgoing sportsmen will have to
admit that the trend of public opinion is against
them, else why does Eton now stand alone among
public schools in this matter? If the reasoning of
the Etonian apologists be sound, the <i>absence</i> of
Beagles at Rugby, Harrow, and the other great
schools, is a glaring defect in their system which
ought speedily to be remedied; yet we have not
heard that any enthusiast has gone so far as to
suggest that the schools which have long since
abandoned hare-hunting should now make a return
to it, and short of this complete approval of the
sport the excuses put forward on its behalf are
about as feeble as could be imagined.</p>

<p>It cannot, for instance, be seriously argued that
boys whose studies are notoriously endangered
by the very numerous athletic exercises&mdash;cricket,
rowing, football, fives, racquets, running, etc.&mdash;in
which they are able to indulge, are in need of
yet another pastime in the form of hunting hares.
Granted that it would be inadvisable for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
school authorities to preach advanced humanitarian
doctrines to boys whose family traditions
and prejudices they are bound to consider, still,
it is not necessary to go to the other extreme of
encouraging them in familiarity with sights and
scenes which must tend to deaden the sense of
compassion. From the moral standpoint, blood-sports
cannot be regarded in quite the same light
as athletic exercises; and there are many persons
nowadays who, without raising the question of
the morality of field sports for adults, think that
the license given to young boys to spend their
half-holidays in the “breaking up” of hares is
as great a stain on the English public-school
system as any of the admitted “immoralities”
by which that system is undermined.</p>

<p>There is, in the opinion of humanitarians, a grave
inconsistency between the insistence of preachers
and teachers on the duty of kindness and consideration,
and the sanction accorded by the school
authorities to practices the very reverse of these.
Unconsciously, perhaps, but none the less surely,
the youthful minds which are trained under such
influences are affected in their turn, and learn to
conform superficially to maxims of piety and
honour, while practically in their own lives they
are setting those virtues at defiance.</p>

<div class="footnotes">

<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> It should not be forgotten that hare-hunting is also
carried on by our naval cadets. Here is an extract from
the <i>Naval and Military Record</i> of March 1, 1906, describing
a run with the Dartmouth (“Britannia”)
Beagles: “Just outside the covert a hare was moved in
the ploughing by hounds, and gave a most exciting
chase around two fields, and when killed was found
to have only three legs.” A fine sport for our future
naval officers!</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> It is also worthy of note that a memorial against
the Dartmouth Beagles, presented to the First Lord of
the Admiralty by the Humanitarian League in 1907, was
signed by no fewer than twenty-five headmasters of
public schools. As a result of the League’s protests,
the grant of public money for the maintenance of this
sport was withdrawn.</p>

</div>

</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p>

<h2><a name="SPORTSMENS_FALLACIES" id="SPORTSMENS_FALLACIES"></a>SPORTSMEN’S FALLACIES</h2>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By HENRY S. SALT</span></p>

<p>Everyone knows the old story of the Wildgrave,
that spectral huntsman who, for the wrongs done
by him in the past to his suffering fellow-creatures,
was doomed to provide nightly sport for a troop
of ghostly pursuers.</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“The Wildgrave flies o’er bush and thorn,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">With many a shriek of helpless woe;</div>
<div class="verse">Behind him hound, and horse, and horn,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And ‘Hark away!’ and ‘Holla ho!’”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>If we may judge by the signs of the times, a
similar fate has now overtaken the modern sportsman,
who finds to his dismay that his proud vocation
no longer goes unchallenged, but that he is
compelled to stand on his defence before the force
of ethical opinion, and to play the part less of the
pursuer than of the pursued. Nowadays it is the
humanitarians who, in the intellectual discussion
of sport, derive keen enjoyment from the “pleasures
of the chase,” and having “broken up” the
Royal Buckhounds after a ten years’ run, are
hunting the sportsman from cover to cover, from
argument to argument.</p>

<p>The sportsman, in fact, is now himself standing
“at bay”; and it may be worth while to consider<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
what value, if any, attaches to the excuses commonly
put forward by him in justification of his
favourite pastime. On what moral grounds are
we asked to approve, in this twentieth century,
such seemingly barbarous practices as the hunting
to death of stags, foxes, and hares; the worrying
of otters and rabbits; or the shooting of vast
numbers of game birds in the battue? The
hunted fox, as we know, has many wily resources
for throwing his pursuers off the scent. What
are the corresponding shifts and wiles of the
hunted sportsman?<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">The Appeal to “Nature.”</span></h3>

<p>The first, perhaps, that demands notice is the
frequent appeal to “Nature,” and even (when the
hunter happens to be a man of marked piety) to
the savage instincts which “the Creator,” it is
assumed, has implanted. “Were not otter
hounds created to hunt and kill otters?” asked a
devout correspondent of the <i>Newcastle Daily
Journal</i>. “Therefore,” he continued, “let me
ask these persons (the opponents of sport) what
right they have to place their own peculiar faddism
against the wisdom of the Creator?” In like
manner a distinguished hunter of big game, Mr.
H. W. Seton-Karr, has defended himself as follows
in the <i>Daily Chronicle</i>:</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p>
<div class="blockquote">

<p>“If a person experiences pleasure in the chase, such
as in fox-hunting or deer-stalking, or even in lion-hunting,
the rights and wrongs of that natural instinct
are a personal matter between that man and his God.
That, in common with all carnivorous creatures, we do
possess God-planted instincts of the chase is a fact.
Why did Almighty God create lions to prey nightly on
harmless animals? And should we not, even at the
expense of a donkey as a bait, be justified in reducing
their number, sacrificing one for the good of many?”</p>

</div>

<p>The answer to all this pious verbiage is, of
course, very simple. In view of the fact that the
sportsman of the present day professes to be
<i>civilised</i>, and is at any rate nominally a member
of a civilised State, it is quite irrelevant to plead
that the propensity to hunt is natural to the
<i>savage</i> man. We are continually striving in other
departments of life to get rid of ferocious instincts,
an inheritance from a savage past, which may or
may not be “God-planted,” but are certainly
very much out of place in a society which regards
itself as humane. Why, then, should it be
assumed that an exception is to be made in favour
of the hunting instinct? The charge against
modern blood-sports is that they are an anachronism,
a survival of a barbarous habit into a
civilised age; nor can it possibly be any justification
of them to show that Nature herself is cruel,
for as we do not make savage Nature our exemplar
in other respects, there is no reason why we should
do so in this. And as for the statement that a
man’s treatment of the lower animals is a “personal”
affair<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> “between that man and his God,”
it can only provoke a smile. For man is a social
being, and not even the sportsman, belated barbarian
though he may be, can be allowed the
privilege of thus evading the responsibility which
he owes to his fellow-citizens in a matter affecting
the common conscience of the race.</p>

<p>But the wild animals, it is argued, put themselves
outside the pale of consideration because
they prey on one another. One searches in vain
for justice and mercy among the lower animals&mdash;such
is the strange reason advanced as an excuse
for showing no justice or mercy to <i>them</i>.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> But,
in the first place, it is not a fact that these qualities
are non-existent in the lower races, where
co-operation is as much a law of life as competition;
and, secondly, if it were a fact, it would have
no bearing whatever on the morality of sport.
For why should we base human ethics on animal
conduct? Still more, why should we imitate the
predatory animals rather than the sociable?
And finally, why, because some animals kill for
food, should <i>we</i> kill for pleasure? The cruelty
of Nature can afford no possible justification for
the cruelty of Man, for, as Leigh Hunt wrote in
that trenchant couplet which may be commended
to the notice of the sportsman&mdash;</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“That there is pain and evil is no rule</div>
<div class="verse">That I should make it greater, like a fool.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>Next we come to the kindred sophism drawn
from “the necessity of taking life.” To kill, we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
are reminded, is unavoidable; for wild animals
must be “kept down,” or the balance of Nature
would be deranged. That, of course, is undeniable;
but, unfortunately for the sportsman’s
argument, it is a fact that the breed of foxes,
rabbits, pheasants, and other victims of sport, is
artificially kept up, not down, in order that there
may be plenty of hunting and shooting for the idle
classes to amuse themselves with. So far from
securing the effective destruction of noxious
animals, sport indirectly prevents it; more than
that, it causes the killing to be done not only
ineffectively, but in the most demoralising way,
by making a pastime out of what, if done at all,
should be done as a disagreeable duty. But here
we must in justice mention a new and ingenious
excuse for blood-sports which (to add to its zest)
was put forward by a clergyman. It is necessary
to take life, he argued, and what is necessary is a
duty, and it is right, as far as possible, to make a
pleasure of one’s duties, and therefore&mdash;but the
conclusion is plain! Presumably the reverend
gentleman, had he lived a century back, would
have found the same pious justification for the
practice of making up pleasure parties to see
felons hanged.</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Sport a Blessing to Men.</span></h3>

<p>Speaking generally, we may class the remaining
arguments under two heads: those which aim at
showing that sport is of benefit to mankind, or at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
least not a symptom of cruelty in the sportsman;
and those which actually discover it to be a
blessing to the animals themselves.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> In the former
and more prosaic category must be placed the
queer assertion that sport “adds to the food-supply”
of the nation. We have all read how,
after some aristocratic “shoot,” a number of
pheasants or other palatable game were presented
to the local hospital. Sport, it is seen, goes hand
in hand with the charitable and the philanthropic&mdash;truly
a touching picture! But the fact remains
that the cost of the animals thus reared
primarily for sport, and secondarily for the
table, is far in excess of their market value as
food, and this at once knocks the bottom out of
the sportsman’s patriotic contention. Every stag
that is stalked, every pheasant that is mown down
in the battue, and every hare or rabbit that is
knocked over in covert-shooting, has cost the
country much more to produce than it is worth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
when butchered; and the game-preserver, far from
being helpful to the community in this respect,
is a positive encumbrance to it, as wasting labour
in the production of what is not a food, but a
luxury. Game is reared not for the benefit of the
many, but at the cost of the many, to gratify the
idle and cruel instincts of the few.</p>

<p>Not less illusory is the plea so frequently made
in sporting journals as a justification of sport,
that hunting and shooting “give employment”
to a large number of people. “Do these hyper-humane
faddists,” asks the <i>Irish Field</i>, “ever
consider how, by doing away with many of what
they are pleased to call spurious sports, they
would be taking the actual bread-and-butter out
of the mouths of thousands of men and their
families? Hunting, shooting, and other sports
give employment to such a vast number of people,
directly and indirectly, that it would be nothing
short of a national calamity if they were discontinued
for any cause.” What is really proved by
such apologists is that blood-sports are a terrible
drain on the resources of the nation, and that
millions are annually diverted from productive
labour to be employed on the silliest form of
luxury&mdash;the killing of animals for the mere amusement
of rich people. It is the old fallacy of supposing
that <i>all</i> expenditure of money, without
regard to the nature of the commodities produced,
is beneficial to the community at large.</p>

