{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_49097/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_49097","id":"gutenberg_49097","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49097","summary":null,"tags":["Animal welfare","Category: Environmental Issues","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Hunting -- Moral and ethical aspects","Hunting -- Religious aspects","Nobel Prizes in Literature"],"text":"KILLING FOR SPORT\n\n                     _This volume is published by_\n                        MESSRS. G. BELL & SONS\n                    _for the Humanitarian League_.\n\n\n\n\n                           KILLING FOR SPORT\n\n                       ESSAYS BY VARIOUS WRITERS\n\n                           WITH A PREFACE BY\n                             BERNARD SHAW\n\n                        EDITED BY HENRY S. SALT\n\n                                LONDON\n                        G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.\n                      YORK HOUSE, PORTUGAL STREET\n                                 1915\n\n\n\n\nNOTE\n\n\nDuring the past twenty-five years, chiefly owing to the action of the\nHumanitarian League in giving continuity to what had previously been\nonly an occasional protest, the subject of certain cruel pastimes,\ncalled by the name of \u201csports,\u201d has attracted a large share of public\nattention. The position of the League as regards the whole question\nof \u201csport\u201d--_i.e._, the diversions and amusements of the people--is\nthis, that while heartily approving all such fair and manly recreations\nas cricket, rowing, football, cycling, the drag-hunt, etc., it\nwould place in an altogether different category what may be called\n\u201cblood-sports\u201d--_i.e._, those amusements which involve the death or\ntorture of sentient beings.\n\nBut as it is recognised that humane reform can only come by\ninstalment, and that legislation cannot outrun a ripe public opinion,\nthe League has asked for _legislative_ action only in the case of the\nworst and most demoralising forms of \u201cblood-sports\u201d--viz., those which\nmake use of a tame or captured animal, and not one that is really\nwild and free. For the same reason the League pressed, and pressed\nsuccessfully, for the abolition of the Royal Buckhounds, not because\nthat particular hunt was in itself more cruel than others, but because\nit stood as the recognised and State-supported type of a very degraded\npastime. \u201cYour efforts have gained their reward,\u201d wrote George Meredith\nto the League on the occasion of the Buckhounds\u2019 fall, \u201cand it will\nencourage you to pursue them in all fields where the good cause of\nSport, or any good cause, has to be cleansed of blood and cruelty. So\nyou make steps in our civilisation.\u201d\n\nBut these steps in civilisation have not been easily made. It is\nnot as widely known as it ought to be that since the prohibition of\nbull and bear baiting, more than half a century ago, there has been\npractically no further mitigation of those so-called sports which in\nthis country absorb a great part of the thoughts and energies of the\nwealthier classes. The Acts of 1849 and 1854, which prohibited the\nill-usage of domestic animals, gave no protection to animals _fer\u00e6\nnatur\u00e6_, except from being \u201cfought,\u201d or baited; and the Cruelty to Wild\nAnimals in Captivity Act, of 1900, applies only to those animals that\nare actually in confinement, or are released in a maimed condition to\nbe hunted or shot. Thus, while humane feeling has steadily progressed,\nlegislative action has obstinately stood still; and while we shake our\nheads at the cruel sports of our great-grandfathers, we are ourselves\npowerless to stop present brutalities which are as intolerable to\nhumane thinkers _now_ as were bull and bear baiting _then_.\n\nIn a civilised community, where the services of the hunter are no\nlonger required, blood-sports are simply an anachronism, a relic of\nsavagery which time will gradually remove; and the appeal against them\nis not to the interested parties whose practices are arraigned--not\nto the belated Nimrods who find a pleasure in killing--but to that\nforce of public opinion which put down bear-baiting, and which will in\nlike manner put down the kindred sports (for all these barbarities are\nessentially akin) which are defended by similar sophistries.\n\nAt a time when widespread attention is being drawn to questions\nconcerning the land, it is especially fitting that the part played by\nthe sportsman should not be overlooked, and that not only the cruelty,\nbut the wastefulness of the practice of breeding and killing animals\nfor mere amusement, should be made clear.\n\nBy including in this volume a number of recent essays, the work\nof several writers (each of whom is responsible only for the views\nexpressed by himself), it has been possible to present the subject of\nsport as regarded from various standpoints, and in a fuller light than\nhas ever been done before. The book, in fact, is the first one in which\nthe humanitarian and economic objections to blood-sports have been\nadequately set forth.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n\n    PREFACE. BY BERNARD SHAW                                          xi\n\n    THE CRUELTY OF SPORT. BY GEORGE GREENWOOD, M.P.                    1\n\n    SPORT AND AGRICULTURE. BY EDWARD CARPENTER                        34\n\n    THE COST OF SPORT. BY MAURICE ADAMS                               45\n\n    THE ECONOMICS OF HUNTING. BY W. H. S. MONCK                       60\n\n    FACTS ABOUT THE GAME LAWS. BY J. CONNELL                          69\n\n    THE DESTRUCTION OF WILD LIFE. BY E. B. LLOYD                      85\n\n    THE CALLOUSNESS OF FOX-HUNTING. BY H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON          95\n\n    BIG GAME HUNTING. BY ERNEST BELL                                 101\n\n    BLOOD-SPORTS AT SCHOOLS. BY AN OLD ETONIAN                       116\n\n    FALLACIES OF SPORTSMEN. BY HENRY S. SALT                         130\n\n    APPENDIX BY THE EDITOR\n       I. SPORT AS A TRAINING FOR WAR                                149\n\n      II. \u201cBLOODING\u201d                                                 155\n\n     III. THE HUNTING OF GRAVID ANIMALS                              158\n\n      IV. DRAG-HUNT _VERSUS_ STAG-HUNT                               162\n\n       V. CLAY PIGEON _VERSUS_ LIVE PIGEON. BY THE REV. J. STRATTON  166\n\n      VI. COURSING                                                   170\n\n     VII. THE GENTLE CRAFT                                           174\n\n    VIII. SPOILING OTHER PEOPLE\u2019S PLEASURE                           179\n\n          INDEX                                                      183\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE[1]\n\nBY BERNARD SHAW\n\n\nSport is a difficult subject to deal with honestly. It is easy for\nthe humanitarian to moralize against it; and any fool on its side can\ngush about its glorious breezy pleasures and the virtues it nourishes.\nBut neither the moralizings nor the gushings are supported by facts:\nindeed they are mostly violently contradicted by them. Sportsmen are\nnot crueller than other people. Humanitarians are not more humane\nthan other people. The pleasures of sport are fatigues and hardships:\nnobody gets out of bed before sunrise on a drizzling wintry morning\nand rides off into darkness, cold, and rain, either for luxury or\nthirst for the blood of a fox cub. The humanitarian and the sportsman\nare often the self-same person drawing altogether unaccountable lines\nbetween pheasants and pigeons, between hares and foxes, between tame\nstags from the cart and wild ones from the heather, between lobsters\nor _pat\u00e9 de foie gras_ and beefsteaks: above all, between man and the\nlower animals; for people who are sickened by the figures of a _battue_\ndo not turn a hair over the infantile deathrate in Lisson Grove or the\nslums of Dundee.\n\nClearly the world of sport is a crystal palace in which we had\nbetter not throw stones unless we are prepared to have our own\nfaces cut by the falling glass. My own pursuits as a critic and as\na castigator of morals by ridicule (otherwise a writer of comedies)\nare so cruel that in point of giving pain to many worthy people I can\nhold my own with most dentists, and beat a skilful sportsman hollow.\nI know many sportsmen; and none of them are ferocious. I know several\nhumanitarians; and they are all ferocious. No book of sport breathes\nsuch a wrathful spirit as this book of humanity. No sportsman wants to\nkill the fox or the pheasant as I want to kill him when I see him doing\nit. Callousness is not cruel. Stupidity is not cruel. Love of exercise\nand of feats of skill is not cruel. They may and do produce more\ndestruction and suffering than all the neuroses of all the Neros. But\nthey are characteristic of quite amiable and cheerful people, mostly\nlovers of pet animals. On the other hand, humane sensitiveness is\nimpatient, angry, ruthless, and murderous. Marat was a supersensitive\nhumanitarian, by profession a doctor who had practised successfully in\ngenteel circles in England. What Marat felt towards marquesses most\nhumanitarians feel more or less towards sportsmen. Therefore let no\nsportsman who reads these pages accuse me of hypocrisy, or of claiming\nto be a more amiable person than he. And let him excuse me, if he will\nbe so good, for beginning with an attempt to describe how I feel about\nsport.\n\nTo begin with, sport soon bores me when it does not involve killing;\nand when it does, it affects me much as the murder of a human being\nwould affect me, rather more than less; for just as the murder of a\nchild is more shocking than the murder of an adult (because, I suppose,\nthe child is so helpless and the breach of social faith therefore so\nunconscionable), the murder of an animal is an abuse of man\u2019s advantage\nover animals: the proof being that when the animal is powerful and\ndangerous, and the man unarmed, the repulsion vanishes and is replaced\nby congratulation. But quite humane and cultivated people seem unable\nto understand why I should bother about the feelings of animals. I have\nseen the most horrible pictures published in good faith as attractive\nin illustrated magazines. One of them, which I wish I could forget,\nwas a photograph taken on a polar expedition, shewing a murdered bear\nwith its living cub trying to make it attend to its maternal duties. I\nhave seen a photograph of a criminal being cut into a thousand pieces\nby a Chinese executioner, which was by comparison amusing. I have also\nseen thrown on a screen for the entertainment of a large audience a\nphotograph of an Arctic explorer taking away a sledge dog to shoot it\nfor food, the dog jumping about joyously without the least suspicion\nof its human friend\u2019s intentions. If the doomed dog had been a man or\na woman, I believe I should have had less sense of treachery. I do not\nsay that this is reasonable: I simply state it as a fact. It was quite\nevident that the lecturer had no suspicion of the effect the picture\nwas producing on me; and as far as I could see, his audience was just\nas callous; for if they had all felt as I felt there would have been\nat least a very perceptible shudder, if not an articulate protest. Now\nthis was not a case of sport. It was necessary to shoot the dog: I\nshould have shot it myself under the same circumstances. But I should\nhave regarded the necessity as a horrible one; and I should have\npresented it to the audience as a painful episode, like cannibalism\nin a crew of castaways, and not as a joke. For I must add that a good\nmany people present regarded it as a bit of fun. I absolve the lecturer\nfrom this extremity of insensibility. The shooting of a dog was a\ntrifle to what he had endured; and I did not blame him for thinking it\nby comparison a trivial matter. But to us, who had endured nothing,\nit might have seemed a little hard on the dog, and calling for some\napology from the man.\n\nI am driven to the conclusion that my sense of kinship with animals\nis greater than most people feel. It amuses me to talk to animals in\na sort of jargon I have invented for them; and it seems to me that it\namuses them to be talked to, and that they respond to the tone of the\nconversation, though its intellectual content may to some extent escape\nthem. I am quite sure, having made the experiment several times on\ndogs left in my care as part of the furniture of hired houses, that an\nanimal who has been treated as a brute, and is consequently undeveloped\nsocially (as human beings remain socially undeveloped under the same\ncircumstances) will, on being talked to as a fellow-creature, become\nfriendly and companionable in a very short time. This process has been\ndescribed by some reproachful dog owners as spoiling the dog, and\nsincerely deplored by them, because I am glad to say it is easier to\ndo than to undo except by brutalities of which few people are capable.\nBut I find it impossible to associate with animals on any other terms.\nFurther, it gives me extraordinary gratification to find a wild bird\ntreating me with confidence, as robins sometimes do. It pleases me to\nconciliate an animal who is hostile to me. What is more, an animal who\nwill not be conciliated offends me. There is at the Zoo a morose maned\nlion who will tear you to pieces if he gets half a chance. There is\nalso a very handsome maneless lion with whom you may play more safely\nthan with most St. Bernard dogs, as he seems to need nothing but plenty\nof attention and admiration to put him into the best of humors. I\ndo not feel towards these two lions as a carpenter does towards two\npieces of wood, one hard and knotty, and the other easy to work; nor\nas I do towards two motor bicycles, one troublesome and dangerous, and\nthe other in perfect order. I feel towards the two lions as I should\ntowards two men similarly diverse. I like one and dislike the other.\nIf they got loose and were shot, I should be distressed in the one\ncase whilst in the other I should say \u201cServe the brute right!\u201d This\nis clearly fellow-feeling. And it seems to me that the plea of the\nhumanitarian is a plea for widening the range of fellow-feeling.\n\nThe limits of fellow-feeling are puzzling. People who have it in a high\ndegree for animals often seem utterly devoid of it for human beings of\na different class. They will literally kill their dogs with kindness\nwhilst behaving to their servants with such utter inconsideration that\nthey have to change their domestic staff once a month or oftener.\nOr they hate horses and like snakes. One could fill pages with such\ninconsistencies. The lesson of these apparent contradictions is that\nfellow-feeling is a matter of dislikes as well as of likes. No man\nwants to destroy the engine which catches him in its cog-wheels and\ntears a limb from him. But many a man has tried to kill another man for\na very trifling slight. The machine, not being our fellow, cannot be\nloved or hated. The man, being our fellow, can.\n\nLet us try to get down to the bottom of this matter. There is no\nuse in saying that our fellow-creatures must not be killed. That is\nsimply untrue; and the converse proposal that they must be killed is\nsimply true. We see the Buddhist having his path swept before him\nlest he should tread on an insect and kill it; but we do not see what\nthat Buddhist does when he catches a flea that has kept him awake for\nan hour; and we know that he has to except certain poisonous snakes\nfrom his forbearance. If mice get into your house and you do not kill\nthem, they will end by killing you. If rabbits breed on your farm and\nyou do not exterminate them, you will end by having no farm. If you\nkeep deer in your park and do not thin them, your neighbors or the\nauthorities will finally have to save you the trouble. If you hold the\nlife of a mosquito sacred, malaria and yellow fever will not return\nthe compliment. I have had an interview with an adder, in the course\nof which it struck repeatedly and furiously at my stick; and I let it\ngo unharmed; but if I were the mother of a family of young children,\nand I found a cobra in the garden, I would vote for \u201c_La mort sans\nphrase_,\u201d as many humane and honorable persons voted in the case, not\nof a serpent, but of an anointed king.\n\nI see no logical nor spiritual escape from the theory that evolution\n(not, please observe, Natural Selection) involves a deliberate\nintentional destruction by the higher forms of life of the lower. It\nis a dangerous and difficult business; for in the course of natural\nselection the lower forms may have become necessary to the existence\nof the higher; and the gamekeeper shooting everything that could\nhurt his pheasants or their chicks may be behaving as foolishly as\nan Arab lunatic shooting horses and camels. But where Man comes, the\nmegatherium must go as surely as where the poultry farmer comes the fox\nmust go unless the hunt will pay for the fox\u2019s depredations. To plead\nfor the tiger, the wolf, and the poisonous snake, is as useless as to\nplead for the spirochete or the tetanus bacillus: we must frankly class\nthese as early and disastrous experiments in creation, and accept it\nas part of the mission of the later and more successful experiments\nto recognize them as superseded, and to destroy them purposely. We\nshould, no doubt, be very careful how we jump from the indisputable\ngeneral law that the higher forms of life must exterminate or limit\nthe lower, to the justification of any particular instance of the\nslaughter of non-human animals by men, or the slaughter of a low type\nof man by a high type of man. Still, when all due reservations are\nmade, the fact remains that a war of extermination is being waged daily\nand necessarily by man against his rivals for possession of the earth,\nand that though an urban humanitarian and vegetarian who never has\noccasion to kill anything but a microbe may shudder at the callousness\nwith which a farmer kills rats and rabbits and sparrows and moles and\ncaterpillars and ladybirds and many more charming creatures, yet if he\nwere in the farmer\u2019s place he would have to do exactly the same, or\nperish.\n\nIn that case why not make a pleasure of necessity, and a virtue of\npleasure, as the sportsmen do? I think we must own that there is no\nobjection from the point of view of the animals. On the contrary, it is\nquite easy to shew that there is a positive advantage to them in the\norganization of killing as sport. Fox hunting has saved the existing\nfoxes from extermination; and if it were not for the civilization that\nmakes fox hunting possible, the fox would still be hunted and killed by\npacks of wolves. I am so conscious of this that I have in another place\nsuggested that children should be hunted or shot during certain months\nof the year, as they would then be fed and preserved by the sportsmen\nof the counties as generously and carefully as pheasants now are; and\nthe survivors would make a much better nation than our present slum\nproducts. And I go further. I maintain that the abolition of public\nexecutions was a very bad thing for the murderers. Before that time,\nwe did exactly as our sportsmen now do. We made a pleasure of the\nnecessity for exterminating murderers, and a virtue of the pleasure.\nHanging was a popular sport, like racing. Huge crowds assembled to\nsee it and paid large prices for seats. There would have been betting\non the result if it had been at all uncertain. The criminal had what\nall criminals love: a large audience. He had a procession to Tyburn:\nhe had a drink: he was allowed to make a speech if he could; and if\nhe could not, the speech was made for him and published and sold in\ngreat numbers. Above all, such fair play as an execution admits of\nwas guaranteed to him by the presence of the public, whereas now he\nperishes in a horrible secrecy which lends itself to all the abuses of\nsecrecy. Whether the creature slain be man or what we very invidiously\ncall brute, there is no case to be made against sport on its behalf.\nEven cruelty can justify itself, as far as the victim is concerned, on\nthe ground that it makes sport attractive to cruel people, and that\nsport is good for the quarry.\n\nThe true objection to sport is the one taken by that wise and justly\nfamous Puritan who objected to bear baiting not because it gave pain\nto the bear but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. He rightly\nsaw that it was not important that we should be men of pleasure, and\nthat it was enormously important that we should be men of honor. What\nthe bear would have said if it had had any say in the matter can only\nbe conjectured. Its captors might have argued that if they could not\nhave made money by keeping it alive whilst taking it to England to be\nbaited, they would have killed it at sight in the Pyrenees; so that\nit owed several months of life, with free board and lodging, to the\ninstitution of bear baiting. The bear might have replied that if it\nhad not been for the bear pit in England they would never have come\nto hunt for it in the Pyrenees, where it could have ended its days in\na free and natural manner. Let us admit for the sake of a quiet life\nthat the point is disputable. What is not disputable by any person who\nhas ever seen sport of this character is that the man who enjoys it is\ndegraded by it. We do not bait bears now (I do not quite know why);\nbut we course rabbits in the manner described in one of the essays in\nthis book. I lived for a time on the south slope of the Hog\u2019s Back; and\nevery Sunday morning rabbits were coursed within earshot of me. And I\nnoticed that it was quite impossible to distinguish the cries of the\nexcited terriers from the cries of the sportsmen, although ordinarily\nthe voice of a man is no more like the voice of a dog than like the\nvoice of a nightingale. Sport reduced them all, men and terriers alike,\nto a common denominator of bestiality. The sound did not make me more\nhumane: on the contrary, I felt that if I were an irresponsible despot\nwith a park of artillery at my disposal, I should, (especially after\nseeing the sportsmen on their way to and from their sport) have said:\n\u201cThese people have become subhuman, and will be better dead. Be kind\nenough to mow them down for me.\u201d\n\nAs a matter of fact there is always a revulsion against these\ndehumanizing sports in which the killing can be seen, and the actual\nvisible chase shared, by human beings: in short, the sports in which\nmen revert to the excitements of beasts of prey. Several have been\nabolished by law: among them bear baiting and cock fighting: both\nof them sports in which the spectators shared at close quarters the\nexcitement of the animals engaged. In the sports firmly established\namong us there is much less of this abomination. In fox hunting and\nshooting, predatory excitement is not a necessary part of the sport,\nand is indeed abhorred by many who practise it. Inveterate fox-hunters\nhave been distressed and put off their hunting for days by happening\nto see a fox in the last despairing stage of its run from the hounds:\na sight which can be avoided, and often is, by the hunters, but which\nthey may happen upon some day when they are not hunting. Such people\nhunt because they delight in meets and in gallops across country as\nsocial and healthy incidents of country life. They are proud of their\nhorsemanship and their craftiness in taking a line. They like horses\nand dogs and exercise and wind and weather, and are unconscious of the\nfact that their expensive and well equipped hunting stables and kennels\nare horse prisons and dog prisons. It is useless to pretend that these\nladies and gentlemen are fiends in human form: they clearly are not.\nBy avoiding being in at the death they get all the good out of hunting\nwithout incurring the worst of the evil, and so come out with a balance\nin their favor.\n\nShooting is subtler: it is a matter of skill with one\u2019s weapons. The\nexpert at it is called, not a good chicken butcher, but a good shot.\nWhen I want, as I often do, to pick him off, I do so not because I\nfeel that he is cruel or degraded but because he is a nuisance to me\nwith the very disagreeable noise of his explosions, and because there\nis an unbearable stupidity in converting an interesting, amusing,\nprettily colored live wonder like a pheasant into a slovenly unhandsome\ncorpse. But at least he does not yap like a terrier, and shake with\na detestable excitement, and scream out frantic bets to bookmakers.\nHis expression is that of a man performing a skilled operation with\nan instrument of precision: an eminently human expression, quite\nincompatible with the flush of blood to the eyes and the uncovering\nof the dog-tooth that makes a man like a beast of prey. And this is\nwhy it is impossible to feel that skilled shooting or fox-hunting\nare as abominable as rabbit coursing, hare-hunting with beagles, or\notter-hunting.\n\nAnd yet shooting depends for its toleration on custom as much as on\nthe coolness with which it has to be performed. It may be illogical to\nforgive a man for shooting a pheasant and to loathe him for shooting\na seagull; but as a matter of plain fact one feels that a man who\nshoots seagulls is a cad, and soon makes him feel it if he attempts\nto do it on board a public ship, whereas the snipe shooter excites no\nsuch repulsion. And \u201cfair game\u201d must be skilfully shot if the maximum\nof toleration is to be enjoyed. Even then it is not easy for some of\nus to forget that many a bird must have been miserably maimed before\nthe shooter perfected his skill. The late King Edward the Seventh,\nimmediately after his recovery from a serious operation which stirred\nthe whole nation to anxious sympathy with him, shot a stag, which got\naway to die of just such internal inflammation as its royal murderer\nhad happily escaped. Many people read the account without the least\nemotion. Others thought it natural that the King should be ashamed,\nas a marksman, of his failure to kill, but rejected as sentimental\nnonsense the notion that he should feel any remorse on the stag\u2019s\nbehalf. Had he deliberately shot a cow instead, everyone would have\nbeen astounded and horrified. Custom will reconcile people to any\natrocity; and fashion will drive them to acquire any custom. The\nEnglish princess who sits on the throne of Spain goes to bullfights\nbecause it is the Spanish fashion. At first she averted her face,\nand probably gave offence by doing so. Now, no doubt, she is a\n_connoisseuse_ of the sport. Yet neither she nor the late King Edward\ncan be classed as cruel monsters. On the contrary, they are conspicuous\nexamples of the power of cruel institutions to compel the support and\nfinally win the tolerance and even the enjoyment of persons of full\nnormal benevolence.\n\nBut this is not why I call shooting subtle. It fascinates even humane\npersons not only because it is a game of skill in the use of the most\ningenious instrument in general use, but because killing by craft from\na distance is a power that makes a man divine rather than human.\n\n                    \u201cOft have I struck\n    Those that I never saw, and struck them dead\u201d\n\nsaid the statesman to Jack Cade (who promptly hanged him); and\nsomething of the sense of power in that boast stimulates every boy with\na catapult and every man with a gun. That is why there is an interest\nin weapons fathoms deeper than the interest in cricket bats and golf\nclubs. It is not a question of skill or risk. The men who go to Africa\nwith cameras and obtain photographs and even cinematographs of the most\ndangerous animals at close quarters, shew much more skill and nerve\nthan the gentlemen who disgust us with pictures of themselves sitting\non the body of the huge creatures they have just killed with explosive\nbullets. Shooting \u201cbig game,\u201d like serving as a soldier in the field,\nis glorified conventionally as a proof of character and courage, though\neveryone knows that men can be found by the hundred thousand to face\nsuch ordeals, including several who would be afraid to walk down Bond\nStreet in an unfashionable hat. The real point of the business is\nneither character nor courage, but ability to kill. And the greater\ncowards and the feebler weaklings we are, the more important this power\nis to us. It is a matter of life and death to us to be able to kill\nour enemies without coming to handgrips with them; and the consequence\nis that our chief form of play is to pretend that something is our\nenemy and kill it. Even to pretend to kill it is some satisfaction:\nnay, the spectacle of other people pretending to do it is a substitute\nworth paying for. Nothing more supremely ridiculous as a subject of\nreasonable contemplation could be imagined than a sham fight in Earls\nCourt between a tribe of North American Indians and a troop of cowboys,\nboth imported by Buffalo Bill as a theatrical speculation. To see\nthese grown-up men behaving like children, galloping about and firing\nblank cartridges at one another, and pretending to fall down dead, was\nabsurd and incredible enough from any rational point of view; but that\nthousands of respectable middle-aged and elderly citizens and their\nwives, all perfectly sober, should pay to be allowed to look on, seems\nflat madness. Yet the thing not only occurred in London, but occurs now\ndaily in the cinema theatres and yearly at the Military Tournaments.\nAnd what honest man dare pretend that he gets no fun out of these\nspectacles? Certainly not I. They revived enough of my boyish delight\nin stage fights and in the stories of Captain Mayne Reid to induce me\nto sit them out, conscious as I was of their silliness.\n\nPlease do not revile me for telling you what I felt instead of what\nI ought to have felt. What prevents the sport question and every\nother question from getting squarely put before us is our habit of\nsaying that the things we think should disgust us and fill us with\nabhorrence actually do disgust us and fill us with abhorrence, and\nthat the persons who, against all reason and decency, find some sort\nof delight in them, are vile wretches quite unlike ourselves, though,\nas everyone can see, we and they are as like as potatoes. You may not\nagree with Mr. Rudyard Kipling about war, or with Colonel Roosevelt\nabout sport; but beware how you pretend that war does not interest and\nexcite you more than printing, or that the thought of bringing down a\nspringing tiger with a well-aimed shot does not interest you more than\nthe thought of cleaning your teeth. Men may be as the poles asunder\nin their speculative views. In their actual nervous and emotional\nreactions they are \u201cmembers one of another\u201d to a much greater extent\nthan they choose to confess. The reason I have no patience with Colonel\nRoosevelt\u2019s tedious string of rhinoceros murders in South Africa is not\nthat I am not interested in weapons, in marksmanship, and in killing,\nbut because my interest in life and creation is still greater than\nmy interest in death and destruction, and because I have sufficient\nfellow-feeling with a rhinoceros to think it a frightful thing that it\nshould be killed for fun.\n\nConsider a moment how one used to feel when an Irish peasant shot\nhis landlord, or when a grand duke was blown to pieces in Russia, or\nwhen one read of how Charlotte Corday killed Marat. On the one hand\nwe applauded the courage, the skill, the resolution of the assassin;\nwe exulted in the lesson taught to tyrants and in the overthrow of\nthe strong oppressor by the weak victim; but we were horrified by\nthe breach of law, by the killing of the accused at the decree of an\nirresponsible Ribbon Lodge under no proper public control, by the\nexecution of the grand duke without trial and opportunity of defence,\nby the suspicion that Charlotte Corday was too like Marat in her lust\nfor the blood of oppressors to have the right to kill him. Such cases\nare extremely complicated, except for those simple victims of political\nor class prejudice who think Charlotte Corday a saint because she\nkilled a Radical, and the Ribbonmen demons because they were common\nfellows who dared to kill country gentlemen. But however the cases\ncatch us, there is always that peculiar interest in individual killing,\nand consequently in the means and weapons by which individuals can kill\ntheir enemies, which is at the root of the sport of shooting.\n\nIt all comes back to fellow-feeling and appetite for fruitful activity\nand a high quality of life: there is nothing else to appeal to. No\ncommandment can meet the case. It is no use saying \u201cThou shalt not\nkill\u201d in one breath, and, in the next \u201cThou shalt not suffer a witch\nto live.