<p>Then there is the much-vaunted “manliness”
of sport, so important a quality, we are told, in an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
imperial and military nation. Yet what could be
more flagrantly and miserably <i>un</i>manly than for
a crowd of men to sally forth, in perfect security
themselves, armed or mounted, with every advantage
of power and skill on their side, to do to
death with dogs or guns some poor skulking,
terrified little habitant of woodside or hedgerow?
This is what Sir Henry Seton-Karr has to say on
this point:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“Only those who have experienced it can realise the
strength of the hunter’s lust to kill the hunted, though
they may find it difficult to explain. It is certain that
no race of men possess this desire more strongly than
the Anglo-Saxons.… Let us take it that in our case
this passion is an inherited instinct&mdash;which civilisation
cannot eradicate&mdash;of a virile and dominant race, and
that it forms a healthy natural antidote to the enervating
refinements of modern life.”<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>

</div>

<p>The obvious answer to this claim is that
civilisation <i>is</i> eradicating the destructive instincts
of sport&mdash;with extreme slowness, no doubt,
as in the case of all barbarous inherited tendencies,
but surely and certainly nevertheless; and the fact
that blood-sports are already condemned by many
thoughtful people is a clear indication of what
verdict the future will pass on the profession of
killing for “fun.” That good physical exercise
is provided by field sports none will deny, but it
is just as undeniable that such exercise can be as
well or better provided in other ways&mdash;by the
equally healthy and far more manly sports of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
gymnasium and the playing-field, which, be it
noted, are capable of being utilised by a much
larger number of people than the privileged pastimes
of the crack huntsman and “shot.” There
is no reason why the mass of the population
should not, under a juster social system, have
leisure to derive benefit from cricket, football,
boating, hockey, and the other rational sports;
but it is very evident that only a very few can
ever find recreation in those blood-sports which
are absurdly called “national.” The rational
and humane sports may be for the many; the
“national” and cruel sports must be for the
few: that is not the least of the striking differences
that distinguish them.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p>

<p>To contend that blood-sports have no injurious
influence on the minds of those who practise
them seems about as reasonable as to assert that
effect does not follow cause. Yet it is frequently
urged, in defence of sport, that the pleasure is
found not in the “kill,” but in the chase. That
may be true in a sense. What humanitarians
hold is not that sportsmen derive pleasure from the
<i>mere</i> infliction of pain, but that they seek excitement
without sufficient regard to the pain inflicted,
and that this is apt, in some cases, to breed a positive
love of killing, a real “blood-lust.” Take,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
for example, the following remark quoted from
the <i>Eton College Chronicle</i>: “At the time we are
writing, the Beagles have killed but twice, though
by the time the <i>Chronicle</i> appears they may have
increased this number by one.” Here it will be
seen that what the boys’ journal dwells on is precisely
the killing&mdash;surely a significant side-light
on the influence of the sport. There is no escaping
this question, whether at Eton or elsewhere:
Why, if the painful pursuit of a sentient animal be
not an essential part of the amusement, is the
drag-hunt refused as a substitute? And if the
drag be disdained as not sufficiently exciting, how
can the inference be avoided that the zest of the
pastime is enhanced by the peril of the quarry?</p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Sport a Blessing to the Animals.</span></h3>

<p>But it is when he is demonstrating that sport
comes as a boon and a blessing to the non-human
races which are the victims of it that the sportsman
is most entertaining. “They like it,” he
asserts, when any pity is expressed for the hunted
fox.</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“Happy the hounds, loud-baying on his track!</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Happy the huntsmen with their murderous call!</div>
<div class="verse">But the spent fox, dead-beat before the pack&mdash;</div>
<div class="verse indent2">His are the sweetest, strangest joys of all!”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>This love on the part of certain animals for
being hunted to death is surely one of the most
curious facts in natural history, and makes it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
seem almost an injustice to horses, cows, pigs, and
other domestic creatures, that they are denied a
privilege which is so freely accorded to their wilder
brethren. Why should deer, for instance, be
specially favoured in this respect? The stag, as
a noble lord once remarked, is a most pampered
animal. “When he was going to be hunted he
was carried to the meet in a comfortable cart.
When set down, the first thing he did was to crop
the grass. When the hounds got too near, they
were stopped. By-and-by he lay down, and was
wheeled back to his comfortable home. It was a
life that many would like to live.” It appears,
therefore, that it is a loss, a deprivation, not to be
hunted over a country full of barbed wire and
broken bottles by a pack of stag-hounds. Life is
mean and poor without it; for, to humans and
non-humans alike, sport, as the same nobleman
expressed it, is “the gift of God.”</p>

<p>But the sportsman can be very “slim” when
hard pressed in controversy by his implacable
pursuers, and among his many devices for confusing
the issue, the most subtle, perhaps, is the
metaphysical argument which pleads that it is
better for the animals to be bred and killed in
sport than not to be bred at all, and that it
is to the “preservation” which sport affords
that certain species owe their escape from
extinction. Mr. R. A. Sanders, late Master of
the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, has thus
written of the stag (<i>Nineteenth Century</i>, August,
1908):</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“He has lived a life of luxury for years, and has a
bad half-hour at the end. From his point of view surely
the pleasure predominates over the pain. For if it were
not for the hunting, he would not exist at all.”</p>

</div>

<p>When a Bill was introduced in Parliament in
1883 for the prohibition of the cruel sport of
pigeon-shooting, it was opposed by Sir Herbert
Maxwell on the ground that a pigeon would rather
accept life, “under the condition of his life being
a short and happy one, violently terminated,”
than not be brought into existence; and the same
sportsman has since stated, as a “salient paradox,”
that one who takes delight in pursuing and
slaying wild animals may claim to rank among
their best friends. It escaped his notice, as it
escapes the notice of all who seek refuge in this
amusing piece of sophistry, that it is beyond our
power to ascertain the feelings or the preferences
of a pigeon, or of any other being, <i>before</i> he is in
existence; what we have to deal with is the sentience
of animals that <i>already</i> exist.</p>

<p>And as for the contention that animals are
“preserved” by sport, it is sufficient to point out
that it rests on a mental confusion between the
individual animal and the species. It would be
little comfort to the individual fox who is torn to
pieces by the hounds to know, if he could know,
that his species is preserved by his tormentors,
and that the same process of death-dealing will
thus be perpetuated. When it is asserted that
but for fox-hunting the fox would have been
exterminated in England like the wolf, the answer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
of course is that of the two methods extermination
is far the more merciful. Can it be pretended
that it would have been kinder to wolves to keep
a number of them alive in order that sportsmen
might for ever pursue and break them up?</p>

<p>And, really, if it is so kind to animals to preserve
them that they may be worried with hounds, we
ought to feel some compunction at having allowed
the humane old sport of bear-baiting to be
abolished; for, according to the same “salient
paradox,” the bear-baiter was Bruin’s best friend.
It is sad to think that there used to be bears in
many an English village where now they are never
seen!</p>

<p>It is for the fox, perhaps, that the sportsman’s
solicitude is most touching and most characteristic.
“If we stay fox-hunting,” it has been
said, “foxes will die far more brutal deaths in
cruel vermin traps, until there are none left to
die.” How tender, how considerate, is this disinterested
regard for the welfare of the hunted
animal!<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> The merciful sportsman steps in to
save a noxious species from extinction, and in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
return for such “preservation” demands that
the grateful fox shall be hunted and worried and
dismembered for the amusement of his gentle
benefactor. But are not our fox-hunting friends
just a trifle too clever in making, at one and the
same time, two quite incompatible and contradictory
claims for their beloved profession&mdash;first,
that it saves the fox from extermination;
and, secondly, that it rids the country-side of a
very mischievous animal? “For six good
months,” says the <i>Sportsman</i>, “he is allowed to
frolic at his ease, with all his poultry-bills paid
for him.” The argument here is that there can
be no cruelty in fox-hunting, because the fox is
preserved; but, in that case, what about the
following defence of fox-hunting by the editor
of the “Badminton Library”? “The sentimentalist,”
he says, “does not consider those other
tragedies for which the fox is responsible&mdash;the
rabbits, leverets, poultry, and game birds that he
devours daily. The death of a fox is indeed the
salvation of much life.”</p>

<p>So the farmer is to be grateful to the fox-hunter
because the fox is killed, and the fox himself is to
be grateful to the same person because he is <i>not</i>
killed! It is obvious that the sporting folk cannot
have it both ways; they cannot take credit for
the destruction of a pest and also for preventing
that pest being exterminated by the injured
farmer. Let them choose one of the alternative
arguments and keep to it.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“Hark ye, then, whose profession or pastime is killing!</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To dispel your benignant illusions I’m loth;</div>
<div class="verse">But be one or the other, my double-faced brother&mdash;</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Be saviour or slayer&mdash;you cannot be both!”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>The more one considers it, one cannot but smile
at the sportsman’s “love” for the animals whom
he so persecutes and worries. Tom Tulliver, we
remember, was described by George Eliot as “fond
of animals&mdash;fond, that is, of throwing stones at
them”; and so it is with this affection of the
sportsman’s. “What name should we bestow,”
says an old writer, “on a superior being who,
without provocation or advantage, should continue
from day to day, void of all pity or remorse,
to torment mankind for diversion, and at the
same time endeavour with the utmost care to
preserve their lives and to propagate their species
in order to increase the number of victims devoted
to his malevolence, and be delighted in proportion
to the miseries which he occasioned? I say,
what name detestable enough could we find for
such a being? Yet if we impartially consider the
case, we must acknowledge that, with regard to
the inferior animals, just such a being is the
sportsman.”<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Trust the Specialist.</span></h3>

<p>Such, then, are the arguments which are advanced
in all seriousness, and without a suspicion
or twinkle of humour, to prove that blood-sports<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
are a benefit to mankind and to the lower races
alike. But before concluding I must mention
one other piece of reasoning which is as amusing
as any specimen of sportsman’s logic&mdash;the “trust
the specialist” fallacy, which asserts that none
but sportsmen can fairly pass judgment on sport.
For example, when a memorial was presented to
a former Prime Minister against the Royal Buckhounds,
a certain paper gravely remarked that
“what proportion of the protesting gentlemen had
ever been on horseback, it was not easy to determine.”
The assumption, it will be seen, is that
when any cruel practice is arraigned before public
opinion, we are not merely to trust the specialist
on technical matters that rightly lie within his
ken, but we are to let him decide the wider <i>ethical</i>
issues, on which, being no more than human, he is
certain to have the strongest professional prejudice.
It is an argument worthy of the Sublime Porte itself.</p>