\u201d Men must be killed and animals must be killed: nay, whole\nspecies of animals and types of men must be exterminated before the\nearth can become a tolerable place of habitation for decent folk. But\namong the men who will have to be wiped out stands the sportsman: the\nman without fellow-feeling, the man so primitive and uncritical in his\ntastes that the destruction of life is an amusement to him, the man\nwhose outlook is as narrow as that of his dog. He is not even cruel:\nsport is partly a habit to which he has been brought up, and partly\nstupidity, which can always be measured by wastefulness and by lack\nof sense of the importance and glory of life. The horrible murk and\ngrime of the Pottery towns is caused by indifference to a stupid waste\nof sunlight, natural beauty, cleanliness, and pleasant air, combined\nwith a brutish appetite for money. A _battue_ is caused by indifference\nto the beauty and interest of bird life and song, and callousness to\nglazed eyes and blood-bedabbled corpses, combined with a boyish love\nof shooting. All the people who waste beauty and life in this way are\ncharacterized by deficiency in fellow-feeling: not only have they none\nof St. Francis\u2019s feeling that the birds are of our kin, but they would\nbe extremely indignant if a loader or a gamekeeper asserted any claim\nto belong to their species. Sport is a sign either of limitation or of\ntimid conventionality.\n\nAnd this disposes of the notion that sport is the training of a\nconquering race. Even if such things as conquering races existed,\nor would be tolerable if they did exist, they would not be races of\nsportsmen. The red scalp-hunting braves of North America were the\nsportingest race imaginable; and they were conquered as easily as the\nbisons they hunted. The French can boast more military glory to the\nsquare inch of history than any other nation; but until lately they\nwere the standing butt of English humorists for their deficiencies\nas sportsmen. In the middle ages, when they fought as sportsmen and\ngentlemen, they were annihilated by small bodies of starving Englishmen\nwho carefully avoided sportsmanlike methods and made a laborious\nbusiness (learnt at the village target) of killing them. As to becoming\naccustomed to risks, there are plenty of ways of doing that without\nkilling anything except occasionally yourself. The motor-cyclist\ntakes more trying risks than the fox-hunter; and motor-cycling seems\nsafety itself compared to aviation. A dive from a high springboard\nwill daunt a man as effectually as a stone wall in the hunting field.\nThe notion that if you have no sportsmen you will have no soldiers\n(as if more than the tiniest fraction of the armies of the world had\never been sportsmen) is as absurd as the notion that burglars and\ngarrotters should be encouraged because they might make hardier and\nmore venturesome soldiers than honest men; but since people foolishly\ndo set up such arguments they may as well be mentioned in passing for\nwhat they are worth.\n\nThe question then comes to this: which is the superior man? the man\nwhose pastime is slaughter, or the man whose pastime is creative or\ncontemplative? I have no doubt about the matter myself, being on the\ncreative and contemplative side by nature. Slaughter is necessary work,\nlike scavenging; but the man who not only does it unnecessarily for\nlove of it but actually makes as much of it as possible by breeding\nlive things to slaughter, seems to me to be little more respectable\nthan one who befouls the streets for the pleasure of sweeping them. I\nbelieve that the line of evolution leads to the prevention of the birth\nof creatures whose lives are not useful and enjoyable, and that the\ntime will come when a gentleman found amusing himself with a gun will\nfeel as compromised as he does now when found amusing himself with a\nwhip at the expense of a child or an old lame horse covered with sores.\nSport, like murder, is a bloody business; and the sportsmen will not\nalways be able to outface that fact as they do at present.\n\nBut there is something else. Killing, if it is to give us heroic\nemotions, must not be done for pleasure. Interesting though the\nslaying of one man by another may be, it is abhorrent when it is done\nmerely for the fun of doing it (the sportsman\u2019s way) or to satisfy the\nenvious spite of the worse man towards the better (Cain\u2019s way). When\nCharlotte Corday stabbed Marat, and when Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh\nshot the Regent Murray, they were stung by intolerable social wrongs\nfor which the law offered them no redress. When Brutus and his\nfellow-conspirators killed C\u00e6sar, they had persuaded themselves that\nthey were saving Rome. When Samson slew the lion, he had every reason\nto feel convinced that if he did not, the lion would slay him. Conceive\nCharlotte Corday stabbing Marat as an exercise of manual and anatomical\nskill, or Hamilton bringing down the Regent as a feat of marksmanship!\nTheir deeds at once become, not less, but more horrifying than if they\nhad done them from a love of killing. Jack the Ripper was a madman of\nthe most appalling sort; but the fascination of murder for him must\nhave been compounded of dread, of horror, and of a frightful perversion\nof an instinct which in its natural condition is a kindly one. He\nwas a ghastly murderer; but he was a hot-blooded one. The perfection\nof callousness is not reached until a life is sacrificed, and often\ncruelly sacrificed, solely as a feat of skill. Peter the Great amusing\nhimself by torturing his son to death was a revolting monster; but\nhe was not so utterly inhuman in that crime as he was when, on being\ninterested by a machine for executing criminals which he saw in a\nmuseum on his travels, he proposed to execute one of his retinue to\nsee how the machine worked, and could with difficulty be brought to\nunderstand that there was a sentimental objection to the proceeding on\nthe part of his hosts which made the experiment impossible. When he\ntortured his son he knew that he was committing an abomination. When\nhe wanted to try an experiment at the cost of a servant\u2019s life he was\nunconscious of doing anything that was not a matter of course for any\nnobleman. And in this he was worse than abominable: he was deficient,\nimbecile, less than human. Just so is the sportsman, shooting quite\nskilfully and coolly without the faintest sense of any murderous\nexcitement, and with no personal feeling against the birds, really\nfurther from salvation than the man who is humane enough to get some\nsense of wickedness out of his sport. To have one\u2019s fellow-feeling\ncorrupted and perverted into a lust for cruelty and murder is hideous;\nbut to have no fellow-feeling at all is to be something less than even\na murderer. The man who sees red is more complete than the man who is\nblind.\n\nThe triviality of sport as compared with the risk and trouble of\nits pursuit and the gravity of its results makes it much sillier than\ncrime. The idler who can find nothing better to do than to kill is past\nour patience. If a man takes on himself the heavy responsibility of\nkilling, he should not do it for pastime. Pastimes are very necessary;\nfor though a busy man can always find something to do, there comes a\npoint at which his health, his sanity, his very existence may depend\non his doing nothing of the smallest importance; and yet he cannot sit\nstill and twiddle his thumbs: besides, he requires bodily exercise.\nHe needs an idle pastime. Now \u201cSatan finds some mischief still for\nidle hands to do\u201d if the idler lets his conscience go to sleep. But\nhe need not let it go to sleep. There are plenty of innocent idle\npastimes for him. He can read detective stories. He can play tennis.\nHe can drive a motor-car if he can afford one. He can fly. Satan may\nsuggest that it would be a little more interesting to kill something;\nbut surely only an outrageous indifference to the sacredness of life\nand the horrors of suffering and terror, combined with a monstrously\nselfish greed for sensation, could drive a man to accept the Satanic\nsuggestion if sport were not organized for him as a social institution.\nEven as it is, there are now so many other pastimes available that the\nchoice of killing is becoming more and more a disgrace to the chooser.\nThe wantonness of the choice is beyond excuse. To kill as the poacher\ndoes, to sell or eat the victim, is at least to act reasonably. To kill\nfrom hatred or revenge is at least to behave passionately. To kill in\ngratification of a lust for death is at least to behave villainously.\nReason, passion, and villainy are all human. But to kill, being all the\ntime quite a good sort of fellow, merely to pass away the time when\nthere are a dozen harmless ways of doing it equally available, is to\nbehave like an idiot or a silly imitative sheep.\n\nSurely the broad outlook and deepened consciousness which admits all\nliving things to the commonwealth of fellow-feeling, and the appetite\nfor fruitful activity and generous life which come with it, are better\nthan this foolish doing of unamiable deeds by people who are not in the\nleast unamiable.\n\n                                                               G. B. S.\n\n_March, 1914._\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Copyright, George Bernard Shaw, 1914, U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\nKILLING FOR SPORT\n\n\n\n\nTHE CRUELTY OF SPORT\n\nBY GEORGE GREENWOOD\n\n\nIt is a favourite rhetorical device of the vivisectionists to divert\nargument from the main question into side issues by instituting a\ncomparison between vivisection and the various forms of field-sports,\nsuch as pheasant-shooting, for example. It is hardly necessary that I\nshould point out the futility of such controversial methods; for, as\nHorace long ago taught us, there is no use in an illustration which\nmerely substitutes one dispute for another. Vivisection may be wrong,\nthough pheasant-shooting be right; while if pheasant-shooting be\nwrong, it is obviously absurd to appeal to it in aid of the cause of\nvivisection.\n\nBut for those who recognise that it is the duty of man to abstain\nfrom all practices which involve cruelty to the lower animals, it is\nimportant to consider the whole question of sport, and to endeavour to\narrive at just and logical conclusions upon the ethical issues which\nare raised by its pursuit.\n\nHere, at the outset, I think it is necessary, in order to avoid\nconfusion, to attempt some definition of the word \u201ccruelty.\u201d By so\ndoing we shall escape the absurdities of those who tell us that\nall sport is cruel, and yet that its pursuit can, nevertheless, be\njustified by other considerations. The late Professor Freeman long\nago pointed out that those who speak in this slipshod fashion are\nignorant of the very elements of logical reasoning. \u201cCruelty\u201d is a\nword which carries its own condemnation with it. It denotes something\nwhich is morally unjustifiable, just as the word \u201clie\u201d denotes a\nmorally unjustifiable falsehood. Justifiable falsehoods are not lies,\nneither can a lie ever be a justifiable falsehood. For the purposes\nof this paper, therefore, I am content to define \u201ccruelty\u201d as \u201cthe\nunjustifiable infliction of pain.\u201d I think that is better than defining\nit as \u201cthe _unnecessary_ infliction of pain.\u201d For, to take an example,\nthe shooting of a partridge can hardly, in any ordinary case, be looked\nupon as a _necessary_ act. To define cruelty, therefore, as \u201cthe\nunnecessary infliction of pain\u201d would be to settle the question--or,\nrather to beg it--in such a case, by means of a definition. It is true\nthat the definition which I have preferred leaves the question what is\nor is not justifiable, in any given case, open for discussion; but that\nis, of course, inevitable, whatever definition we may adopt.\n\nIf, then, we are compelled to say of any sport that it is cruel, we\nare compelled also to admit that such sport is morally unjustifiable.\nNow, sport, according to the general acceptation of that term, is of\ntwo kinds. There are, first, sports such as cricket, football, golf,\nrowing, and many others, which do not involve the taking of animal\nlife; and, secondly, there are the sports of hunting, coursing, and\nshooting, in all their various branches, which are frequently denoted\nby the compendious term of \u201cblood-sports\u201d; and it is with the latter\nclass of sports only that this essay is concerned.\n\nLet us, therefore, examine these blood-sports, and ask ourselves in\neach case whether they are cruel, and therefore unjustifiable, or\nwhether, notwithstanding the pain and suffering which they necessarily\ninvolve, they are, nevertheless, justifiable forms of amusement and\nrecreation, such as a humane and thinking man need not scruple to\nindulge in.\n\nBut before proceeding farther with the discussion, I must own that\nI am not a little appalled at the audacity of undertaking such an\ninquisition. For is it not the boast of our countrymen that England\nis the home and the motherland of sport? What appellation does an\nEnglishman more ardently desire than that of \u201csportsman\u201d? \u201cA good\nsportsman,\u201d \u201ca good all-round sportsman,\u201d \u201ca fine old sportsman\u201d--what\nnames are more honourable than these? I have frequently heard it\nsaid of a man that \u201che was always ready for a bit of sport,\u201d and it\nwas generally recognised that very high praise was implied by such a\ndescription. Fox-hunting, hare-hunting, rabbit-coursing, ferreting,\nratting, badger-baiting--it was all one to him so long as he could get\n\u201ca bit of sport\u201d! What higher character could a Briton possibly aspire\nto? No wonder the man was so popular with his neighbours, and so highly\nesteemed!\n\nAnd so, if we begin to question the humanity or the propriety of any of\nthese forms of amusement, the crushing answer invariably is, \u201cBut it\u2019s\n_sport_!\u201d Surely that is amply sufficient! Surely that is final! What\nmore do you want? Sport is always excellent. Sport is an end in itself.\nSport is a god worshipped in a thousand temples throughout the length\nand breadth of the United Kingdom. Let us burn incense on those altars;\nlet us reverently bow the knee at those shrines. Great is God Sport of\nthe Britishers!\n\nNay, does not our very Empire depend on Sport? Is it not Sport that\nknits the fibres and fashions the sinews of an Imperial race? It were\nalmost as well, then, to speak disrespectfully of religion itself as\nto speak slightingly of Sport. And yet, as philosophers, as social\nstudents, as humanitarians, we must nerve ourselves even for this\nperilous quest. We must not shrink. We must not be deterred from\npushing our investigation even into the Holy of Holies of this great\ngod which the people of England have set up.\n\nAnd let us face our worst dangers at once. First, then, I would say\na few words about the most honoured and the most celebrated of all\nour British sports, \u201cthe noble science,\u201d as it has been called--the\nglorious sport of fox-hunting.\n\n\nFOX-HUNTING.\n\nNow, fox-hunting seems to most of us almost a part of the British\nConstitution. It takes rank among the best-established of our\ntime-honoured institutions. What would become of the glory of England,\nwere it not for fox-hunting? And speaking as one who in days gone by\nwas, so far as time and opportunity and a shallow purse allowed, a\nvotary of the chase, I can honestly say that the sport has more to\nsay for itself than some who have never fallen under the sway of its\nfascination are able to realise or understand. Let us see what _can_ be\nsaid for it.\n\nGreat and undeniable are the pleasures of the meet; great the delights\nof the country-side as the hounds are thrown joyfully into cover, with\na burst of melodious chiding. What a picturesque sight! The busy,\neager, indefatigable pack; gallant steeds impatient for the coming\nrace, and scarlet coats lighting up the wintry woodland scene! Then\nthe excitement of the \u201cfind\u201d; the still greater excitement of the cry,\n\u201cGone away! gone away!\u201d hounds in full cry, and the cheery blasts of\nthe huntsman\u2019s horn to rally the stragglers in the rear!\n\nAnd if there be anything at all which can in any way justify the\nhigh-sounding title of \u201cthe noble science,\u201d we may look for it now. For\nthe man who can ride straight to hounds and hold his own over a stiff\ncountry must possess some qualities which are not to be despised. He\nmust not only be a fine horseman--and fine horsemen are few and far\nbetween--but he must know how to combine courage with judgment, prompt\ndecision with sound discretion. Here for the good rider, whose heart is\nin the right place, are the true pleasures of the chase.