<p>In like manner Lord Ribblesdale, when defending
stag-hunting in his book on “The Queen’s
Hounds,” expressed the sportsman’s case as
follows: “Most people will agree that conclusions
founded on practice must always have a slight
pull when placed in the scales with conclusions
based upon theory, hearsay, or conjecture&mdash;even
granting the fullest credit for sincerity and <i>bona
fides</i> to the opponents of stag-hunting.”</p>

<p>Now, it is, of course, absurd to represent the
ethical objections to sport as “based upon theory,
hearsay, or conjecture,” for the methods of
sportsmen are well known and beyond dispute,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
and many of those who most strongly condemn
such practices have been sportsmen themselves
and are thoroughly conversant with the facts.
But what I wish to point out is that Lord Ribblesdale’s
description of the sportsman’s defence of
sport as “a conclusion founded on practice”
might be just as logically applied to the criminal’s
defence of crime. To invoke the judgment of an
expert on the morality of a practice in which he
is professionally interested is an error similar to
that of setting the cat to watch the cream.</p>

<p>On the whole, it is not surprising that the
sportsman who can devise no cleverer modes of
escape from his humanitarian pursuers than the
sophisms above mentioned is already being
brought to bay, and stands in imminent danger
of being, controversially, “broken up.” Indeed,
considering the nature of the arguments adduced
in its favour, one is inclined to think that sport
must be not only cruel to the victims of the chase,
but ruinous to the mental capacity of the gentlemen
who indulge in it. It can hardly be doubted
that the ludicrous aspect of modern sport will more
and more present itself to those who possess the
sense of humour; and we may even hope that the
poverty-stricken caricaturists of our comic papers
will some day relinquish their threadbare jokes
over the blunders of the hunting-field and the
shooting-box, to discover that the subject of sport
is rich in another kind of comedy&mdash;the essential
silliness of the habit itself, and the crass absurdity
of the arguments put forward by its apologists.</p>

<div class="footnotes">

<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Some of these fallacies have been incidentally referred
to in preceding chapters, but it is convenient, at
the expense of a little overlapping, that they should
here be treated together.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <i>Blackwood’s Magazine</i>, August, 1899.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Both these lines of argument were followed by Dr.
Lang, Archbishop of York, when on a recent occasion
(November 16, 1913) he pronounced what may be called
the Foxology at the dedication of a stained window to the
memory of an aged blood-sportsman who was killed in
the hunting-field. That a Christian minister should
have been “launched into eternity,” as the phrase is,
while engaged in hunting a fox, might have been expected
to cause a sense of very deep pain, and even of
shame, to his co-religionists. What actually happened
was that an Archbishop was found willing to eulogise,
in a consecrated place of worship, not only the reverend
gentleman whose life was thus thrown away, but the
sport of fox-hunting itself!</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> “My Sporting Holidays,” by Sir H. Seton-Karr,
1904.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> But let us not forget the delightful remark of the
Archbishop of York, that “even the labourer, when he
felt the stir of the Meet, got just one of those fresh
events, excitements, and interests that he needed in
what otherwise was often a very monotonous life.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> This humane aspect of sport may be aptly illustrated
by a passage in De Quincey’s essay on “Murder considered
as one of the Fine Arts”:
</p>
<p>
“The subject chosen ought to be in good health, for
it is absolutely barbarous to murder a sick person, who
is usually quite unable to bear it. And here, in this
benign attention to the comfort of sick people, you will
observe the usual effect of a fine art to soften and refine
the feelings. From our art, as from all the other liberal
arts, when thoroughly mastered, the result is to humanise
the heart.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Soame Jenyns, 1782.</p>

</div>

</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>

<h2><a name="APPENDIX" id="APPENDIX"></a>APPENDIX</h2>

<table summary="Contents">
  <tr>
    <td></td><td></td><td class="tdr">PAGE</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">I.</td><td><a href="#I">SPORT AS A TRAINING FOR WAR</a></td><td class="tdr">149</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">II.</td><td><a href="#II">“BLOODING”</a></td><td class="tdr">155</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">III.</td><td><a href="#III">THE HUNTING OF GRAVID ANIMALS</a></td><td class="tdr">158</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">IV.</td><td><a href="#IV">DRAG-HUNT <i>VERSUS</i> STAG-HUNT</a></td><td class="tdr">162</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">V.</td><td><a href="#V">CLAY PIGEON <i>VERSUS</i> LIVE PIGEON</a></td><td class="tdr">166</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">VI.</td><td><a href="#VI">COURSING</a></td><td class="tdr">170</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">VII.</td><td><a href="#VII">THE GENTLE CRAFT</a></td><td class="tdr">174</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">VIII.</td><td><a href="#VIII">SPOILING OTHER PEOPLE’S PLEASURE</a></td><td class="tdr">179</td>
  </tr>
</table>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a><br /><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p>

<h2>APPENDIX</h2>

<h3><a name="I" id="I"></a>I<br />
SPORT AS A TRAINING FOR WAR</h3>

<p>It is often said, in attempted justification of
“sport,” that it is the best training for war. This
is true only in the sense that as far as concerns the
creation and the perpetuation of a certain aggressive
spirit, war and sport are certainly kindred
pastimes with a good deal in common. They both
date from a prehistoric period when man</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse indent10">“Butted his rough brother-brute</div>
<div class="verse">For lust or lusty blood or provender,”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p class="noindent">and both, having been prolonged into an age
which ought to have left them far behind with
other antiquated barbarisms, are now defended
by the same moral and economic fallacies, as
being, in the first place, part of the great “struggle
for existence,” “survival of the fittest,” and so
forth, and, secondly, as “good for trade.” Good
for trade they both are, in the sense that they
help the few to snatch a temporary profit at the
expense of the many; and as for the survival of
the fittest, if you are determined to wrest that
theory from its true meaning, it may be made to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
cover both war and sport at a stretch. As Robert
Buchanan said:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“Under the fostering wing of Imperialism, brute force
is developing more and more into a political science.
There is no excess of rapacity, no extreme of selfishness,
no indifference to the rights of the weak and helpless,
which Christian materialism is not ready to justify. The
Englishman, both as soldier and colonist, is a typical
sportsmen; he seizes his prey wherever he finds it with
the hunter’s privilege. He is lost in amazement when men
speak of the rights of inferior races, just as the sportsman
at home is lost in amazement when we talk of the
rights of the lower orders. Here, as yonder, he is kindly,
blatant, good-humoured, aggressive, selfish, and fundamentally
<i>savage</i>.”</p>

</div>

<p>We may take it for granted that, in the long
run, as we treat our fellow-beings, “the animals,”
so shall we treat our fellow-men. In spite of all
the barriers and divisions that prejudice and
superstition have so industriously heaped up
between the human and the non-human, the fact
remains that the lower animals hold their lives
by the same tenure as men do, and that there is
no essential difference between the killing of one
race and of the other. The tiger that lurks in all
of us will not easily be tamed, so long as the deliberate
murder of harmless creatures for “sport”
is a recognised amusement in every “civilised”
country. Once open your eyes to the kinship
that links all sentient life, and you will see very
clearly the relation that subsists between the
sportsman and the soldier.</p>

<p>We recall an incident related some years ago at
a Humanitarian League meeting, where the craze<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
for “big-game” shooting was being discussed.
Everyone knows how the possessors of such
“trophies” as the heads and horns of “big
game” love to decorate their houses with these
treasured mementoes of the chase. It had been
the fortune&mdash;good or bad&mdash;of the narrator of the
story to visit a house which was not only beautified
in this way, but also contained a <i>human</i> head
that had been sent home by a member of a certain
African expedition and “preserved” by the skill
of the taxidermist. When the owner of the head&mdash;the
<i>second</i> owner&mdash;invited the humanitarian
visitor to see the trophy, it was with some trepidation
that he acquiesced. But when, after
passing up a staircase between walls literally
plastered with portions of the carcases of elephant,
rhinoceros, antelope, etc., he came to a landing
where, under a glass case, stood the head of a
pleasant-looking young negro, he felt no special
repugnance at the sight. It was simply a part&mdash;and,
as it seemed, not especially dreadful or
loathsome part&mdash;of the surrounding dead-house;
and he understood how mankind itself is nothing
more or less than “big game” to our soldier-sportsmen,
when they find themselves in some
conveniently remote region where the restrictions
of morality are unknown. The absolute
difference between human and non-human is a
fiction which will not bear the test either of
fearless thought in the study or of rough experience
in the wilds.</p>

<p>The temper which makes war still possible in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
the twentieth century is that which is kept alive
and fostered in so-called times of peace by the
practice, among other practices (for we do not,
of course, assert that sport is the <i>only</i> accessory
to war), of doing to death thousands upon thousands
of helpless animals for purposes of mere
recreation. Peace advocates who declaim against
the infamies of war, without taking note of the
kindred infamies of sport, have, to say the least
of it, not looked very deeply into the subject of
their propaganda;<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> and precisely the same holds
good of those “lovers of animals” who are horrified
at the idea of running a fox to death, but are
ready to accept the flimsiest of flimsy sophisms
as an excuse for going to war. Sport is, in truth,
a form of war, and war is a form of sport; and
those who defend such institutions as the Eton
Beagles, on the ground that the schoolboys who
indulge in them are thereby trained to be the
future stalwarts of Imperialism, are fully justified
in their contention&mdash;provided only that they look
the facts of war and of Imperialism in the face.
The Etonians who, in the eighteenth century,
used to beat rams to death with clubs, and who
now break up hares as a half-holiday pastime,
have always furnished a large contingent of officers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
to the British Army. Need we wonder that wars
flourish without regard to morality or justice?</p>

<p>But when we turn to the assertion that the
practice of sport is, actually, the best <i>training</i> for
war, we find it to be contradicted by facts. On
this point we cannot do better than quote from a
letter addressed to the <i>Humanitarian</i> by Mr. R. B.
Cunninghame-Graham:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“The rise of Japan and the fighting qualities of the
Japanese have shaken sportsmen from their ‘sport-the-image-of-war’
position. It is well known that not only
are the majority of Japanese vegetarians, but that such a
thing as a sportsman is unknown amongst them. Yet,
without wishing to disparage the prowess of European
soldiers, how many ‘sportsmen’ would wager much
money on the chances of a thousand picked Europeans
if opposed to a thousand Japanese soldiers in an open
plain with no weapons but swords?</p>