\n\nBut let us now look at the other side of the picture. It has been\na splendid run, but the end approaches. The fox has been viewed\ndead-beat, painfully crawling into a hedgerow, with coat muddy and\nstaring, tongue hanging out of his mouth, brush trailing on the ground.\nWhat sight more piteous can be conceived? A few minutes more and\nhis merciless pursuers are upon him; and, to use the words of Whyte\nMelville, the Laureate of the chase,\n\n    \u201c\u2019Twas a stout hill-fox when we found him, but now\n    \u2019Tis a thousand tatters of brown!\u201d\n\nThis, then, is the end, and aim, and object of our sport--\u201cthe kill\u201d!\nIt is our pride to be \u201cin at the death.\u201d I confess I have often felt\nno little ashamed of my brother-man--man, that \u201cparagon of animals,\u201d\n\u201cin action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!\u201d--as\nI have listened to those wild shrieks and yells of \u201cWho-whoop\u201d that\nproclaim--what? That a little animal has been hunted to its death. And\nit is this thought from which the thinking man can never escape, and\nwhich is to his enjoyment as the canker to the bud--the thought that\nit is necessary for his pleasure that a poor little animal, in all the\nagony of terror and exhaustion, should be running for its life before\nhim! And since this is the inevitable concomitant of the sport--even\nthe great and glorious sport of fox-hunting--the thinking man must\nask himself, \u201cAm I justified--morally justified--in purchasing my\npleasure at such a price?\u201d Can we for a moment doubt what the answer\nof the thinking man must be? I do not say that all fox-hunters are\ncruel men; it would be absurd, indeed, to bring such a charge. Many\ngood and humane men--men who would shrink from and abhor anything that\nthey recognised as cruel--are, nevertheless, habitual followers of\nthe hounds. They have persuaded themselves--it is so easy to persuade\noneself in accordance with one\u2019s inclination, especially when the\nobject to which one is inclined has all the sanction of custom and long\nusage--they have persuaded themselves that the sport is justifiable in\nspite of the suffering which is its necessary accompaniment and result.\nOr, perhaps, especially if they are young men, they have not thought\nabout it at all. But I cannot help the belief that, as thought and true\ncivilisation advance, it will be recognised that to seek pleasure in\nthe hunting of any animal to its death is unworthy of a thinking and\nhumane man. If the humane man can do these things, it must be because\nhe has not yet become a thinking man. If the thinking man can do them,\nit must be because he is not a humane man.\n\nAnd this conclusion will, I think, be fortified if we consider,\nvery briefly, some of the arguments by which it is sought to justify\nsport of this kind. We are frequently told that the fox is a thief\nand a marauder--a robber of hen-roosts--and that, therefore, he must\nbe destroyed. The simple answer to this is that the fox is carefully\npreserved; that when foxes are scarce in a hunting country they are\nimported from elsewhere; and that the man who shoots a fox is held up\nto odium and scorn as guilty of the heinous crime of \u201cvulpicide.\u201d\n\nBut we have no sooner answered this flimsy argument than we are met by\nanother of a quite different character. We are told that if foxes were\nnot preserved to be hunted they would be exterminated; and that a fox,\nif given his choice, would much prefer to take his chance of escaping\nthe hounds to the alternative of extermination. This is certainly a\nquaint specimen of the sportsman\u2019s logic. We are asked, in the first\nplace, to assume an impossibility--namely, that a fox should be endowed\nwith reason to enable him to consider and come to a decision upon the\nsuggested question; secondly, we have to assume what his answer would\nbe; thirdly, that that answer would be a wise one for the foxes; and,\nfourthly, that man ought to be bound by it. To this puerile argument\nit is sufficient to say that the question before us is not what a fox\nmight, in an imaginary and impossible contingency, conceivably think\nbest for himself, but what is right for man to do. If, therefore,\nthe alternative be between the extermination of foxes, by methods as\npainless as may be, and their preservation to be hunted by man, I\ncannot doubt in what direction the true interests of humanity will be\nfound to lie.\n\nTo this conclusion, then, I think our reason must inevitably lead\nus, even with regard to the best and most popular of blood-sports as\npractised in this country. I do not hesitate to confess that I was\nbrought to it with reluctance, knowing full well the pleasures of\nriding over a country with hounds in front and a good horse under me.\nBut, in truth, the case seems too clear for argument. On one side are\ninclination and pleasure, and prescription, and the false glamour of\n\u201csport\u201d; on the other side are \u201cthat incomparable pair\u201d--humanity and\nreason.[2]\n\n\nTHE WILD STAG HUNT.\n\nBut if the inexorable laws of reason and of ethics compel us to cast\nour vote against \u201cthe noble science\u201d of fox-hunting, what shall we say\nof such sport as the hunting of the red deer in the West of England?\nIts votaries would fain cast over it the glamour of poetry. They dilate\non the glorious country--the woods of Porlock, the bright heaths of\nExmoor, the exhilaration and excitement of a wild gallop over a wild\ncountry in pursuit of this magnificent wild creature--\u201cthe antlered\nmonarch of the waste.\u201d But we have only to turn to the acknowledged\ntextbooks on the subject (such as Collyns\u2019s \u201cChase of the Wild Red\nDeer,\u201d for example) to learn of the horrible cruelties which are the\ninevitable concomitants of this much-extolled sport--to learn how the\nhunted animal, in its terror and despair, will dash over cliffs into\nthe sea, or vainly seek refuge in the waves from its merciless pursuers\nupon the land. I will not waste time and words over it. I regard it as\na cruel form of pleasure which every humane man should shun and shrink\nfrom. A relative of mine, who for many years acted as secretary to a\nfox-hunt in the West of England, and who had a great reputation as a\nrider to hounds, told me that he had once gone to see the sport on\nExmoor, and that nothing would induce him to repeat that experience, so\nterrible and so disgusting were some of the things which he witnessed\nthere. Alas! that woman should be a participator in such cruel\ndeeds--ay, and pride herself on her rivalry with brutal man! But we\nknow the type. Their eyes are blinded lest they should see, and their\nears closed lest they should hear. They know no better. They have never\nlearned to think![3]\n\nHere again we are told there is only one alternative: either these deer\nmust be preserved to be hunted or they must be exterminated. But again,\nalso, there can be no doubt as to what our choice should be. We should\nlament the loss of these wild denizens of the forest and the moor; but\nbetter, far better, would it be that their lives should be ended, as\npainlessly as may be, by the rifle, than that they should be preserved\nfor a sport which is an outrage upon humanity.\n\n\nSHOOTING.\n\nI have touched upon hunting; let us now consider the twin-sport of\nshooting, and let us first consider it in its most favourable aspect.\nHow well do I remember those bright September evenings, long ago,\nwhen the rays of the westering sun, striking obliquely on the ruddy\nclover-heads, bathed them in the rosy light of a summer that still\nlingered on \u201cthe happy autumn fields\u201d! Youth, health, and hope were\nours then--youth, health, and hope, and friends! Life lay all before\nus; and, what was more to the purpose for the present moment, before\nus, too, were the partridges--a covey scattered among those smiling\nclover-heads. We go forward to beat them up with all the joy and\nexcitement of that golden time when life has not yet been saddened by\nthe pale cast of thought. The birds rise before us, singly, or in twos.\nThe last shots are fired. The old retriever picks up the fallen game.\nThen we turn homewards, just as the glorious sun sinks at last behind\nthe high Hampshire hills, and \u201cbarred clouds bloom the soft-dying\nday.\u201d Were we then guilty of cruelty? I answer \u201cNo,\u201d because the moral\nqualities of an act exist only in the mind of the agent,\n\n    \u201cFor there is nothing either good or bad\n    But thinking makes it so;\u201d\n\nand it had never occurred to us to question the morality of a sport\nwhich gave us such days of happiness, such nights of unbroken repose.\n\nAnd truly, if we admit, for the sake of argument, at any rate, and\nmaking no assumption as against the vegetarian, that it is legitimate\nfor man to use birds and beasts for his food, I see not much that can\nbe justly said in condemnation of shooting such as this. If birds\nmay be used for food, how better can they be killed than by the gun?\nAnd thus it appears that it is that much-maligned and much-ridiculed\nindividual the \u201cpot-hunter\u201d who is the best justified of all the\nshooting confraternity!\n\nAgain, if rabbits must be kept under for the sake of agriculture (a\nproposition which few will be found to dispute), it is certainly\nfar better that they should be shot than be taken by that hideous\ninstrument of torture, the steel trap, or the hardly less cruel\ncontrivance known as \u201cthe wire.\u201d\n\nBut when we come to the shooting of artificially reared and carefully\npreserved pheasants, and especially to what is known as \u201cbattue\nshooting,\u201d very different considerations arise. Let us take an instance.\n\nThe short December day has drawn to a close. There has been warm\nwork in the coverts. A thousand head of game--pheasants, hares, and\nrabbits--have been brought to bag. In fact, we have had, not indeed a\ntremendous battue, as these things are reckoned nowadays, but simply \u201ca\njolly day\u2019s covert-shooting.\u201d But now darkness--thick, gloomy, winter\ndarkness--has settled down like a pall upon the woods. There is some\nsnow upon the ground, and with the night has come a sharper frost and\na bitter, piercing wind. But what is that to us as we gather together\nin the warm dining-room, where the lamps are so bright, where the\nlogs burn so keenly, and where thick curtains ward off the draughts\nof that nipping, eager air, and deaden the sound of the gusts moaning\nfitfully without? How delightful a festive dinner like this after our\nday of woodland sport! And yet, as I have raised the first glass of\nchampagne to my lips, a thought has sometimes come to me which has gone\nnigh to spoil my pleasure. It is the thought of that cover where the\nfun was so fast and furious, and which literally seemed to swarm with\ngame. I picture it as it is _now_ under the darkness of night. There,\nwithin sight of the bright lights around which we are so joyously\ngathered, _there_ are scores--hundreds may be--of miserable creatures\nwith mangled limbs and bleeding wounds; some with hind-legs broken,\ndragging themselves piteously over the frosty ground; some writhing in\nagony which death comes all too slowly to relieve. Ah, if that wounded\nhare could speak, as she looks at the line of light streaming from\nour dining-room windows, what a curse might she not breathe against\nthe cruel savages within! What a contrast! _Here_, light, warmth,\nand pleasure; _there_, darkness, cold, and pain unspeakable! Are not\n_these_ considerations which should give us pause?\n\nAnd can it be denied that the man who has learnt to stand at \u201ca warm\ncorner\u201d unmoved while wounded beasts and birds are struggling or\npiteously crawling in agony all around him, who can listen unmoved\nto the terrible cry of the wounded hare--a cry like that of a child\nin pain--can it be denied that that man, who has so deadened his\nsusceptibility to the sufferings of his humble and helpless kindred of\nthe animal world, has himself suffered grievous injury to that which is\nbest in human nature--that sacred instinct of compassion, wherein some\nthinkers of no mean order have thought they discerned the origin and\nthe very basis of morality?\n\nAnd what a curse to our country is this selfish mania for the\npreservation of game--preservation for the purpose of destruction! For\nthis are the country-folk warned off from the quiet woodland ways; for\nthis are the children prohibited from entering the copses to gather\nwild-flowers; for this are enclosures made, barbed-wire fences erected,\nfootpaths and commons filched from the public, and the landless still\nfurther excluded from the land; for this must temptation be constantly\nset before the eyes of the labourer; for this must the offender\nagainst the game laws be called up for sentence before a tribunal\nof game-preservers; for this must the woods and the country-side be\ndenuded of their most delightful inhabitants--the jay and the magpie,\nwith their lustrous plumage and wild cries; the squirrel, embodiment of\nlife and graceful activity, with his curious winning ways; the quaint,\nharmless, and interesting little hedgehog; the owl, with its long-drawn\nmelancholy note, as it hawks in the summer moonlight--for this must\nwood-sides be disfigured by impudent notice-boards, telling us, in the\narrogant language of the rich Philistine, that \u201cAll trespassers will\nbe prosecuted, all dogs destroyed\u201d; for this must millions of innocent\ncreatures be pitilessly condemned to shocking mutilations and atrocious\nagonies, long drawn out. Such is \u201cMerry England\u201d under the rule of the\ngame-preserver!\n\n    \u201cStrange that where Nature loved to trace\n    As if for gods a dwelling-place,\n    There man, enamoured of distress,\n    Should mar it into wilderness.\u201d\n\nI have now briefly considered those blood-sports which are generally\nspoken of as \u201clegitimate\u201d sports--namely, hunting and shooting.\n\u201cBut,\u201d someone will ask me, \u201cwhat of hare-hunting, and coursing, and\notter-hunting--are not these \u2018legitimate\u2019 sports also?\u201d\n\nWell, over these I care not to delay; a few words will suffice for each.\n\n\nHARE-HUNTING AND OTTER-HUNTING.\n\nWell has it been said that\n\n    \u201cPoor is the triumph o\u2019er the timid hare.\u201d\n\nIt is to my mind indeed a pitiable form of pleasure that men should\ngo forth to hunt to death this, the most timorous of animals. Even in\nthe days of bluff King Hal, when humanitarians were indeed few and far\nbetween, and it was hardly recognised that men had any duties to the\nlower animals, there was found a great and good and enlightened man to\nraise his voice in protest against this sport. \u201cWhat greater pleasure\nis there to be felt,\u201d wrote Sir Thomas More in his \u201cUtopia,\u201d \u201cwhen a\ndog followeth a hare than when a dog followeth a dog? For one thing is\ndone in both--that is to say, running, if thou hast pleasure therein.\nBut if the hope of slaughter and the expectation of tearing in pieces\nthe beast doth please thee, thou shouldest rather be moved with pity to\nsee a silly, innocent hare murdered of a dog, the weak of the stronger,\nthe fearful of the fierce, the innocent of the cruel and unmerciful.\u201d\n\nOught we not to feel some shame if we have not advanced farther than\nthis old teacher of nearly four hundred years ago? But it seems that\nthe age of King George V. has still something to learn from the age of\nKing Henry VIII.\n\nAnd but a few years later, in the reign of that famous King\u2019s still\nmore famous daughter, in \u201cthe spacious times,\u201d when kindness to poor\nanimals was but little thought of, do we not hear the voice of the\ngreat poet who is not of an age, but for all time, in an exquisite\ndescription of the miseries of the hunted hare?--\n\n    \u201cBy this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,\n      Stands on his hinder legs, with listening ear,\n    To hearken if his foes pursue him still.\n      Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;\n    And now his grief may be compared well\n    To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.