<p>“The Boer War, and the miserable figure cut by our
officers in comparison with the Boer officers in both
shooting and riding, disposed conclusively of the ‘sport-the-preparation-for-war’
argument, so dear to sportsmen.
In fact, ‘sport’ as understood in England cannot
prepare men for war, even if they ride to hounds three
days a week, shoot the other three, and read the <i>Pink
Un</i> on Sunday. English sport and war are different in
their essence, and one has no analogy to the other.</p>

<p>“In the one case men rise from a comfortable bed,
bathe, and breakfast, and even if they are exposed to
weather during the day, return at night to a well-cooked
dinner and comfortable bed. The horses they ride are
valuable, highly-trained animals, who are expected to put
out their full strength for at most two or three hours,
and are perhaps not required again for two or three days,
or even expected to be required. The shooting is done
under the same conditions, and though requiring skill
(as does the riding in fox-hunting), is not of a nature to
be useful in war.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>

<p>“In neither case does the ‘diversion’ conduce to the
self-denying or abstemious habits so essential in war.
Of course, I do not mean that sportsmen are of necessity
of intemperate habits, but in war the conditions are
different from those of sport. In the latter case the
soldier rises, perhaps from a night of rain round a camp-fire,
gets, without breakfast, on his half-starving horse,
and jogs along all day at a footspace, to sleep, supposing
there is no fighting and he has not been killed, once more
by a camp-fire, perhaps again in rain, or in a driving
wind.</p>

<p>“Every condition under which the sportsman plays
is different from those under which the soldier works.
As in the Roman times regiments of gladiators proved
the most useless at the front, so I believe a regiment all
composed of sportsmen would make a miserable show
before a thousand quite unsporting Japanese.”</p>

</div>

<p>To the same effect is the opinion of Sir H. H.
Johnston, as expressed in an article in the <i>Nineteenth
Century</i> of September, 1913.</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“One is told that fox-hunting is a splendid school for
riders, the making of our cavalry, etc. Rubbish! Very
few of our great cavalry officers have been fox-hunters,
or willing fox-hunters, and practically none of the
troopers. A large proportion of our mounted soldiers
are recruited from townsmen who never learned to ride
until they entered the riding-school. The Boers were
admittedly the cunningest, most enduring riders recent
warfare has known, but they, like their cousins of the
Wild West, would probably show themselves duffers in
the hunting-field; at any rate, they never practised in
this school of steeplechasing. The last thing I desire to
do is to undervalue riding as an exercise, an accomplishment,
a necessary art in warfare, a school for teaching
suppleness, coolness, and courage. But the fox is not
a necessary ingredient in the curriculum.”</p>

</div>

<p>We conclude, then, that Sport, considered as
a school for War, is doubly to be condemned,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
inasmuch as, while it breeds the aggressive and
cruel spirit of militarism, it does <i>not</i> furnish that
practical military training which is essential to
successful warfare. Sport may make a man a
savage; it does not make him a soldier.</p>

<div class="footnotes">

<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Here, for example, is a suggestive heading of an
article in a London paper (October 27, 1913) in reference
to a meeting of the German Emperor and the Emperor
Francis Joseph for the purpose of promoting peace:
“<span class="smcap">Peace Emperors Meet. The Kaiser shoots 1,100
Pheasants with the Austrian Archduke.</span>” A strange
way of inaugurating peace!</p>
</div>

</div>

<hr class="tb" />

<h3><a name="II" id="II"></a>II<br />
“BLOODING”</h3>

<h4><span class="smcap">The Blooding of Children.</span></h4>

<p>Of all practices connected with “sport” none are
more loathsome than those known as “blooding,”
whether it be the “blooding” of children, which
consists in a sort of gruesome parody of the rite
of baptism, or the “blooding” of hounds&mdash;viz.,
the turning out of some decrepit animal to be
pulled down by the pack, by way of stimulating
their blood-lust. Here are a few examples:</p>

<p>On January 4, 1910, the <i>Daily Mirror</i> published
an account of the “blooding” of the Marquis of
Worcester, the ten-year-old son of the Duke of
Beaufort. In a front-page illustration the child
was shown with blood-bedaubed cheeks, holding
up a dead hare for the hounds, while a number
of ladies and gentlemen were smiling approval
in the rear.</p>

<p>Here, again, is an extract from the <i>Cheltenham
Examiner</i> of March 25, 1909, in reference to the
“eviction” and butchery of a fox which had taken
refuge in a drain.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“Captain Elwes’s two children being present at the
death of a fox on their father’s preserves, the old hunting
custom of ‘blooding’ was duly performed by Charlie
Beacham, who, after dipping the brush of the fox in
his own [<i>sic</i>] blood, sprinkled the foreheads of both
children, hoping they would be aspirants to the ‘sport
of kings.’”</p>

</div>

<p>Presumably the blood in which the brush was
dipped was that of the fox, not of Mr. Charles
Beacham. But what a ceremony in a civilised
age! One would have thought that twentieth-century
sportsmen, even if they would not spare
the fox, might spare their own children!</p>

<p>The following paragraph also appeared in a
London paper in 1909:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“A pretty little girl on a chestnut cob, with masses
of fair curls falling over her navy-blue habit, was the
chief centre of attraction at a meet of the West Norfolk
Fox-Hounds at Necton. The pretty little girl was
Princess Mary of Wales, and the day will be a memorable
one in her life. She motored back to Sandringham
carrying her first brush.… Princess Mary was
‘blooded’ by the huntsmen, and was presented with the
brush, which was hung on her saddle.”</p>

</div>

<p>In connection with deer-stalking, the practice
of “blooding” has been described as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> “a hunting
tradition which goes back to the Middle Ages, and
recalls the days when the gentle craft of venery
was the most cherished accomplishment of our
monarchs.”</p>

<h4><span class="smcap">The Blooding of Hounds.</span></h4>

<p>In the prosecution of Mr. Alexander Ormrod,
joint Master of the Ribblesdale Buckhounds,
by the R.S.P.C.A. on November 11, 1912, for
cruelty to a doe, there was evidence that the
unfortunate deer, turned out in private to
“blood” a new pack of hounds, was lame and
wholly out of condition; and, as <i>Truth</i> remarked,
“the mere fact that the animal, although given a
good start, only managed to get two or three
hundred yards away before being pulled down,
‘screaming like a child,’ was quite sufficient to
show that she was incapable of escape.” Take the
following:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“Mr. Marmaduke Wright, of Bolton Hall, a member
of the Hunt, said he saw Oddie (a hunt servant) the day
before the hunt took place. Oddie said they were going
to let a lame deer out of the pen to blood the young
hounds, and witness said he would not go out, as he did
not care about hunting tame calves, much less a lame
one.”</p>

</div>

<p>The statement of John James Macauley, an
eye-witness, was that the deer “scarcely put her
hind-leg on the ground.”</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“She was followed by the hounds for a distance of
about two hundred yards.… When the doe could see
she was overtaken, she stopped, and he heard the poor
little thing screaming like a child.”</p>

</div>

<p>Lord Ribblesdale, called to speak as to the
practice of blooding hounds, condemned the
method adopted by his colleague.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“If blooding had been the object, his opinion was
that there should have been a sudden, sharp, and decisive
transaction [<i>sic</i>], which would have made the hounds,
whenever they saw a deer, go at it. If they intended
to blood hounds, the method pursued by Mr. Ormrod
was most foolish. It was not an uncommon thing to
blood hounds, and with regard to the question of cruelty,
if they argued from elemental principles, all sport was
cruel. He had hunted carted deer, and there had been
no cruelty.”</p>

</div>

<p>Asked whether, if a lame, emaciated, and
weakened deer were released from a pen, it would
be an unreasonable thing to hunt it, Lord Ribblesdale
replied&mdash;</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“With the ‘if,’ yes. This was a weak deer; therefore
I should have blooded hounds with it.”</p>

</div>

<p>The magistrates decided that “there was not
enough evidence to convict,” but the prosecution
did great service in showing what horrible practices
are still carried on under the name of
“sport.”</p>

<hr class="tb" />

<h3><a name="III" id="III"></a>III<br />
THE HUNTING OF GRAVID ANIMALS</h3>

<p>Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to
the morality of “blood-sports” in general, there
is one recurring feature of such sports which,
whether regarded from the humanitarian’s or from
the sportsman’s point of view, is almost equally
repulsive. We refer to the hunting, in some
cases accidental, in others deliberate, of gravid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
animals. That such hunting&mdash;of the hare, of the
otter, of the hind&mdash;takes place, there is no question
whatever, as is proved by the following facts.</p>

<p>It is quite a common practice to continue the
hunting of hares with beagles until the middle, or
even to the end of March, by which time many
of the doe hares are heavy with young. Owing to
the remonstrances addressed to the headmaster of
Eton by the Humanitarian League, the Eton hunting
season has now been curtailed, but it is still prolonged
beyond the date which has been suggested
by the better class of sportsmen. The experience
recorded in the <i>County Gentleman</i> (1906) by the
writer of the following letter, Mr. John A. Doyle,
of Pendarren, Crickhowell, seems conclusive:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“The question you raise is one in which I feel a good
deal of interest. I have not only been for some years
master of a pack of harriers (foot), but I am also an Old
Etonian, and have always felt much interested in the
doings of the school beagles, and sympathy with them.
Indeed, before I got your letter I had thought of writing
to the headmaster, with whom I am&mdash;perhaps I should
say was, a long time back&mdash;slightly acquainted.</p>

<p>“My own practice has always been to have one meet
the first week in March, and then end the season. I was
once or twice tempted to go on later, and once killed a
doe in kindle. Since then I have kept to my rule. She
gave us a sharp run of twenty minutes or half an hour.
This, I think, disposes of the theory that a pregnant
hare has no scent. Possibly she has less than she would
have normally. But <i>per contra</i> she must be handicapped
by her condition. Then there is the risk of a chop. And
it cannot be good for an animal big with young to be
bustled and frightened.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
<p>“There is yet a worse danger. In some forward
seasons there may be leverets by the second week in
March. The dam might be killed, and the leverets left
to die. I would almost sooner never hunt again than
run such a risk. Of course, one might hunt through
March for several seasons and none of these things
happen; but there must be a risk, and I do not myself
think that one is justified in running it.”</p>

</div>

<p>What is true of the Eton beagles is true of
every hare-hunt throughout the country. The
sport ought to be brought to a close on the last
day of February, as, indeed, used to be the
custom. “Coursing still goes on among a few,”
wrote the author of the “Sporting Almanack”
for March, 1843, “but in our opinion the fair
sportsman will <i>hold hard</i> as soon as March sets in.”<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a>
Much, then, of the hare-hunting of the present
time is <i>not</i> fair.</p>

<p>Still worse is the case of otter-hunting, which
is carried on from springtime till autumn, with
the result that females heavy with young must
occasionally be worried, though sportsmen plead
that this is never intentional. An instance that
has often been quoted is recorded in the Hon.
Grantley F. Berkeley’s “Life and Recollections,”
where the story is told of a female otter disturbed
by the hounds “in the act of making a couch for
her young.”</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“At her we went for seven hours, with constant views,
and during that time, on a stump overhanging the river,
she miscarried and gave birth to two cubs, born only a
few days before their time. A hound found them, and
when I took one in my hand it was scarcely cold. She
beat us for want of light, and well she deserved to
escape.”</p>

</div>

<p>Similar instances are recorded from time to
time, as by a correspondent of the <i>Morning
Leader</i>, who told how in Devonshire, in 1891, a
female otter, after being worried for nearly four
hours, had given birth to two dead whelps.</p>

<p>But of all such malpractices the chasing of in-calf
hinds is the most deliberate and the worst.
If it be true, as we are informed, that tenant-farmers
in the Devon and Somerset district complain
bitterly of the damage done by deer, what
possible reason can be given against the <i>shooting</i>
(when necessary) of the hinds, in place of the
disgusting and barbarous custom of hunting them?
A few years ago the Rev. J. Stratton, after personally
investigating the matter, described some
of the inevitable results of hind-hunting till the
end of March, instead of stopping the “sport,” as
ought to be done, at the beginning of March at
the latest, and gave specific cases in which, when
the dead hinds were “broken up” to feed the
hounds, calves as large as hares were seen to be
taken from the bodies. Since that time there is
reason to believe that, owing in part to the
Humanitarian League’s protests, there is a growing
local feeling against this especially cruel
feature of the sport, and it is hoped that those
landowners and residents who have humane
scruples in the matter will use their influence to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
bring about the discontinuance of this disgraceful
practice. The whole system of hunting these
West Country deer is cruel enough&mdash;involving, as
it does, the death of many of them by leaping
from the cliffs on to the rocks, or being drowned
in the sea, or being hung up on wire-fences and
mangled by the hounds. But the hunting of the
hinds, at a time when even savages might compassionate
them, is one of the very worst abominations
for which even “sport” is responsible.</p>

<div class="footnotes">

<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>

<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Quoted in <i>Fry’s Magazine</i>, June, 1911, in an admirable
article entitled “Shabby Blood-Sports Worth
Ending.”</p>
</div>

</div>

<hr class="tb" />

<h3><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV<br />
DRAG-HUNT <i>VERSUS</i> STAG-HUNT</h3>

<p>The fact is too often overlooked that a ready
substitute for the savage chase of animals may be
found in the drag-hunt, a form of sport which preserves
all that is valuable in the way of exercise,
while getting rid of one thing only&mdash;the cruelty
to the tortured stag or fox or hare. As has been
pointed out in the <i>Sheffield Daily Telegraph</i>, a
paper favourable to sport:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“There is little doubt that in time the drag-hunt will
become the popular hunting pastime. For years it has
been supported by the officers of the Guards, and,
besides having the merit of disarming criticism on the
part of the Humanitarian League, it can be enjoyed by
thousands of sightseers, as it defines the tract of country
over which the drag leads the hounds.”</p>

</div>

<p>The attempts of some sporting writers to belittle
the value of the drag have been very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
infelicitous. If they personally prefer a blood-sport
to a bloodless pastime, let them say so&mdash;it is a
matter on which we will take their word&mdash;but
when they assert that a drag-hunt is not suitable
for pedestrians, or for schoolboys, they only convict
themselves of knowing as little about the
practical as about the moral side of the controversy.
The following statement was made by the
late Lady Florence Dixie, who spoke with unquestionable
authority:&mdash;</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“Drags can be fast run or slow run, according to the
way they are laid. My husband owned a pack of
harriers and a pack of beagles, and I was able to get him
often to hunt them on drags, and have often ridden with
the harriers and run with the beagles. When a very
fast, non-hunting run was wanted with the harriers, the
drag was laid straight and continuously, and hounds
ran fast, and riding was like a steeplechase, without a
pause, except when any of us came a cropper! When a
hunting run was required, we laid a catchy drag, twisting
here and there, lifting the scent, and copying as near as
possible the wily ways of Reynard. With the beagles
we imitated the hare, who is a ringing, not straight-running
animal, lifting the scent, doubling back, and so
on, and, in fact, we brought thus two competitors into
the sport&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, the drag-layer <i>versus</i> the huntsman, and
pitted their wiles and their cunning against each other.
I may be accepted as an authority, as few have perhaps
ridden in harder-fought hunting runs of all kinds than I&mdash;fox,
stag, harrier, guanaco, ostrich, and suchlike&mdash;and
I have had considerable experience with beagles as
well, on foot.”<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p>
</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p>

<p>In face of this testimony, and of the fact recorded
by Brinsley Richards, in his “Seven
Years at Eton,” that a drag was successfully used
at Eton half a century ago, it is absurd to pretend
that it could not be used there again; but if further
proof be needed, it is, fortunately, available
in the following letter from Mr. A. G. Grenfell,
Headmaster of Mostyn House School, Parkgate,
Cheshire. It will be seen that the idea, very
commonly held, that the drag-hunt is suitable
only for those following on horseback, and that
it would too severely tax the energies of boys
running on foot, is absolutely erroneous.</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p class="right">“<i>December 16, 1903.</i></p>

<p>“On the subject of Beagle Drag-Hunting at Schools, I
think you will be pleased to know that we have owned
and run a pack of beagles at this school for the last ten
years on the lines that you suggest, and with the greatest
success. The drag affords any amount of healthy and
interesting exercise without cruelty. Ours is just an
ordinary preparatory school, with ten masters and
ninety boys. Our hounds are twenty-three or twenty-four
in number. The sport of following them is very
popular with all of us, and it would be hard to devise
an easier or better form of school variant to the everlasting
football. Not only does drag-hunting keep boys
from tiring of the regulation game, but it is to the wind
and endurance these runs give us that we owe the fact
that we seldom, if ever, lose a match against boys of our
own size and weight. The beauty of the drag-hunt is
that you can pick your course, you can choose your
jumps, you can regulate your checks and keep your field
all together, and you can insure the maximum of sport
and exercise.”</p>

</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p>

<p>Here, too, is the testimony of another headmaster
of a preparatory school, Mr. F. H. Gresson,
of The Grange, Crowborough.</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p class="right">“<i>March 23, 1909.</i></p>

<p>“I can fully endorse all that Mr. Grenfell says with
regard to the pleasure and amusement to be derived from
a drag-hunt. I have kept a small pack of beagles and
hunted a drag with them for the last five years with
very successful results. In my opinion, it is a very
suitable form of amusement for boys of the preparatory
school age, as you can regulate the distance and the
checks, and there is no fear of their getting overdone.</p>

<p>“As one who is very keen upon both fox-hunting and
hare-hunting, I cannot pretend to say that a drag compares
in any way with either. At the same time, however,
I get a great amount of enjoyment out of it myself,
in addition to the exercise, and I do not find it at all a
dull sport.”</p>

</div>

<p>We do not, of course, <i>compare</i> the drag-hunt
with the stag-hunt, the hare-hunt, or any other
blood-sport, in the sense of saying that it yields
equal excitement; it lacks, no doubt, the thrill
of the life-and-death struggle that is going on in
front of the hounds. But for those who are
aware that such excitement is cruel and morbid,
the drag-hunt may be made to provide an excellent
<i>substitute</i> for blood-sport, with plenty of
skill as well as plenty of exercise; and sportsmen
who refuse such substitute merely give proof that
their addiction to a barbarous practice is very
strong.</p>

<div class="footnotes">

<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>

<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> In like manner, Mr. W. H. Crofton, president of the
Beagle Club, has admitted in <i>The Times</i> that the drag-hunt,
“run with skill by one who understands the art,”
can be made to yield “excellent exercise” for schoolboys.</p>
</div>

</div>

<hr class="tb" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p>

<h3><a name="V" id="V"></a>V<br />
CLAY-PIGEON <i>VERSUS</i> LIVE PIGEON</h3>

<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By the Rev. J. STRATTON</span></p>

<p>Pigeon-shooting is one of those practices which
generous minds must regard with aversion.
There is not a single element in it which cultivates
any good quality in mankind.</p>

<p>The late Lord Randolph Churchill, in the
House of Commons, 1883, alluding to Monte
Carlo doings, gave an effective description of a
pigeon-shooting scene:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“He had had the opportunity, he said, of watching the
sight at Monte Carlo, though he had never had the satisfaction
of killing a pigeon himself. The pigeon-shooting
at Monte Carlo was conducted on the same principles as
that at Hurlingham, and under similar rules. He saw
the birds taken out of the basket, and before being put
into the trap a man cut their tails with a large pair of
scissors. That probably was not very cruel, because he
only cut the quill, though at times he seemed to cut very
close. But worse followed. After cutting the tail, he
saw the man take the bird in one hand, and with the
other tear a great bunch of feathers from the breast and
stomach of every pigeon. On asking the man what he
did that for, he replied that it was to stimulate the birds,
in order that, maddened by excitement and pain, they
might take a more eccentric leap in the air, and increase
the chance of the pigeon gamblers.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
<p>“He saw another very curious thing, too. One of
the pigeons was struck and fell to the ground; but when
the dog went to pick it up, the wretched bird fluttered
again in the air, and for an appreciable time it remained
so fluttering, just a little higher than the dog could jump.
While the bird’s fate was thus trembling in the balance,
the betting was fast and furious, and when at last the
pigeon tumbled into the dog’s jaws, he would never
forget the shout of triumph and yell of execration that
rose from the ring-men and gentlemen.”</p>

</div>

<p>Now, what honest-minded man can approve of
such a performance as this? Yet the so-called
sport is in much favour still, from aristocratic
gatherings down to those promoted by low public-houses.</p>

<p>It is surely of the nature of anything claiming
to be legitimate sport, that the quarry should be
in its natural, wild condition, and should have a
chance of saving its life from its would-be destroyer.
What chance of this kind has a dazed
pigeon, fluttering from a box in the presence of
guns ready to fire the moment it appears? The
whole thing is cowardly and contemptible, and
should be suppressed by law. This fate it would
have met in 1883 had the House of Lords done its
duty as well as the House of Commons; for a Bill
which aimed at its abolition was rejected in the
former House after it had passed in the latter.</p>

<p>More lately, however, there has occurred an
event which proves that the views we hold
respecting pigeon-shooting are beginning to find
acceptance with the public. As everybody is
aware, the Hurlingham Club used to lend its
patronage to this sport, but recently a change in
its policy took place. A meeting of members was
held, and the question was put to the vote, whether
the shooting of pigeons from traps should be any
longer permitted in the grounds. A two-thirds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
majority decided that it should be abolished.
The minority endeavoured to get this settlement
reversed by law, but they were unsuccessful.</p>