\n\n    \u201cThen shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch\n      Turn and return, indenting with the way;\n    Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch;\n      Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay.\n    For misery is trodden on by many,\n    And, being low, never relieved by any.\u201d\n\nAnd here let me say that, if some of us have been loud in our protest\nagainst hare-hunting by schoolboys (and I refer especially to the case\nof the Eton beagles), it is because we believe it to be of paramount\nimportance that this duty of kindness to animals should be inculcated\nupon the young; that this sacred instinct of compassion should be\nfostered in young minds; and that boys should be restrained from\npursuits which tend to deaden this best of all human feelings.\n\n    \u201c\u2019Tis education forms the common mind;\n    Just as the twig is bent, the tree\u2019s inclined.\u201d\n\nAnd who shall say what harm may be done to character, if the men who\nare responsible for education allow it to be supposed by those under\ntheir charge that animal suffering is a thing of no account?\n\nAs to otter-hunting, or the \u201cotter-worry,\u201d as it is better called,\nit is a kind of sport of which I have seen a good deal in bygone\ndays, but which I always found abominable. Let me give one example\nfrom my own experience. It is a lovely day and a lovely country. The\nbeautiful River Plym is flowing clear and cool in its lower valley\ndepths, between wood-clad hills. I see before me an old quarry-pool.\nPrecipitous rocks stand over it. One little stream, or adit, alone\nconnects it with the river. At the farther end, away from the entrance\nof this adit, the hillside slopes more gradually, and is covered with\nbroken fragments of rock and quarried stone. On my left the pool lies\nopen to the woods. We had found an otter in the morning, and it was\nsupposed that the creature had taken refuge in the \u201cclitter of rocks\u201d\nabove the pool. Accordingly, men armed with otter-spears, and aided\nby terriers, endeavour to dislodge it. Suddenly another otter, much\nlarger than the one we have been hunting, emerges from this retreat\nand dashes into the water. Instantly the pool is surrounded by excited\nhunters. A man with a spear stands at the adit-head, blocking that\nway of escape. The water is alive with swimming hounds, while others\nstand baying on the banks. Now, an otter can stay long under water,\nbut it must rise at intervals for breath; so, after a pause, we hear\nthe shout of \u201cHoo, gaze!\u201d and I catch sight of a small dark face and\nlarge brown eyes for one moment above the surface of the pool. Again\nand again, at ever-shortening intervals, I see that face appear and\ndisappear. I can never forget it--that wild, scared face, and the\nterror of those hunted eyes! There is no possibility of escape. Hounds\nand \u201csportsmen\u201d--yes, and \u201csportswomen\u201d too--surround the pool, and\nthe only exit is carefully and effectually guarded. The otter, wildest\nand most timid of animals, must either attempt to run the gauntlet or\nbe actually drowned in the pool. Only one thought possesses me--that\nof sickening compassion for this poor, beautiful, hunted creature.\nMen--and, good heavens! women too--seem frenzied with the desire to\nkill. No thought of pity seems to dawn upon their minds. So at length,\namid yelling men and baying hounds, the wretched \u201cbeast of the chase\u201d\nis forced for dear life\u2019s sake to try the desperate shift of taking to\nthe land, in the vain hope of finding sanctuary in the friendly waters\nof the Plym, that are so near and yet so far. Vain hope indeed! Scarce\ntwenty yards of flight, and the hounds roll her over. From the carcass\nthus barbarously done to death the \u201cpads\u201d are cut off as trophies by\nthe huntsman, and the master goes through the ceremony of \u201cblooding\u201d\nhis little son, who has now seen his first \u201ckill.\u201d The boy\u2019s cheeks\nand forehead are smeared with blood from one of the dripping \u201cpads,\u201d\nand the \u201cyoung barbarian\u201d goes home swelling with pride at this savage\ndecoration. What a lesson for him! Thus is the rising generation taught\nto be gentle and compassionate, and to love \u201call things, both great\nand small\u201d! O Sport, what horrible things are done in thy name! How\nlong shall the nation continue to bow the knee to this false god--this\nbloody Moloch of Sport?\n\n\nSPURIOUS SPORTS.\n\nBut of all the sports of killing which we have hitherto reviewed, this\nmuch at least may be said--namely, that they are concerned with the\nhunting or shooting of wild animals at liberty, in their native haunts.\nWe now have to consider certain other blood-sports, the differentiating\nfeature of which is that they are concerned with the hunting or\nshooting of animals liberated from captivity for that purpose. Such\nare rabbit-coursing, the hunting of carted deer, and the shooting of\npigeons from traps, which are very commonly referred to as \u201cspurious\nsports\u201d--a title which they most justly merit.\n\nOn pigeon-shooting I will not waste many words. To shoot a strong\n\u201cblue rock,\u201d released from one of five traps, at a rise of between\ntwenty and thirty yards, is not, as some people think, an easy thing\nto do. On the contrary, it is a very difficult thing to do, the result\nbeing that, even when good shots are competing, many birds get away\nwounded, to die a lingering death. Moreover, if a test of skill be all\nthat is required, the clay pigeon answers the purpose quite as well\nas, if not better than, the living bird. I might dwell, too, on the\ninjuries sometimes done to the birds when closely packed in hampers for\ntransport purposes. But it is, I think, sufficient to say that it is\nnow generally recognised in this country that the practice of shooting\ncaptive birds from traps has about it none of the elements of \u201csport\u201d\nproperly so-called. It is a mere medium for betting and money-making,\nor money-losing, without any of those healthy, invigorating, and\nathletic concomitants which do something to redeem genuine \u201csport\u201d\nfrom the reproach of cruelty; and if cruelty be the unjustifiable\ninfliction of pain, then it can, I think, hardly be doubted that\npigeon-shooting must be classed among cruel sports. Of this opinion\nwas the House of Commons thirty-one years ago; for in the year 1883 a\nBill passed through that House, on second reading, to put down this\nspurious sport by law. And to show how poorly it is now esteemed, even\nin fashionable circles, it may be mentioned that the Hurlingham Club,\nwhere pigeon-shooting was once regularly carried on, some years ago\ndecided to prohibit this unworthy practice in their grounds.\n\nIt remains to consider the two spurious sports of rabbit-coursing and\nthe hunting of carted deer. Let us take the latter first.\n\nWhat are the animals employed for this form of fashionable amusement?\nThey are park-bred deer, kept in paddocks or stables, and carefully fed\nand exercised. It is said on behalf of the \u201cstag-hunters\u201d (so called)\nthat to do the deer any injury is the last thing they wish for; on the\ncontrary, their desire is to recapture the animal alive and well, in\norder that he or she may afford sport another day. This, doubtless, is\ntrue enough; but, unfortunately, the deer is terrified by the chase,\nand becomes exhausted in the course of it. Unfortunately, too, there\nare such things as spiked iron railings and barbed-wire fences, to\nsay nothing of walls and other obstacles with which the hunted deer\nis confronted in his cross-country flight. The result is inevitable,\nand such as all reasoning men know to be inevitable--namely, that from\ntime to time terrible \u201caccidents,\u201d as they are euphemistically called,\ntake place, some of which, but by no means all, find their way into the\ncolumns of our newspapers. Thus, to give an example, it twice happened\nwithin a period of eight months that a miserable hunted deer impaled\nitself upon a spiked iron fence at Reading, which in its terror it\nessayed to jump, but which in its exhaustion it failed to clear. I\ncould give case after case in which a hunted deer has lacerated itself\nin the attempt to leap a barbed-wire fence; broken a leg, or perhaps\n(more mercifully) its neck, in trying to clear a gate or wall; cut\nand wounded itself by jumping on a greenhouse or glass frames; fallen\nexhausted before the hounds, and been bitten and torn by them; sought\nrefuge in a river, canal, or pond, and been drowned by the pursuing\npack. Ten such cases are known to have occurred in six months with one\npack only, hunting in the Home Counties, and six tame deer were done to\ndeath by that same pack within that period.\n\nThese cases formed the subject of questions put by me to the late\nPrime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, in the House of Commons.\nI should like to quote his answer given to one of such questions on\nMarch 14, 1907: \u201cIf such cruelties are perpetrated, and we can do\nanything to stop them, I shall be very glad. I am against cruelty of\nany sort, whether under the name of sport or otherwise. I like it\nrather less under the cloak of sport than otherwise.\u201d Nay, this cruel\nand contemptible travesty of sport was once, in a lucid interval,\ncondemned, even by that well-known and recognised organ of sport, _The\nField_, \u201cthe country gentleman\u2019s newspaper.\u201d For in _The Field_ of\nSeptember 3, 1892, we read as follows:\n\n    \u201cIf we look at this fiction of chase from an unprejudiced\n    standpoint, we must admit that it is only prescription and\n    usage which enable us to retain it in our sporting schedule and\n    to tolerate it as legitimate. Strictly speaking, it stands on\n    the same footing as bull and bear baiting, both of which have\n    had to go to the wall under the influence of what is called the\n    march of civilization.\u201d[4]\n\nNeed I say more? Surely the case is too clear for argument--except,\nindeed, for certain peers in the Gilded Chamber, whose hidebound\nprejudice seems to be impervious to reason!\n\nSo much for the hunting of carted deer, the spurious sport of the\nrich. What shall we say of rabbit-coursing, which has been described\nas the sport of the poor, but which would, I think, be better called\n\u201cthe spurious sport of the spurious poor\u201d? Here, too, I can speak as\nan eye-witness, and I will repeat the description of what I saw, as it\nappeared in a London newspaper:\n\n    \u201cWishing to see for myself what goes on at the \u2018sport\u2019 of\n    rabbit-coursing, I took train on Sunday morning to Worcester\n    Park Station, whence a walk of about a mile leads to the field\n    where the entertainment is provided. Here was soon gathered\n    together an assembly of about three hundred \u2018sportsmen,\u2019 mostly\n    lads and larrikins. There was a large number of dogs, chiefly\n    of the \u2018whippet\u2019 breed, and many of them carefully clothed\n    after the manner of greyhounds. The ear was assailed by the\n    noise of continual barking, and the nose by whiffs from a\n    neighbouring sewage farm. After we had waited some little time\n    a van was drawn on the ground heavily laden with large shallow\n    hampers packed with live rabbits. Three or four of these\n    hampers were brought forward to the starting-point; a stout\n    gentleman who carried a revolver and appeared to \u2018boss the\n    show,\u2019 gave the order \u2018to get behind the ropes,\u2019 some juvenile\n    and promising bookmakers mounted stools, and the fun commenced.\n\n    \u201cTwo dogs are led to the starting-point amidst shouts of \u2018I\u2019ll\n    lay three to one,\u2019 \u2018I\u2019ll lay seven to four,\u2019 etc., quite in\n    the approved sporting style. A man opens a sort of trap-door\n    in the lid of one of the hampers, seizes one of the cowering\n    rabbits by the skin of the back, presents it to each dog\n    alternately, in order, I presume, to excite him to the utmost,\n    runs with it, still held in one hand by the skin of the back,\n    some thirty-five yards, and then flings it down, whereupon a\n    shot is fired from the revolver, the dogs are released and rush\n    madly for the prey. What follows requires some explanation.\n    Let it be remembered that these are, or were, wild rabbits,\n    among the most timorous of wild creatures; that they have\n    probably undergone the horrible experience of being driven from\n    their burrows by the ferret some days (and who shall say how\n    many days?) before; that they have been sent by rail to town;\n    that they are carted to the scene of action closely packed in\n    hampers; that they are, for a long time previously to being\n    \u2018coursed,\u2019 surrounded by shouting men and barking dogs, and\n    that after all this, weak, dazed, and half paralysed with fear,\n    the victim is \u2018dumped down\u2019 in the middle of a strange field.\n\n    \u201cThe result is what might be expected. He can hardly run, and\n    knows not where to run. Some come straight back into the mouths\n    of the dogs, others make a feeble attempt to seek shelter in\n    the distant hedge. But the result is always the same. In a few\n    seconds the dogs are upon him. The first seizes him by the back\n    or hind-quarters; the second, overtaking the first, and not to\n    be balked of his share of the prey, grabs the victim by the\n    head and shoulders. Then ensues a tug of war, during which the\n    miserable rabbit is frequently more than half disembowelled\n    before he is taken, still alive, or half alive, from the jaws\n    of the dogs. Not one escapes; he is not given a chance. One\n    that was put down a few yards in front of two very young dogs,\n    who were evidently new to the business, might have got away,\n    but when this was seen a large dog was at once sent after the\n    fugitive. I am told that at North Country meetings when a\n    puppy is entered a rabbit is frequently mutilated by having\n    a leg broken or an eye put out; but I saw nothing of this at\n    Worcester Park.\n\n    \u201cI should mention that I was joined by a friend from New\n    Malden, well known in the neighbourhood for humanitarian\n    efforts, and that we were at once \u2018spotted\u2019 as alien\n    interlopers, and looked at askance in consequence. Possibly\n    the result was greater caution in the management of the\n    proceedings. But we saw quite enough. Fifteen wretched\n    creatures were done to death in forty-five minutes, and the\n    \u2018sport\u2019 goes on all day and every Sunday. I counted the steps\n    taken by the man who ran forward with each rabbit, and never\n    did they exceed thirty-five. A really wild rabbit in his own\n    familiar haunts might have some chance at that. But these\n    poor cowering things, tortured to make a hooligans\u2019 holiday!\n    The mere monotony of it was sickening. And yet when a Bill is\n    brought into Parliament to make such abominations illegal, a\n    noble lord, one of the pillars of the Jockey Club, opposes\n    it because it \u2018would affect the poorer classes far more than\n    themselves,\u2019 and because it is \u2018a piece of class legislation\u2019\n    (Lord Durham in the House of Lords, _The Times_, March 4,\n    1902). Why not go back to cock-fighting and bull-baiting at\n    once?\u201d[5]\n\nSuch are the sports that make England great, that strengthen the\nmuscles and sinews of a conquering Imperial race! Let us rejoice,\nthen, that we have an Hereditary Chamber, where faddists and fanatics\nare unknown, to throw the \u00e6gis of its protection over the pleasures\nof rich and poor alike, and where the high-souled, high-bred scions\nof a time-honoured aristocracy magnanimously defend the cherished\ninstitutions of our forefathers against the attacks both of blatant\ndemocrats and sickly sentimentalists!\n\n\nTHE ETHICS OF SPORT.\n\nIt was said by a noble lord in the Upper House not long ago that\n\u201cPhysical courage and love of sport have been for centuries the\ndistinguishing characteristics of the British race.