<p>It was instructive, as well as cheering, to observe
the favour with which the Press as a whole
received the judgment delivered by Mr. Justice
Joyce on the case submitted to him.</p>

<p>As an example of newspaper utterances I may
quote the comments of the <i>Daily News</i> of February
26, 1906:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“All those who believe that 1906 is better as regards
blood-sports than 1868 will rejoice that Hurlingham
is not to be bound fast to the older date, and its
defective morality. Pigeon-shooting is emphatically not
now&mdash;as Mr. Justice Joyce said it was considered in 1868&mdash;a
manly sport, fit for gentlemen. It may seem a hard
saying to those who, having acquired proficiency in the
practice, have lost their sense of moral truth. The
fashion at Hurlingham has slowly changed in deference
to surrounding opinion. Pigeon-shooting has not only
its negative side of unmanliness, but the positive side of
cruelty, and we are glad that the Club is not so indissolubly
built on this base sport but that a two-thirds
majority may decide when the time has come to
abolish it.”</p>

</div>

<h4><span class="smcap">Clay-Pigeon.</span></h4>

<p>Supposing all shooting of birds from traps
were prohibited by law, is there any kindred
diversion which might take its place? Yes;
there is the clay-pigeon shoot, which affords good
practice in gunnery and amuses its patrons by
enabling them to meet and settle contests for
prizes and so forth. It ought to satisfy all who
have not got into the vicious habit of thinking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
that sport is poor work unless it inflicts agony or
death on animals.</p>

<p>The clay-pigeon, so-called, does not bear any
resemblance to a living bird. It is like a small
saucer, brown in colour, and brittle.</p>

<p>One of the ways in which the artificial shoot is
carried on is this. A pit is formed, deep enough to
allow a man to stand in it and remain unseen. In
the pit is placed machinery which a person can
employ for projecting a “pigeon” to a considerable
distance, at a quick speed, and at any angle.
The pigeon may be shot up in the air, or sent
skimming along the ground, and fly to right or
left. The shooter stands some yards behind the
pit, gun in hand, waiting for the appearance of the
object. And, not knowing what course the
pigeon will take, he is kept on the <i>qui vive</i>. From
the sporting point of view, this is so much to the
good, as uncertainty is an element of enjoyment
in the matter.</p>

<p>At shooting grounds such as those of Messrs.
Holland and Holland, of New Bond Street,
situated at Kensal Rise, there are many diversities
attached to the recreation. Birds are
thrown, in many cases, from high structures, or
go flying over trees, and move in a mode similar
to that of pheasants or driven grouse or partridges.
Then, further, at this establishment, the figures
of birds with outstretched wings appear for a few
seconds on a whitened screen, and form interesting
objects to fire at. Across this screen, again,
metal representations of rabbits are made to run<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
on an iron rod. From this it will be understood
what a deal of variety may be introduced into this
form of amusement.</p>

<p>What humanitarians desire to see is the substitution
everywhere of this kind of shooting for
that of firing at pigeons and starlings and other
living birds liberated from traps.</p>

<p>I ought to say that at Messrs. Holland and
Holland’s establishment live pigeons are kept for
those who wish to fire at them, but I was pleased
to learn that, for every living bird killed, a hundred
clay birds are shot at.</p>

<hr class="tb" />

<h3><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI<br />
COURSING</h3>

<p>Coursing, the practice of chasing a hare with
two greyhounds, slipped simultaneously from the
leash, is one of the most ancient of blood-sports;
but the spirit of those who take part in it does not
seem to have improved with time. It may be
doubted whether modern patrons of the sport are
as chivalrous as those referred to by the old
writer Arrian, whose work on Coursing dates from
the second century:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“For coursers, such at least as are true sportsmen,
do not take out their dogs for the sake of catching a hare,
but for the contest and sport of coursing, and are glad
if the hare escape; if she fly to any thin brake for concealment,
though they may see her trembling and in the
utmost distress, they will call off their dogs.”</p>

</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p>

<p>What is the attraction of coursing? The
author of “The Encyclopædia of Rural Sports”
(1852) is forced to admit that coursing has been
found dull:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“We may be asked,” he says, “what pleasure there
can be for people marshalled in a line, at certain distances
from each other, monotonously to walk or ride at
a foot pace over a ploughed field or across a wide heath
on a bleak November day, the eye anxiously directed
hither and thither to catch the clod or the sidelong
furrow that half conceals poor puss, or to espy the tuft
she has parted to make her form in.”</p>

</div>

<p>But even so stupid a pastime as this has its
charms for many people, when to the zest of seeing
a timid animal’s life at stake there is added the
more modern excitement of betting on the prowess
of the dogs.</p>

<p>Of the cruelty of coursing, as practised in the
chief contests, from the Waterloo Cup down, there
can be no question. “What more aggravated
form of torture is to be found,” says Lady
Florence Dixie, “than coursing with greyhounds&mdash;the
awful terror of the hare depicting itself
in the laid-back ears, convulsive doubles, and
wild starting eyes which seem almost to burst
from their sockets in the agony of tension which
that piteous struggle for life entails?”</p>

<p>Open coursing is bad enough, on the score of
inhumanity; but when the coursing is enclosed,
or the hares are bagged ones turned out for the
occasion, the case is still worse. The use of enclosed
grounds dates from about 1876, and we
learn from the volume on “Coursing” in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes (1892),
that “many of the old school opposed it strongly,
and with the best reason, for it utterly lacked the
elements of real sport.” At the present time it
is by a strict system of “preserving” hares
rather than by keeping them in enclosures, that
a sufficient supply is maintained for the great
coursing matches. What an object-lesson in
cruelty these meetings afford may be judged from
the fact that at some of them, such as the competition
for the Waterloo Cup, there is an attendance
of several thousand spectators.</p>

<p>Here is an “Impression of the Waterloo Meeting,”
by Mr. John Gulland, which appeared in
the <i>Morning Leader</i> in 1911:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“Stretching away into the far country (if you use your
eyes) may be seen two long, thin black lines, representing
quite a little army of beaters. In a short while dozens
of hares may be seen gaily sporting between these lines,
in delightful ignorance of the terrible enemy which is
lying in wait for them in front. It is the business of the
beater to divert a good hare from his playful companions;
and if you keep your eye well directed on the
black lines, you will soon detect the white flutter of a
handkerchief passing along the lines, and a brown shape
leaping swiftly along the ground, nervously anxious to
turn to one side or the other, but kept to an inexorable
straight course by the living wall of beaters. A shout
from the crowd, growing every moment more excited as
the short drama is about to begin, proclaims the fact
that the hare is in the battle-ground, and is about to
meet his Waterloo. And, higher still, and louder than
all, the raucous cry of the bookmaker, ‘Take 7 to 2,’
‘Take 2 to 1,’ rises shrill in the air.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
<p>“All this time a couple of greyhounds are held tight
by a slipper in a box, open on two sides, in the middle
of the field. As soon as the hare is beaten past the
slipper’s box the greyhounds tug and strain at the leash,
almost dragging the slipper with them. When the hare
has had about fifty yards’ start the hounds are released,
and off they dash together, looking at first like one.
This is the most thrilling part of the game, and is watched
in a few seconds of almost breathless silence. Pussy
hasn’t, however, much chance against a greyhound, and
is soon overtaken; but he still has a few arts at his command.
For, just as the dog is about to hurl himself on
pussy’s unoffending body, the little creature makes a
deft turn aside, his pursuer flying harmlessly past.
Then follow a series of turns, feints, dodges, and bounds.
Puss may, indeed, lead his enemies a sorry dance for a
little while, but it is an unequal contest. These greyhounds
at Altcar are the best and fastest of their kind,
and it is seldom that a hare escapes their teeth on Waterloo
Cup day. In half a minute&mdash;at the outside two
minutes&mdash;all is over.”</p>

</div>

<p>The writer states that he thinks he has never
seen “so many bookmakers and bookmakers’
clerks per head of the population” as at the
Waterloo coursing. “It was the merriest gambling
I have seen for many a long day,” for
coursing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> lends itself particularly well to betting.”</p>

<hr class="tb" />

<h3><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII<br />
THE GENTLE CRAFT</h3>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“It has been gravely said that a good angler must also
be a good Christian. Without literalising the assertion,
it may well be admitted that there is much in the contemplative
character of his pursuit, and in the quiet
scenes of beauty with which it brings him face to face,
to soften and elevate as well as to humanise.”</p>

</div>

<p>Thus writes Mr. H. Cholmondeley-Pennell, a distinguished
authority on angling. We fear, however,
that an examination of the “gentle craft”
will scarcely justify the assertion; for the fact cannot
be gainsaid that to kill fish for mere <i>amusement</i>
is to gratify one’s own pleasure at the cost
of another being’s pain, and that, regarded from
a moral standpoint, it will not materially affect
the case to plead that the fisherman is “contemplative,”
or that in the pursuit of his pastime he
is brought into touch with the softening influences
of nature. Unfortunately, as far as his sport
(which is the only point in question) is concerned,
there is no sign of this softening tendency on
<i>him</i>. Contemplative he may be (in the intervals
between “rises” or “bites”), but his contemplation
has apparently not taken that introspective
turn which would seem to be most needed. He
may be gentle&mdash;in <i>some</i> relations of life; but in
the matter of impaling live-bait and hooking fishes
his gentleness is of a worse than dubious quality.
One would have thought that a sense of humour<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
would withhold fishermen from making these
ludicrous claims to virtues in which, <i>qua</i> fishermen,
they are very signally deficient. “There
are unquestionably,” says Leigh Hunt, “many
amiable men among sportsmen, who, as the phrase
is, would not hurt a fly, that is to say, on a
window; at the end of a string the case is altered.”</p>

<p>The stories told by anglers of the alleged
“insensibility” of fish&mdash;how a hooked salmon that
has just broken away will sometimes return to
the bait&mdash;do not prove very much; for that fish
are less intelligent and less sensitive than warm-blooded
animals is no excuse for torturing them
to the extent of their feeling. And it is evident,
on the showing of the fishermen themselves, that
the process of “playing” a large fish is a very
cruel one, since it means gradually and mercilessly
wearing down the strength of the victim during a
desperate struggle prolonged sometimes for hours.
Reading, for example, such a passage as the
following, taken from Dr. Hamilton’s book on
“Fly-Fishing,” one marvels at the mood which
can find enjoyment in so barbarous a sport:</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p>
<div class="blockquote">