\u201d Is there any\nnecessary relation between these two things? I take leave to doubt\nit--indeed, I entirely deny it--if by \u201csport\u201d these \u201cblood-sports\u201d\nare intended. But let us set beside this wonderful pronouncement the\nstatement of a cultivated and enlightened Englishman who was for\nmany years resident in Burmah. In that charming book, \u201cThe Soul of a\nPeople,\u201d Mr. H. Fielding writes as follows:\n\n    \u201cIt has been inculcated in us from childhood that it is a manly\n    thing to be indifferent to pain--not to our own pain only,\n    but to that of all others. To be sorry for a hunted hare,\n    to compassionate the wounded deer, to shrink from torturing\n    the brute creation, has been accounted by us a namby-pamby\n    sentimentalism, not fit for man, fit only for a squeamish\n    woman. To the Burman it is one of the highest of all virtues.\n    He believes that all that is beautiful in life is founded on\n    compassion, and kindness, and sympathy--that nothing of great\n    value can exist without them.\u201d\n\nMay not our much-vaunted Christianity learn something from this\ndespised religion of the Buddha, first taught by Gautama on the banks\nof the Ganges some six hundred years before Christ? For what is it that\nBuddhism teaches us? It teaches as a first principle to do no harm\nto any living thing; it teaches mercy without limit, and compassion\nwithout stint. Of the Burmese Buddhists we read: \u201cThey learn how it is\nthe noblest duty of man, who is strong, to be kind and loving to his\nweaker brothers, the animals.\u201d\n\nContrast with that the following, taken at random from among my\nnewspaper cuttings (it is a paragraph from the _Morning Post_):\n\n                                                   _June 14, 1904._\n\n    \u201cThe Carlisle Otter Hounds met at Longtown yesterday, and had\n    the best hunt that has taken place in the Esk for fifty years.\n    A splendid otter was put up at Red Scaur, and for four hours\n    he kept men, hounds, and terriers at bay. He left the river\n    several times for the woods and rocks, and ran the woods as\n    cunningly as a fox. Eventually, when climbing a steep rock for\n    a hole, he fell back exhausted into the water, and the hounds\n    despatched him. His body was presented to Sir Richard Graham.\u201d\n\nNo thought of pity here for the poor wild creature, hunted, harried,\nand remorselessly pursued by men and hounds for four mortal hours--in\nwater, through woods, over rocks, ever flying in all the agony of\nfear, till the last dregs of strength are exhausted, and, on the very\nthreshold of the longed-for refuge, he falls, hopeless and helpless,\nin the stream, where \u201cthe hounds despatched him.\u201d Such is a \u201cgrand\notter hunt,\u201d the best that had taken place in the Esk for fifty years!\nTruly we may smile at those holy men of the Buddhists who carried bells\non their shoes in order to give warning as they walked to the little\ncreatures in the long grass; but for my part I own that, upon the\nwhole, I would far sooner be classed with these poor sentimentalists,\nwho have seen in their hearts the coming of that \u201cmilder day\u201d for which\nthe great poet who sang of \u201cHartleap Well\u201d so devoutly longed, than\nwith that flower of muscular Christianity, the stalwart Britisher, so\ndistinguished for his love of sport and his contempt for pain--his own\ngenerally excepted!\n\nHow, then, stands this question of sport considered as a question of\nethics? A great German thinker, as we all know, believed that he had\nfound the very basis of morality in the sacred instinct of compassion.\nI will not argue whether Schopenhauer was right or wrong in that\ncontention, but this, at any rate, we must all admit--namely, that\nwithout compassion all our boasted morality would be but as sounding\nbrass and as a tinkling cymbal. Nay, whether it be or be not the\nbasis of morality, this at least is true that, without compassion, no\nmorality worth having could exist at all.\n\nLet us listen for a moment to Rousseau on this matter:\n\n    \u201cMandeville was right in thinking that, with all their systems\n    of morality, men would never have been anything but monsters if\n    Nature had not given them _compassion_ to support their reason;\n    but he failed to see that _from this one quality spring all\n    the social virtues_ which he was unwilling to credit mankind\n    with. In reality, what is generosity, clemency, humanity, if\n    not _compassion_, applied to the weak, to the guilty, or to the\n    human race as a whole? Even benevolence and friendship, if we\n    look at the matter rightly, are seen to result from a constant\n    compassion, directed upon a particular object; for to desire\n    that someone should not suffer is nothing else than to desire\n    that he should be happy.\u2026 The more closely the living spectator\n    identifies himself with the living sufferer, the more active\n    does pity become.\u201d\n\nAnd again:\n\n    \u201cHow is it that we let ourselves be moved to pity if not by\n    getting out of our own consciousness, and becoming identified\n    with the living sufferer; by leaving, so to say, our own being\n    and entering into his? We do not suffer except as we suppose\n    he suffers; _it is not in us, it is in him_, that we suffer.\u2026\n    Offer a young man objects on which the expansive force of his\n    heart can act--objects such as may enlarge his nature, and\n    incline it to go out to other beings, in whom he may everywhere\n    find himself again. Keep carefully away those things which\n    narrow his view, and make him self-centred, and tighten the\n    strings of the _human ego_.\u201d\n\nIt is upon this theme that Schopenhauer becomes so eloquent, and with\nlarger view even than that of Rousseau, as it seems, he brings the\nlower animals within the protection of his moral system.\n\n    \u201cThere is nothing that revolts our moral sense so much as\n    cruelty. Every other offence we can pardon, but not cruelty.\n    The reason is found in the fact that cruelty is the exact\n    opposite of _compassion_--viz., the direct participation,\n    independent of all ulterior considerations, in the sufferings\n    of another, leading to sympathetic assistance in the effort\n    to prevent or remove them; whereon, in the last resort,\n    all satisfaction and all well-being and happiness depend.\n    It is this compassion alone which is the real basis of all\n    _voluntary_ justice and all _genuine_ loving-kindness.\u2026 There\n    is another proof that the moral incentive disclosed by me is\n    the true one. I mean the fact that _animals_ also are included\n    under its protecting \u00e6gis. In the other European systems of\n    ethics no place is found for them, strange and inexcusable as\n    this may appear. It is asserted that beasts have no rights;\n    the illusion is harboured that our conduct, so far as they\n    are concerned, has no moral significance; or, as it is put in\n    the language of these codes, that there are no duties to be\n    fulfilled towards animals. Such a view is one of revolting\n    coarseness--a barbarism of the West.\u2026 Compassion for animals is\n    intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be\n    confidently asserted that he who is cruel to living creatures\n    cannot be a good man.\u201d[6]\n\nSo wrote a young German philosopher some seventy years ago; and all\nthat has since happened in the world of thought has but served to\nstrengthen his teaching as to our duty towards the lower animals. For\nsince he wrote science and thought have become profoundly modified by\none of those epoch-making inductions which, at very rare intervals,\nsome great thinker is inspired to make. We have seen the establishment\nand the almost universal acceptance of the doctrine of evolution,\ninvolving as one of its corollaries the unity of life and the\n\u201cuniversal kinship\u201d of man with his humbler brethren--or cousins, if\nyou will--of the animal world.\n\nI venture, then, to offer this teaching for my readers\u2019 consideration.\nIn its light I would ask them to view these questions, and if they\nshall think that that light is the light of reason and truth, then to\nfollow it wheresoever it may lead. I do not think it will lead them to\noffer fresh hecatombs upon the blood-stained altar of Sport.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] One of the strongest objections to fox-hunting consists in this,\nthat each season must necessarily be preceded (so at least we are told)\nby the barbarities of \u201ccub-hunting.\u201d The slaughter of these poor little\ncubs is cruel and pitiful work. Sometimes, too, a vixen falls a victim\nto the hounds while her cubs are still dependent on her for their\nfood. No doubt an early ride on a fine September or October morning is\na pleasant thing, and the \u201csportsman\u201d need not know much about what\ngoes on in the coverts, or trouble himself to think about it! But the\nfact remains that this is a miserable and cruel form of \u201csport.\u201d And\nwhat shall we say of the practice of \u201cdigging out\u201d a wretched fox\nwhen, perhaps after a long run, he has sought refuge by \u201cgoing to\nground\u201d? Can anything be conceived more callous or more cowardly? Yet\neducated, and, presumably, thinking men, and women too--Heaven save\nthe mark!--stand by and enjoy the fun! Such is the debasing effect of\n\u201csport\u201d upon the human mind and character!\n\n[3] In the _Westminster Gazette_ of August 15, 1908, a woman wrote\non \u201cThe Enchantments of the New Forest,\u201d and this is what she says:\n\u201cAnyone with a drop of sport-love in them, given a nag of some kind,\nwill not be a day in the forest before he finds himself chasing some\nanimal, alive or dead.\u201d The sentiment is surely even more deplorable\nthan the grammar.\n\n[4] It must in fairness be added that the article from which the above\nextract is made was subsequently repudiated by the editor as being\n\u201cquite opposed to the line which _The Field_ has always taken.\u201d It\nseems that \u201cby an oversight the article was inserted during the absence\nof the departmental editor.\u201d I quote it, nevertheless, as showing that\nover twenty years ago the truth as to this matter had dawned upon the\nmind of at least one of the leader-writers of a great sporting paper.\n\n[5] Moreover, there is a sport which, as the Rev. J. Stratton\nhas pointed out, might well supersede rabbit-coursing--viz.,\nwhippet-racing. \u201cIt cannot be pleaded,\u201d he says, \u201cthat if we were to\nstop the coursing of captured rabbits we should be unduly depriving\nworkmen of recreation, for \u2018whippets\u2019 could be employed just as well in\nraces as in chasing rabbits. Of the first of these sports I can speak\nas an eye-witness. In whippet-racing a course is formed, which is kept\nfree for the dogs by ropes on either side. At one end, men have in hand\nthe whippets that are about to compete, and here stands the starter,\nholding his pistol. \u2018Runners-up\u2019 now come on to the course, carrying\nin their hands a towel or scarf, and starting from the front of the\ndogs, and frantically waving the article they hold, and whistling, and\ncalling to the animals, they begin to run towards the far end of the\ncourse, where the winning-line is marked out and the judge has taken\nup his post. When the right moment has arrived, the pistol is fired,\nand the whippets are liberated, and commence to travel the course with\nthe speed of the wind, the \u2018runners-up\u2019 always getting well beyond the\nwinning-point before the dogs overtake them, in order that the latter\nmay pass it at their utmost pace. It is altogether a remarkable sight,\nand had I never seen the thing, I could not have believed that the\nlittle dogs would enter into the contest with the ardour they do.\u201d\n\n[6] My quotations are from Mr. A. B. Bullock\u2019s translation of \u201cThe\nBasis of Morality,\u201d see pp. 170, 208, 218.\n\n\n\n\nSPORT AND AGRICULTURE\n\nBY EDWARD CARPENTER\n\n\nIt has frequently been pointed out that the enthusiasm for \u201csport\u201d\nis the relic of a very primitive instinct in man. In that sense it\nis quite natural. In early days the sheer necessity of pursuing and\nkilling animals for food, or of hunting down and destroying beasts of\nprey, must have become very deeply ingrained; and the satisfaction of\nthat need became an instinctive pleasure, so much so that oftentimes\nnowadays the pleasure remains, though the need has long disappeared.\n\nIn the village where I live there is a countryman of a very primitive\ntype, who goes almost mad with excitement when the hunt is out. Though\nover forty years of age, he has been known more than once to leave\nhis horses with the plough in the field and career wildly after the\nhounds for two or three hours on end, careless of what might happen to\nhis deserted team. At the public-house afterwards in the evening he\nrecounts in a shrill voice every detail of the \u201cfind\u201d or the \u201ckill.\u201d\n\u201cTalk about your oratorios and concerts,\u201d he shouts, \u201c_there\u2019s no\nmusic, I say, like the \u2019ounds_!\u201d On one occasion when the hunt was\nbaffled by the fox getting into a narrow cleft in some rocks, and with\nthe fall of evening the hounds had to be drawn off, this man positively\nremained on the spot, watching, all night; and when the huntsmen\nreturned in the morning with a terrier, he followed the terrier as far\nas ever he could--head and shoulders--into the hole, helped the dog\nto clutch the fox, and all three--dog, fox, and man--suddenly freed,\nrolled together down the steep cliff-side into a stream below! Such is\nthe force of the old instinct, and the story helps one to realise the\nstrange conditions of sheer necessity under which primitive man lived,\nthough in the light of actual life and the present day it is ludicrous\nenough, even if not revolting in its ferocity.\n\nSo far from there being any necessity in this case to rid the\ncountry-side from a beast of prey, it is quite probable that the\nfox in question had been imported from Germany--as a certain number\nundoubtedly are--simply in order to provide a country squire\u2019s holiday!\nA French lady, herself very fond of riding, told me lately that in her\nnative Burgundy foxes are still very numerous, and have to be hunted\ndown in consequence of the damage they do; but when I informed her that\nour foxes are largely \u201cmade in Germany,\u201d and brought over in order to\ndo artificial damage and so be artificially hunted, she laughed almost\nhysterically--as surely she was entitled to do.\n\nThere is this futile artificiality about almost all our \u201csport.\u201d It\nis one thing to sit all night in the lower branches of a spreading\ntree just outside some little Indian village, in order to get a chance\nof shooting the dangerous man-eating tiger as he comes forth from\nthe jungle, and quite another to pot tame pheasants at the corner of\na wood, or half-tame grouse as they fly over the \u201cbattery\u201d in which\nyou (and a gamekeeper) are safely ensconced. The pheasants have been\nreared under a barnyard hen and fed by hand till they are as tame as\nfowls, and the grouse can only be persuaded to fly to the guns by a\nquarter-mile-long line of \u201cdrivers,\u201d who with much shouting and waving\nof flags compel them to rise from the heather. The gamekeeper gets his\nguinea tip, and you in return get the credit of a large bag secured by\nhis kind assistance! The force of humbug could no further go. The truth\nis, all this modern \u201csport\u201d is a simple playing at hunting and shooting.\n\nAnd if it were merely playing, though it might be somewhat laughable,\nthere would be no need to protest. But, unfortunately, there are two\nserious considerations involved, which are by no means \u201cplay\u201d to\nthose concerned. One (which has been touched on elsewhere) is the\nneedless cruelty to the animals; the other is the serious ruin of our\nagriculture and detriment to our farm populations.\n\nThe damage done by fox-hunting to fences and crops is obvious enough\nto everyone. But there are other complications. In a hunting district\nthe tenants far and wide are invited to find homes for the puppies\nwhich are being reared for the replenishment of the pack. It is an\nungrateful task. The puppy is a pest on the farm; it is in everybody\u2019s\nway, and it has its muzzle eternally in the milk-buckets. Its board and\nlodging are not paid for; but--oh, gracious compensation!--the farmers\nwho \u201cwalk puppies\u201d are given a dinner at the end of the puppy-rearing\nseason, and get their chance of a prize for the best exhibited. Partly\nin consideration of these favours, but more because they do not want\nto offend the gentry in general or their own landlords in particular,\nthe tenants put up with these obnoxious additions to their households.