<p>“I know of no greater excitement when, after casting
the fly, a sudden swirl of the water tells you that a salmon
has risen, and the tightening of your line that he is
hooked. Then the mighty rush of a fresh-run fish; the
rapid whirl (sweet music!) of the reel, as the line is
carried out; the tremendous leaps and tugs and efforts
as the fish tries to free himself. Good fisherman as you
may be, the chances are against you. You at one end
of the line doing all you can, and putting all your experience
to the test, to keep and bring to bank the prize you
covet. The fish at the other end, with all his knowledge
of the rocks and bad places at the bottom of the river,
doing all he can to circumvent you.… And then,
after a slight pause, with skilful management the strain
is put on. An anxious moment; he gives, but oh! how
slowly, how reluctantly. The question is, who is to
conquer. You feel your power as you wind up; you see
his silver side; you know there will be yet one or two
terrific struggles for life as he gets a glimpse of you and
the gaff; then comes the final rush, the line paying out
inch by inch. It is over! Another roll or two, and he
is on the bank&mdash;and then the soothing pipe while you
study his fine proportions.”</p>

</div>

<p>Under some conditions the sport consists in
practically <i>drowning</i> the fish in its own element.
“The most killing place,” says Dr. Hamilton,
“when the hook is well fast, is in the lower jaw.
The strain of the line prevents in a great measure
the free current of water through the gills, and
the fish becomes suffocated.”</p>

<p>To what extravagance the angling mania can
run may be seen from certain forms of sea-fishing.
The tarpon, an inhabitant of the Gulf of Mexico, is
a great fish of the herring kind, weighing from
50 to 180 pounds, and measuring from 5 to 7 feet
in length. It is not used as food by any but the
negroes and “lower classes,” and its chief value,
we are told, is for “sporting” purposes. In <i>The
Queen</i> of December 7, 1895, an account was given
of “an angling feat” performed by a lady who
caught a monster of this kind. “The lady’s
grip,” we were told, “was firm,” and defeated the
endeavours of the fish “to shake the cruel hook
from its throat.” In this, and in all angling
records, it will be observed that the cruelty is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
purely wanton&mdash;the killing being done not because
it is necessary or useful, but because the sportsman
<i>enjoys</i> it.</p>

<p>Again, one of the most nauseous features of the
“gentle craft” is the use of “live bait”&mdash;that is,
of worms, maggots, flies, grasshoppers, frogs, and
small fish. Here is one of the directions given by
Mr. Cholmondeley-Pennell:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“In using the lob-worm-tail only, the worm must be
broken about the middle, longer or shorter according to
circumstances, and the hook inserted at the point of the
breakage, the worm being then run up the hook until
the shank is somewhat more than covered and only the
end of the tail remains at liberty.”</p>

</div>

<p>It is pointed out by Mr. Alexander Mackie in
“The Art of Worm Fishing,” that a “particularly
beautiful” blue-nosed lob will account for as many
as four trout, if cut in two parts and used successively,
and that no worm of this class should be
thrown away when only “slightly shattered.”</p>

<p>The impaling of a worm or maggot is disgusting
enough; but when live fish are used as bait the
cruelty is still worse. It will be observed that it
is the angler’s object to <i>prolong</i> the misery of the
living bait to the utmost extent. Thus Mr.
Cholmondeley-Pennell, with reference to pike
fishing:</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“With regard to live-baits, a good deal must of course
depend upon the state of the water. Should it be very
bright and clear, a gudgeon, which is also a very tough
fish, will generally be found the best, and in extreme cases
even a minnow used with a small float and a single gimp
hook passed through its upper lip or back.… Probably
the best live-bait of all for thick or clouded water is a
medium-sized dace, as its scales are peculiarly brilliant,
and the fish itself by no means easily killed. In case of
waters in which the pike are over-fed, I should recommend
my readers to try them with live gold-fish.…
If gold-fish are not forthcoming, small carp form a very
killing and <i>long-lived</i> bait. The bait should not be left
too long in one place, but be kept gently moving. It
should also be held as little as possible out of water, on
to which, when cast, its fall should be as light as possible,
to avoid injury and premature decease.”</p>

</div>

<p>A very cruel way of taking freshwater fish is by
night-lines. The victims are often left for hours
with large hooks in their mouths; and when at
last taken from the water are exhausted or dead.
This perhaps is a poacher’s method rather than
a sportsman’s; but it is to be observed that as
a rule the despised poaching methods&mdash;such as
the netting, wiring, or “tickling” of fish&mdash;are far
less barbarous than those which are honoured as
“sportsmanlike.”</p>

<p>It is clear, then, that the title of “the gentle
craft” is an absurd misnomer when applied to
angling, and that, if humaneness had been reckoned
among the virtues, we should not have seen
the canonisation of Izaak Walton, the patron saint
of fishermen. For as Byron says of him:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“The quaint old cruel coxcomb in his gullet</div>
<div class="verse">Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>“It would have taught him humanity at least,”
adds the poet in a footnote.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> “They may talk
about the beauties of nature, but the angler merely
thinks of his dish of fish; he has no leisure to take
his eyes from off the streams, and a single ‘bite’ is
worth to him more than all the scenery around.
The whale, the shark, and the tunny fishery have
somewhat of noble and perilous in them; even
net-fishing, trawling, etc., are more humane and
useful. But angling!”</p>

<hr class="tb" />

<h3><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII<br />
SPOILING OTHER PEOPLE’S PLEASURE</h3>

<p>It is a grave charge that is brought against us
humanitarians, of “spoiling other people’s pleasure.”
We are reproachfully bidden to look
at “sport,” for instance, and to ponder all the
manifold enjoyment which it provides for its
votaries&mdash;the pleasure of the riders, the pleasure
of the horses, the pleasure of the hounds, the
pleasure (some assert) even of the fox himself&mdash;or,
if not exactly pleasure, at least a praiseworthy
acquiescence in the rôle assigned him as the purveyor
of amusement for others; for has he not,
like Faust, purchased the happiness of a lifetime
at the cost of this brief hour of pain? And all
this sum of pleasure the humanitarian would
deliberately destroy! No wonder that speculation
is rife among sportsmen as to any intelligible
reason for such malice. Are humanitarians insane?
Or is it a dog-in-the-manger instinct that
prompts them to wreck a pleasure in which they
themselves&mdash;poor joyless creatures that they are&mdash;can
have no part?</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p>

<p>We shall be expected, perhaps, in answer to
these accusations, to plead some austere and
weighty reasons, such as the danger of an excess
of pleasure, the need of self-sacrifice, the duty of
altruism, and the like. We shall do nothing of
the kind. On the contrary, we shall point out
that humanitarians seek not to diminish but to
<i>increase</i> the pleasures of which life is capable; for
it is precisely because we, too, love pleasure, and
regard it, when rightly understood, as the sum
and purport of existence, that we deplore the
absurd travesty of it which at present passes
muster among the thoughtless. Our complaint
against the sportsman and his like is not that they
enjoy themselves, but that they prevent other
persons from doing so, through their very rudimentary
and barbarous notions of what enjoyment
means.</p>

<p>Consider, for instance, the exquisite pleasure,
surely one of the greatest joys in life, of seeing
perfect confidence and fearlessness in the beings
around one&mdash;the intrepidity which is the special
charm of children, when well-treated, and which
is characteristic of animals also, in the rare cases
when they have nothing to fear from man. We
know with what child-like trust and guilelessness
the primitive inhabitants of the West Indies
greeted their Spanish discoverers, and how the
wild animals in newly-found lands have often
shown the same unguarded friendliness to man,
until they knew better&mdash;or worse. The pleasure
of the humanitarian consists in preserving and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
cherishing to the uttermost this friendly relationship;
the pleasure of the sportsman consists in
rending and shattering it, in making a hell out of
a heaven, and is sowing distrust and terror where
there might be confidence and love. <i>Chacun à
son goût.</i> It is useless to dispute about tastes.
But that the sportsman should proceed to denounce
the humanitarian as being “a spoiler of pleasure”
is a stroke of unintended humour from a very
humourless source.</p>

<p>The part which the sportsman plays in the
animal world&mdash;that world which might be a
source of much genuine pleasure to us&mdash;may be
easily pictured if we look at one of the London
parks where the bird-life is protected. There we
see a truce reigning between human and non-human,
with a vast amount of obvious human
enjoyment as the result. Imagine what would
happen if a man were to run with a gun or
some other weapon among the unsuspecting animals,
and pride himself on the dexterity with
which he reduced them from beautiful living
creatures to limp and ugly carcases. He would
be arrested as a lunatic, you say, by the park-keepers.
True; yet that is exactly the way in
which the sportsman is continually running amuck
in this larger park of ours, the world, where unfortunately
there are as yet no park-keepers to
restrain him.</p>

<p>Nor is it only the sportsman, but everyone
addicted to cruel practices of any sort, who makes
the world a poorer and less happy place to live in.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
Centuries of persecution have, in fact, left so
little <i>real</i> happiness in life that men have been
fain to content themselves with these wretched
beggarly amusements, which, from bull- and bear-baiting
to stag-hunting, have disgraced our
national “sports” from time immemorial, yet
have always been defended on the ludicrous
ground that their abolition would diminish the
“pleasures” of the people.</p>

<p>Who, then, is the mar-joy? Surely not the
humanitarian, whose desire it is that there should
be far greater and wider means of enjoyment
than at present, and who, far from discouraging
the sports of the people, would establish in every
part of the land facilities for manly and wholesome
sports, such as cricket, football, rowing,
swimming, running, and all kinds of athletic and
gymnastic exercises. To humanitarians, pleasure&mdash;real
pleasure&mdash;is the one precious thing; and
it is just because there is so little real pleasure in
the present conditions of life that we desire to
see those conditions changed and ameliorated.
Why else should we “agitate,” sit in committees,
write letters to newspapers, and organise public
meetings to expound our principles? Certainly,
not because we enjoy such occupation in itself,
for a more thankless task could scarcely be
imagined; but because life is at present so narrowed
and saddened by brutalitarian stupidity that
to try to alter it, even in the smallest measure, is to
us a necessary condition of any enjoyment at all.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>

<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2>

<ul>
<li class="ifrst">Accidents involved by hunting, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li>

<li class="indx">Adams, Maurice, on cost of sport, <a href="#Page_45">45 <i>et seq.</i></a></li>

<li class="indx">Afforestation conflicts with game preservation, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>

<li class="indx">Agriculture ruined by sport, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li>

<li class="indx">Athletic exercises compared with blood-sports, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Badgers as “vermin,” <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li>

<li class="indx">“Bag,” a six weeks’, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li>

<li class="indx">Balance of Nature upset, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li>