\nFurthermore, as foxes must on no account be killed by private hands,\neven though they are constantly raiding the farmyards, the owners of\nthe hunt offer compensation for fowls killed or wounded, as they also,\nof course, do for fences and crops damaged.\n\nBut what a situation for any self-respecting farmer! To see a tribe\nof \u201cgentlemen and ladies\u201d tearing over his land and making havoc of\nhis new-sown wheat, to find half a dozen fowls some morning with\ntheir heads bitten off, to have his wife at her work tumbling over\nan intruding puppy--and then to have to go, cap in hand, to ask for\ncompensation for all these things! What an unworthy position for him to\nbe in, and how galling to think that his life-work and the very dignity\nof his profession are so lightly regarded, or that the loss of them can\nbe counted as easily atoned for by a few shillings.\n\n\nGROWING GROUSE.\n\nAs to the grouse moors, the damage done to agriculture and to the\npopular interest in connection with them--though it might not appear\nobvious at first--is very considerable. A hundred years ago the moors\nin my neighbourhood--as in many other parts of the country--were common\nlands. The people had rights of pasture over them for their cattle\nand sheep, they kept down the rabbits, using the latter largely for\nfood, and they were able to grow farm crops up to the very edge of\nthe heather. To-day these same lands--enclosed on the plea of public\nbenefit!--are given over to grouse. The rabbits have become to a great\nextent the gamekeepers\u2019 perquisites, and very valuable \u201cperks\u201d too.\nThey are allowed to swarm, and consequently they not only destroy what\npasturage there is on the moors, but, penetrating into the farms along\nthe moor edges, they damage very seriously the cereal and other crops.\nI know places where I am credibly informed that a hundred years ago\noats were commonly grown, but which now are quite impossible for such\na purpose. And--such is the sway of the institution--young farmers\ndesiring to shoot the rabbits on their own tenancies are looked askance\nat and discouraged from doing so for fear they might possibly bag a\nbrace of grouse! When we consider the well-known expense involved in\nrearing and shooting these sacred birds, and at the same time the\ndamage, just described, to ordinary agriculture, we have again a\nsad picture of the prevailing futility. On some farms--especially,\nI believe, in Devonshire--where grouse are not concerned, but where\nrabbit-shooting is a favourite recreation of the landlord class--the\nspinneys and copses are allowed to become so infested with bunnies that\ngeneral farming is greatly paralyzed in consequence.\n\nIndirectly in a similar way does pheasant-shooting lead to\nagricultural damage. In the present day--partly out of fear of Lloyd\nGeorge and all his works--the tendency of landowners is to sell and\nmake ready money from the old oak and other timber in their woods,\nand by planting plentiful spruce and fir to turn the plantations into\npheasant covers. The number of gamekeepers charged with preserving\nthese plantations multiplies,[7] and _their_ idea of duty consists in\nthe destruction of any and every winged and four-footed creature that\nmight possibly be harmful to the pheasants or their eggs. It would\nprobably surprise the reader to have a complete list of such--and I do\nnot presume to supply it--but it includes hawks and owls of various\nkinds, jays, magpies, stoats, weasels, and even the beautiful and\nprobably innocent squirrel. All these fall victims to the gun or the\ntrap, and, needless to say, the balance of Nature is seriously upset\nin many directions. For our purpose here we need only point out the\nconsequent and ruinous swarming of mice and sparrows. The destruction\nof hawks and owls in particular has led to this result. Clouds of\nsparrows, ever multiplying, occupy the hedgerows and descend upon the\ncornfields as soon as ever the corn is ripe, doing countless damage--to\nwhich the mice contribute their share. No one who has not witnessed it\nwith his own eyes could believe the loss to the farmer from this cause\nalone. And again we are struck with the foolishness which allows this\nto go on merely for the sake of breeding tame birds for the guns of\nvery tame sportsmen.\n\nThe pheasant is a very beautiful bird, and if allowed to breed in our\nwoods under natural conditions, would hold its own in a modest way,\nand with the other denizens of the woodlands, the squirrels and the\njays and the owls and the hawks, would render these places really\ninteresting and delightful resorts. It seems sad that all these animal\npossibilities should be destroyed for the sake of what is often little\nmore than human brag and bag! As an instance of the unintelligent way\nin which these things are worked, it may be mentioned that even that\nstately bird, the heron, is a mark for, and is commonly shot down by,\nthe gamekeeper. And why? Because, forsooth! it not unfrequently feeds\nupon _trout_. The trout is a sacred fish, and therefore the glorious\nheron must be shot! Whether the gamekeeper wars upon the kingfisher\nfor the same reason I do not know. But it seems quite possible that he\ndoes, for beauty and rarity are no defence.\n\n\nPHEASANT OR PEASANT?\n\nThere is another aspect of the subject which must not be passed over.\nTo-day the small-holding question is coming very much to the fore.\nThe splendid results obtained by a combination of small farms and\nagricultural co-operation, already conspicuous in Denmark, and coming\ninto sight in Ireland, are strongly urging us in England in the same\ndirection. A large multiplication of small-holders, with facilities for\ntheir combined action and co-operation, is to-day the one promising\noutlook for British agriculture. Yet it is notorious that the County\nCouncils are much more inclined to hinder than to help this movement.\nAnd why? There may be different reasons; but undoubtedly one of the\nmost powerful is--sport. It is obvious that a population of small\nholders--particularly if associated and combined--would form a very\nserious obstacle to the latter. A squire with three or four farms under\nhim, of 500 acres each, can easily make terms with his tenants, and\npersuade or compel them to favour the hunting and shooting; but what\nwould he do with fifty small-holders? It would be a very different pair\nof shoes, and he would have to walk (like Agag) somewhat delicately.\nThe compensations, and the obstructions, and the complications\ngenerally, would bring the old order to an end.\n\nThus we come very clearly, I think, to a certain parting of the\nways in the matter of our agricultural future in this country. It\nall comes to this: Are we going to continue for ever playing at the\nland question--that question whose vitality and importance we daily\nmore and more perceive--or are we going to be serious about it? We\ncannot take both ways. On the one hand, we have the Scottish Highlands\ndepopulated for the sake of deer; we have English farms more or less\nravaged, and farmers terrorised for the sake of fox-hunting; we have\ngrouse-moors and pheasant-covers, with their concomitant evils, let to\nrich Americans and titled grocers; and, on the other hand we _may_ have\na real live agriculture and a brisk independent rural population. We\ncannot have both. If we retain the present system--conducing, no doubt,\nto a healthy schoolboy type of squire--it means a downcast, stupefied,\nunenterprising peasantry. If we turn seriously to the re-establishment\nof agriculture, and of a real live, manly population on the land, that\nwill undoubtedly mean the abandonment of a good deal that goes by the\nname of sport.[8]\n\nThe time grows short, for indeed anxious problems lie in the near\nfuture before this country, and a choice has to be made--a choice that\nmay have a good deal to do with the position of England in the world.\nThe country-sides have got to stop playing at rural life, and to take\nit up seriously. Nor, after all, would the abandonment of sport as the\nchief object of the country gentleman\u2019s existence mean the abandonment\nor discouragement of all wild life. Rather the contrary. We all in\nthese over-civilised times appreciate the value and importance of\nwild nature; and however effective and widespread we may make our\nagriculture, we shall surely also demand the establishment of extensive\nnatural reserves for all kinds of free plants and creatures. We have\nseen that \u201csport\u201d is not really favourable to wild nature life, but\nonly to some very artificial and limited forms. With the abandonment\nof sport in its present shape, it is possible that the landowners of\nthe future--whether private individuals or public bodies--will turn\ntheir attention to the making of splendid nature-resorts in wood and\nmountain and moor, where every kind of creature may have free access\nand free play, unharmed by man, and open to his friendly companionship\nand sympathetic study.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[7] The following is quoted from Mr. Lloyd George\u2019s speech at Bedford\n(October, 1913):\n\n\u201cIn 1851 you had in this country 9,000 gamekeepers; in 1911 there were\n23,000. During that period the number of labourers on the soil went\ndown by 600,000. The number of gamekeepers went up by 250 per cent.,\nand the number of labourers down by 600,000. Pick up a copy of the\n_Field_ and look at the advertisements there, and you will realise\nthe extent of the evil. Here is one advertising shooting rights for\nestates where last year 5,000 pheasants were shot. Here is a sportsman\nwho advertises 1,000 acres, with coverts to hold 7,000 rabbits on his\nestate. You try a small holding _there_! Agriculture has had a bad\ntime. It has had to pass through a time of great crisis. What would\nhave been done in any other trade if it had to face the difficulties\nwhich agriculture had? A great capitalist would have introduced new\nmachinery, got the best labour, and would have put the whole of his\nenergy, brain, and enterprise into restoring that industry. He would\nhave gone, if necessary, for years without any return, and at last he\nwould have pulled through. That is what has happened in many industries\nin this country. What has happened here? What has the great capitalist\ndone in agriculture? He has trebled the number of his gamekeepers, he\nhas put land out of cultivation, he has increased enormously the number\nof pheasants which have been turned on to the land.\u201d\n\n[8] See the \u201cReport of the Land Enquiry Committee,\u201d vol. i., 1913,\nwhich in its chapter on \u201cGame\u201d contains a severe condemnation of the\npractice of excessive game preserving. \u201cThe damage done by game is\ntoo serious to be overlooked. Even when the tenant farmer is fully\ncompensated the damage amounts to a national loss.\u2026 Not merely is land\nunder-cultivated, but large areas are altogether out of cultivation\nowing to the preservation of game. This land, instead of providing food\nfor the people, provides sport and delicacies for the few, and is the\nsource of much damage and annoyance to neighbouring farmers.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE COST OF SPORT\n\nBY MAURICE ADAMS\n\n\n    \u201cNow Dives daily feasted and was gorgeously arrayed,\n    Not at all because he liked it, but because \u2019twas good for trade;\n    That the people might have calico, he clothed himself in silk,\n    And surfeited himself on cream, that they might get the milk;\n    He fed five hundred servants, that the poor might not lack bread,\n    And had his vessels made of gold that they might get more lead:\n    And e\u2019en to show his sympathy with the deserving poor,\n    He did no useful work himself that they might do the more.\u201d\n\n                                                         ERNEST BILTON.\n\nIn a tract entitled \u201cSport, A National Benefactor,\u201d dedicated to\nthe sportsmen of the nation, Mr. Henry R. Sargent gives elaborate\nstatistics to prove that large sums of money are devoted to the\nmaintenance of sport, while about \u00a325,000,000 are annually spent upon\nit. Of this amount he estimates that wages absorb some \u00a36,000,000.\nRents of shootings and fishings, and the price of race-horses, come to\n\u00a35,500,000, which sum, though \u201cgoing principally to the upper classes,\nis recirculated in various ways,\u201d while, \u201cexcept the few pounds paid\nfor dead horses, we have from hunting, shooting, and racing, over\n\u00a36,000,000 a year paid for oats, meal, hay, straw, beans, and bran;\nand let it be understood that it is all British produce. No infernal\nforeign stuff is given to our hounds or horses, though we may eat it\nourselves, and thus encourage Free Trade--that curse of our country.\u201d\n\nAfter we have thus been shown \u201cwhat a gigantic medium sport is for the\ncirculation of money--the vertebr\u00e6 (_sic_) of our common weal,\u201d we are\nnot surprised that \u201cto these facts and figures, which no sophistry can\ndispute and no method of statement darken,\u201d Mr. Sargent should \u201cdraw\nthe attention alike of sportsmen, prigs, prudes, and the public,\u201d and\nshould \u201cinvite the consideration of Radicals and Socialists\u201d to the\nsubject. For he continues gravely: \u201cLet these political step-brethren\nponder well before they strive to injure the classes who maintain our\nsports. Let them recognise the fact that as a universal benefactor in\nbringing to the poor the rich man\u2019s money, a substitute for sport can\nnever be found. These revolutionists should also assure themselves\nof the fact that never can they devise a system which will carry\nout the principles of Communism as practically and universally as\nthat which has always been adopted by our resident landlords. Be it\n\u00a35,000, \u00a320,000, or \u00a3100,000 a year, which may be focussed in the one\nindividual, he spends it all among the community. Yet these are the men\nwho are marked for destruction by the Radical, the Socialist, and the\nAnarchist; and not the landlords alone, but all moneyed men, no matter\nof what class.\u201d\n\nIt is small wonder, then, that the heart within him is grieved when\nhe thinks of those bold bad men, the agitators, for they, he informs\nus tearfully, \u201cas a rule, dislike the upper classes,\u201d while those\npre-eminently wicked men, the land agitators, to a man, \u201chate them with\nferocity.\u201d It was to gratify that hatred, as our author is assured,\n\u201cand not so much to benefit either the land tenants or crofters, that\nagitation has been got up in Ireland and Scotland.\u201d\n\n    \u201cIn Ireland hunting was attacked, as was openly avowed, to\n    drive the landlords out of the country, but happily hunting\n    is as strong there as ever, except in Waterford; and although\n    they be not so well off as formerly, we still have the\n    landlords. In Scotland the same game is being played by the\n    agitators. Although they strive to hide the motive under the\n    kilt of the crofter, they have no desire but to injure the\n    landlords through means of attacking the shooting. Hunting was\n    also assailed by other parties, in alleging that cruelty was\n    practised by hunting carted deer! An outcry is also raised\n    for the tourists, that in pursuit of their vocation they are,\n    forsooth, to be allowed to disturb the Highland forests, and so\n    scare away the wild red-deer, animals which the agitators know\n    well cannot abide the sight of a human being, much less the\n    slightest noise. What do agitators care for tourists, anyway?\n    Then comes this raid upon racing. Of a truth, therefore,\n    it is high time that all sportsmen, from the peer to the\n    pantry-boy, should coalesce and defend themselves in organised\n    phalanx against those who, with intolerance and impertinence,\n    gratuitously assail us.\u201d\n\nFor just consider the money spent on racing, and the number of men\nemployed. Some 8,000 young men, says Mr. Sargent, \u201care employed in the\nracing stables of the kingdom--a number equal to that of more than ten\nregiments of the line.