<li class="indx">“Battue,” horrors of the, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>

<li class="indx">“Battue-shooting,” <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li>

<li class="indx">Beagles:</li>

<li class="isub1">Eton, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1"><i>Tom Brown</i> on Rugby, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">forbidden by original statutes, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">not legalised until 1871, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">Dr. Warre’s attitude <i>re</i>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">strength of the opposition to, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li>

<li class="indx">Big-game hunting:</li>

<li class="isub1">Mr. Ernest Bell on, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">monotony of, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>

<li class="indx">“Blooding,” <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li>

<li class="indx">Blood-sports:</li>

<li class="isub1">not manly, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">at schools, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>

<li class="indx">Buchanan, Robert, quoted, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li>

<li class="indx">Buckhounds, abolition of Royal, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>

<li class="indx">Buddha, humane teachings of, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>

<li class="indx">Burmese, the, and compassion, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>

<li class="indx">Burns, Robert, on shooting, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li>

<li class="indx">Byron, Lord, on angling, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Callousness of fox-hunting, the, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li>

<li class="indx">Carlisle otter hounds, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>

<li class="indx">Carpenter, Edward, on sport and agriculture, <a href="#Page_34">34 <i>et seq.</i></a></li>

<li class="indx">Carted deer, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>

<li class="indx">Civilised <i>versus</i> savage life, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li>

<li class="indx">Clay-pigeons and live pigeons, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li>

<li class="indx">Colquhoun, John, on the poacher, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li>

<li class="indx">Compassion taught by Buddha, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>

<li class="indx">Compensation, farmers and, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li>

<li class="indx">Cornfields damaged by mice and sparrows, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li>

<li class="indx">Coursing, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>

<li class="indx">Cricket compared with hunting, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>

<li class="indx">Cruel sports not public benefits, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li>

<li class="indx">Cruelties of stag-hunting, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li>

<li class="indx">Cruelty, definition of, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li>

<li class="indx">“Cub-hunting,” barbarities of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li>

<li class="indx">Cultivated area of Great Britain, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Deer, carted, “accidents” to, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>

<li class="indx">Deer-forests:</li>

<li class="isub1">acreage of, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">effects of, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li>

<li class="indx">De Quincey’s satire, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>

<li class="indx">Dixie, Lady Florence, quoted, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li>

<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>Dogs, gamekeepers’, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li>

<li class="indx">Drag-hunt <i>versus</i> stag-hunt, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>

<li class="indx">Drag-hunting a pleasurable sport, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li>

<li class="indx">Durham, Lord, defends rabbit-coursing, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Economics of hunting, <a href="#Page_60">60 <i>et seq.</i></a></li>

<li class="indx">Elephants, extermination of, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>

<li class="indx">“Enclosure Act,” <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li>

<li class="indx">Eton Beagles, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">eminent opponents of, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">hare-hunt, the, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">sports, brutality of, <a href="#Page_117">117 <i>et seq.</i></a></li>

<li class="indx">Evolution and animal kinship, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>

<li class="indx">Expenditure on hunting, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li>

<li class="indx">Explosive bullets, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Farmers and compensation, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li>

<li class="indx">Farmers injured by hunting, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li>

<li class="indx"><i>Field, The</i>, on tame-deer hunting, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>

<li class="indx">Fishing, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li>

<li class="indx">“Food-supply” fallacy, the, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>

<li class="indx">Fortescue, Hon. J., quoted, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>

<li class="indx">Fox, the hunted, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li>

<li class="indx">Foxes “made in Germany,” <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>

<li class="indx">Fox-hunting, <a href="#Page_5">5 <i>et seq.</i></a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">excuses for, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">H. B. M. Watson on, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">illogical, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li>

<li class="indx">“Foxology,” Dr. Lang’s, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">“Game,” animals included as, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li>

<li class="indx">Gamekeepers:</li>

<li class="isub1">brutality of, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">Joseph Arch on, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">Justice Vaughan Williams and, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">increase of, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">Mr. Lloyd George on, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>

<li class="indx">Game Laws:</li>

<li class="isub1">facts about the, <a href="#Page_69">69 <i>et seq.</i></a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">a legal anomaly, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1"><i>raison d’être</i> of, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">popular dislike of, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>

<li class="indx">Grand Duke’s exploit, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>

<li class="indx">Gravid animals, hunting of, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li>

<li class="indx">Greenwood, George, M.P., on cruelty of sport, <a href="#Page_1">1 <i>et seq.</i></a></li>

<li class="indx">Grouse-moors and farmers, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Hare-hunting, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">Sir Thomas More on, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li>

<li class="indx">Hedgehogs as “vermin,” <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li>

<li class="indx">Heron, destruction of the, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li>

<li class="indx">Home Office, the, and Game Laws, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li>

<li class="indx">Hudson, W. H., quoted, <a href="#Page_87">87 <i>et seq.</i></a></li>

<li class="indx">Hunt, Leigh, quoted, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>

<li class="indx">Hunter, the, as a “lover of animals,” <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li>

<li class="indx">Hunting:</li>

<li class="isub1">expensiveness of, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">a limited recreation, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">a rich man’s sport, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Instincts, “God-planted,” <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Japanese, prowess of the, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>

<li class="indx">Johnston, Sir Harry:</li>

<li class="isub1">on big-game killing, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">on gun-sportsmen, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">on wild life, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li>

<li class="indx">Justice ignored in Game Law administration, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li>

<li class="indx">Justices of the Peace as game-preservers, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Kropotkin’s, Prince, estimate on produce of soil, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Land, effect of Game Laws on, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>

<li class="indx">Legislation affected by hunting, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>

<li class="indx">“Live bait,” cruelty of using, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li>

<li class="indx">Lloyd, E. B., on destruction of wild life, <a href="#Page_85">85 <i>et seq.</i></a></li>

<li class="indx">Londonderry’s, Lord, economic argument, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>

<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>“Lost” animals, sufferings of, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>

<li class="indx">“Lust, the blood,” <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li>

<li class="indx">Lyte, Sir H. Maxwell, on Eton barbarities, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Martin, Howard, on benefits of sport, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>

<li class="indx">Meredith, George, quoted, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>

<li class="indx">Mice and cornfields, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li>

<li class="indx">Modern sport not heroic, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li>

<li class="indx">Monck, W. H. S., on economics of hunting, <a href="#Page_60">60 <i>et seq.</i></a></li>

<li class="indx">Moral defence of sport lacking, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Natural <i>versus</i> <i>un</i>natural history, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>

<li class="indx">Nightingales, destruction of, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>

<li class="indx">Nyasaland licences, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Otter hunt at Longtown, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>

<li class="indx">Otter hunting, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Penal servitude for night poaching, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li>

<li class="indx">Penalties for trespass, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li>

<li class="indx">Pheasant shooting and vivisection, <a href="#Page_1">1</a></li>

<li class="indx">Pheasants, artificially reared, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>

<li class="indx">Pigeon-shooting:</li>

<li class="isub1">not true sport, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">Lord Randolph Churchill on, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">prohibited at Hurlingham, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>

<li class="indx">Poacher:</li>

<li class="isub1">character of the, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">the, as gamekeeper, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">described, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li>

<li class="indx">Poachers, illegal sentences on, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li>

<li class="indx">Polo and hunting compared, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>

<li class="indx">Preservation of game, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>

<li class="indx">Professionalism spoiling sport, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Rabbit-coursing, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>

<li class="indx">Rabbits, a nuisance to farmers, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>

<li class="indx">Recreations:</li>

<li class="isub1">best available to largest numbers, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">essentials of, <a href="#Page_62">62-64</a></li>

<li class="indx">Remorse of the hunter, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>

<li class="indx">Reserves for wild animals, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>

<li class="indx">Ribblesdale, Lord, and stag-hunting, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li>

<li class="indx">Roosevelt, T., quoted, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>

<li class="indx">Rousseau, J. J., on compassion, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Salt, Henry S., on <i>Sportsmen’s fallacies</i>, <a href="#Page_130">130 <i>et seq.</i></a></li>

<li class="indx">Sargent, Henry R., defends sport, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>

<li class="indx">Schopenhauer and the basis of morality, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>

<li class="indx">Select Committee of 1846, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>

<li class="indx">Sentimentalism <i>versus</i> humanitarianism, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>

<li class="indx">Seton-Karr, H. W., <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>

<li class="indx">Seton-Karr’s, Sir H., fallacy, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li>

<li class="indx">Shooting, <a href="#Page_11">11 <i>et seq.</i></a></li>

<li class="indx">Small holdings <i>versus</i> sporting interests, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li>

<li class="indx">Sparrows and cornfields, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li>

<li class="indx">Spoiling other people’s pleasure, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>

<li class="indx">Sport:</li>

<li class="isub1">importance of ethical issues, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">as a fetish, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">cost of, <a href="#Page_45">45-59</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">confusion in the use of the term, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li>

<li class="indx">Sports:</li>

<li class="isub1">morally unjustifiable if cruel, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">two kinds of, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">spurious, <a href="#Page_20">20 <i>et seq.</i></a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">and agriculture, Edward Carpenter on, <a href="#Page_34">34 <i>et seq.</i></a></li>

<li class="indx">“Sportsman,” a popular appellation, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li>

<li class="indx">Sportsmen’s claims criticised, <a href="#Page_139">139 <i>et seq.</i></a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">logic, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li>

<li class="isub1">fallacies, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>

<li class="indx">Stag-hunting, cruelties of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li>

<li class="indx">Steel traps, barbarity of, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Torture unnecessary, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>

<li class="ifrst"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>Unmanliness of pheasant-shooting, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>

<li class="indx">Unregistered gamekeepers, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>

<li class="indx">Unsportsmanlike devices, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">“Vermin” exterminated by game-preservers, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li>

<li class="indx">Vivisection and field sports compared, <a href="#Page_1">1</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Wallace, A. R., on gamekeepers, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li>

<li class="indx">War, sport as training for, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>

<li class="indx">Warre, Dr., his defence of the Eton hare-hunt, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li>

<li class="indx">Watson, H. B. Marriott, on fox-hunting, <a href="#Page_95">95 <i>et seq.</i></a></li>

<li class="indx">Weasels as “vermin,” <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li>

<li class="indx">Wild life, destruction of, <a href="#Page_85">85 <i>et seq.</i></a></li>

<li class="indx">Women and hunting, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li>

<li class="indx">Woodpecker destroyed by gamekeeper, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>

<li class="indx">Wounded victims of sport, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li>

<li class="ifrst">Young, need of humane teaching for the, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
</ul>

<p class="titlepage">THE END</p>

<p class="center">BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.</p>

<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49097 ***</div>
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