\u201d\n\n    \u201cWhen we come to consider what has been spent upon the stables\n    at Newmarket, and other places \u2026 the amount becomes absolutely\n    appalling! The sum has to be counted in thousands--and it runs\n    into millions--all of which is spent in labour and material. As\n    do the other branches of sport which I have dealt with, racing\n    sends money flowing from the rich to the poor man\u2019s pocket, but\n    at the same time nearly all classes derive monetary benefit\n    through this special branch of sport.\u201d\n\nOne seems to have heard something of gambling at races, but our\nauthor tells us that \u201cit is the misfortune of racing, and not its\nfault, that betting should be connected with it,\u201d but he holds that\n\u201cto stop gambling on the Turf, which has existed from time immemorial,\nis an impossibility: so no one need attempt to do so.\u201d With the true\ndemocratic feeling engendered by the \u201cprinciple of Communism\u201d animating\nsport, he asserts that \u201cno man abhors gambling more than I do, and I\nwould, if I could, put a stop upon the shop-boys and humble classes\nindulging in the vice, but I would let the others do as they choose.\u201d\nFor the author is sure that \u201cto interfere with any old-established\ninstitution which is working well is a most dangerous thing.\u201d \u201cGod\nknows,\u201d he exclaims in despair, \u201cwhat would be the result, if these\nlatter-day saints, who are now on the prowl, were to succeed in their\nattempt to interfere with racing, even if only so far as betting is\nconcerned.\u201d\n\n\nGIVING EMPLOYMENT.\n\nThe pamphlet from which the foregoing extracts have been taken is not,\nas one might imagine, a huge joke, nor is it a sly attempt to pour\nridicule upon sport. It was published by the Sporting League--on the\nexecutive committee of which we find the names of many noble lords\nand distinguished commoners--apparently with the serious intention of\nfurthering the fifth of the League\u2019s praiseworthy objects--\u201cGenerally\nto do whatever may from time to time seem advisable for counteracting\nthe pernicious influence of \u2018faddists.\u2019\u201d It seems that we can hardly\nreckon a sense of humour among the many \u201cinestimable benefits\u201d that\nsport bestows on its devotees, however much food for laughter the\npublications of the League may give to \u201cfaddists\u201d and the public.\n\nAlthough this tract was published some years ago, its arguments have\nnot deteriorated with age, since we find them essentially reproduced in\nan address delivered in November, 1908, at the Surveyors\u2019 Institute,\nby the President, Mr. Howard Martin, and commented on with approval\nby _The Field_. Mr. Martin, like the author of the tract, seriously\ninsists on the great benefits which agriculture and business derive\nfrom fox-hunting. He estimates that on the upkeep of hunters \u00a33,500,000\na year are spent. Shooting also involves a large outlay for the\nfeeding and rearing of birds, and attracts much cash to the pockets of\nresidents in the country. And, further, the prosperity due to sport\nradiates in all directions. Not merely farmers and farm-hands, but\nlocal innkeepers, country fly-drivers, and village shopkeepers share\nin the stream of wealth which sport pours forth over the country.\nThere are even tips for the inn-servants and the porters at the\nrailway-stations! Indeed, Mr. Martin declared that he had taken great\npains to get at reliable facts and figures on which to ground his\narguments, and his conclusion was that not only did hunting and the\npreservation of foxes generally benefit agricultural districts, but\nthat hunting and the exercise of shooting rights indirectly benefited\nthe country at large \u201cby checking rural depopulation.\u201d _The Field_\nis not unmindful of the rich physical and moral gains which the\ngamekeepers, beaters, and others ministering to sport, derive from a\nshooting-party. \u201cThey are all of them fond of sport; they like to see\nbirds well killed, they enjoy the pick-up, they enjoy (a matter of no\nlittle moment) a good beaters\u2019 lunch, they like a good glass of ale\nat the close of the day, and are better off in mind and pocket for a\nfew hours which interrupt the routine of their ordinary life like a\nholiday.\u201d\n\nIt is amusing to note how largely the anti-Budget protests of the\ndistressed Dukes and other wealthy persons were based on the egregious\nfallacy that \u201cgiving employment\u201d is conducive to the welfare of the\ncommunity, without regard to the character of the employment given.\nNothing, for instance, could be more absurd than the remarks made by\nLord Londonderry on August 23, 1909, and solemnly reported in _The\nTimes_:\n\n    \u201cWhat was his position if he had to curtail his expenditure, as\n    he was told by his Radical friends that he must do? The great\n    interest in the property to him was the shooting and gardens,\n    which gave employment to a large number of men. Could it be\n    said that these two enjoyments were to him absolutely selfish?\n    He was able to send out large consignments of game as presents,\n    and was also able to benefit those out of employment in times\n    of depression. Therefore that amusement was not a selfish one.\u201d\n\nThe fact that Lord Londonderry\u2019s shooting gives employment to a large\nnumber of persons is in truth its greatest condemnation; for though\nthe individuals employed may be glad of the work, the community loses\nby the waste of time, labour, and money involved in such a perfectly\nfutile occupation as that of game-preserving, in which every pheasant\nkilled has cost far more than its own food-value.\n\nHere, again, is a delightful extract from a sporting paper, October 6,\n1909:\n\n    \u201cRearing of pheasants is a very costly matter, and one\n    which I anticipate will be seriously curtailed in the near\n    future if this so-called \u2018Working Man\u2019s Budget\u2019 is passed.\n    County gentlemen will be very hardly hit if this iniquitous\n    Bill becomes law, and they will consequently have to effect\n    economies in every direction. One of the very first will be\n    in reducing their shootings, or in giving up rearing birds\n    altogether. Pheasants which are hand-reared cost about 4s. each\n    to feed, from start to finish. Thus it is easy to understand\n    what sums of money find their way into farmers\u2019 and tradesmen\u2019s\n    pockets for the purchase of food alone, for hundreds of\n    thousands of pheasants all over the kingdom have to be fed\n    for months every year. The money which is expended one way\n    or another over shooting is quite enormous, for it must be\n    remembered that, in addition to the purchase of eggs and food,\n    there are wages, clothes, and fuel for keepers; there are also\n    endless expenses in connection with rearing. When the shooting\n    commences, there are beaters at 2s. 6d. and 3s. per day, with\n    meat, bread, cheese, and beer. And there is the expense of\n    hospitality to guests. Take it all in all, the old saying that\n    each pheasant shot costs, one way and another, a guinea, is not\n    far wrong.\n\n    \u201cNow, who benefits from all this? The poor owner certainly does\n    not, for it is all pay, pay, pay with him, and if he does sell\n    his surplus birds, he will only get back 2s. to 2s. 6d. a bird.\n    But the public gets the benefit, for they can purchase these\n    costly-reared birds for the price of chickens. One day those\n    people, the farmers, tradesmen, working-classes, and labourers,\n    will wake up to what they have lost, when they find the country\n    house shut up, and shooting, as it used to be, a thing of the\n    past.\u201d\n\nNo doubt all these crumbs of blessing fall from the rich man\u2019s pocket\non the happy gamekeepers, beaters, and others who are employed by\na shooting-party. No doubt the country lads, servants, and porters\nrejoice in the tips they receive. Much money is spent on sport, and a\ngreat deal of it finds its way as wages and gratuities into the pockets\nof dependents, but to contend seriously that sport checks depopulation\nis ludicrous. It is an insult to our intelligence to argue that the\ncountry is more prosperous and supports a larger population when the\nland is portioned out in great estates, many of which are only farmed\nto the degree necessary to keep the game on the land; when the people\nare driven from the country-side into the town; when in Scotland whole\ncounties have been cleared of inhabitants in order to form vast deer\nforests for the sport of a few rich men.\n\n\nTHE REALITY.\n\nOf the 56,000,000 acres in Great Britain something less than 15,000,000\nare actually cultivated, although there are 35,000,000 acres of\ncultivable land. Thirty years ago there were more than 2,000,000\nagricultural labourers in Great Britain, but in 1907 they had decreased\nto 1,311,000. In the same year there were more than 17,000,000 acres\nof pasture. In \u201cFields, Factories, and Workshops,\u201d Prince Kropotkin\nestimates that the soil of the United Kingdom would produce enough food\nfor 24,000,000 people, instead of for only 17,000,000 as at present, if\nit were cultivated as thoroughly as it was only thirty-five years ago,\nwhile if it were cultivated as thoroughly as Belgium it would produce\nenough to feed 37,000,000.\n\nTake, again, the question of Afforestation. The Report of the Royal\nCommission, issued on January 15, 1909, is a most important paper\nin many ways. Of special interest are the references made by the\nCommissioners to the responsibility of blood-sports for much of the bad\ncondition of our woodlands.\n\n    \u201cConsiderations of sport have played an important part in\n    determining the method of management of our woods. Clean boles,\n    with high-pitched crowns, the exclusion of the sun\u2019s rays,\n    and ground destitute of grass, weeds, and bushes, are not\n    conditions favourable to either ground or winged game. On the\n    contrary, trees that are semi-isolated, and with low-reaching\n    branches, and a wood that is full of bracken, brambles, and\n    similar undergrowth, present conditions much more attractive to\n    the sportsman, and it is these conditions that many landowners\n    have arranged to secure. Ground game, too, has been the cause\n    of immense destruction amongst the young trees, and thus it\n    has, in a measure, directly brought about that condition of\n    under-stocking which is so inimical to the growth of good\n    timber and to the successful results of forestry. Nor is it\n    possible in the presence of even a moderate head of ground\n    game to secure natural regeneration of woodlands, the young\n    seedling trees being nibbled over almost as soon as they appear\n    above ground. So intimate is the association in the United\n    Kingdom between sport and forestry that even on an estate\n    that is considered to possess some of the best-managed woods\n    in England, the sylvicultural details have to be accommodated\n    to the hunting and shooting, and trees must be taken down in\n    different places to make cover for foxes, and so on.\u201d\n\nIf, then, the land of our country, instead of lying almost idle or\nin permanent pasture interspersed with parks and copses as cover for\ngame, or left desolate as moor and deer forest, were covered with the\nsmall farms of prosperous peasants, like Belgium or Denmark, and the\nmore rugged and uncultivable districts turned into national forests\ngiving regular and healthy employment to large numbers of men, would\nnot far better results be obtained, even from the purely economic point\nof view? _Now_ we have a few gamekeepers and beaters, a few grooms,\njockeys, stablemen, and horse-dealers, and other dependents of the\nsportsmen, and a few farmers, breeding horses and growing fodder for\nthem, while the labourers are turned out of their native village for\nwant of work and house-room, and drift into the already overcrowded\nand hideous towns which daily absorb more and more of the country,\nor are even forced to leave their native land altogether and seek a\nlivelihood in lands beyond the sea, free, as yet, from the blessings\nof sport; _then_ we should have some millions of free men earning an\nhonest living in healthful surroundings, and producing a thousandfold\nmore wealth for themselves than is distributed by the aristocrats and\nplutocrats, who, according to the protagonist of the Sporting League,\nso fully \u201ccarry out the principles of Communism.\u201d\n\nBut it is surely needless to labour the point. The arguments of the\neconomic defenders of sport are so grotesque that it is difficult to\nbelieve that a sensible man of business like Mr. Martin can really be\nin earnest in his advocacy of sport as a means of finding employment\nfor the people.\n\nBut sports, and especially blood-sports, are not only defended on the\nground that they give employment, circulate money, and confer other\neconomic advantages on an ungrateful nation. As _The Field_ contends,\nthere are \u201cassets which cannot be calculated in shillings and pence,\u201d\nand the author of our entertaining tract challenges those \u201cwho, with\nthe bigotry characteristic of all faddists,\u201d attack the chasing of\nhares and foxes, or the worship of the sacred bird, to \u201clook at the\nmatter straight and see what inestimable benefit sport is to the\nnation. Should we ever lose our love for sport,\u201d he continues, \u201cor be\nprevented indulging it, we shall assuredly lose our manliness, and very\nlikely our wealth, and then what will become of the nation?\u201d\n\nThe word \u201csport\u201d is a very loose and indefinite word. It covers all\nkind of healthful and innocent exercises as well as hunting, shooting,\nand racing. No one doubts that an open-air life is a natural and\nhealthy life; that running and riding, and swimming and sailing, and\nother outdoor exercises and games, are good both for mind and body; but\nthe \u201cmoral and intellectual damages\u201d of all blood-sports are a very\nserious set-off against any physical advantages they may have.\n\nA staunch defender of sport was once dwelling--in debate--on the\nglories of a day with the hounds, and describing how a ride across\ncountry in the fresh frosty air swept the cobwebs from the brain of the\njaded city man and sent the blood coursing healthily through his veins.\nHe was met by the rejoinder that all these advantages could be got by\na gallop over the downs, or, at any rate, by a \u201cdrag\u201d hunt. \u201cAh, but\nthat\u2019s not all,\u201d he cried, \u201cone must have the zest of running down and\nkilling an animal, and thus satisfying a natural instinct.\u201d The reply\nthat such an instinct was an echo of primeval savagery, and just one\nof those which hinder the upward progress of the race--one, also, more\ncompletely gratified by the butcher or the slaughter-man--only provoked\nthe anger of the sportsman, and failed to shake his rooted belief in\nthe blessings of sport.\n\n    \u201cAh, Sport is the pride of the nation!\n      It made Britons the men that they be;\n    It does good to the whole population,\n      And knows neither class nor degree.\u201d\n\nThis doggerel, with which Mr. Sargent concludes his tract on sport,\nencourages the notion that blood-sports develop manliness, and that\nif Englishmen ceased to ride to hounds, to hunt the hare or otter, or\nshoot the pheasant and partridge, they would become effeminate. This\nsuperstition ought surely to have received its death-blow by the events\nof the Russo-Japanese war. When we hear of the rice-eating, gentle\nJapanese, who prefer taming wild creatures by kindness to shooting or\nmangling them, performing prodigies of valour apparently quite beyond\nthe capacity of the fiercer nations of the West, it is surely time to\nrevise our conceptions of what true courage is, and how it is nurtured.\n\nAnd any manliness which might be nurtured by sport is steadily being\nreduced to a minimum. The author of our ingenuous tract descants,\nindeed, on the hardships endured by fox-hunters, grouse-shooters, and\ndeer-stalkers, but says nothing of the noble sportsmen who merely wait\ntill the pheasants are driven past them, to slaughter them at their\nease as fast as loaded guns can be handed them, or of those who find a\nmanly pastime in shooting pigeons let loose from cages. Shall we form a\nhigh opinion of the manly virtues of the well-to-do cowards who chase\ntame stags, or of the low-class ruffians who let frightened and dazed\nrabbits out of bags for a hopeless run for life before savage dogs? The\ninsensibility which delights in seeing a fox torn to pieces by hounds,\nor which feels no pain when that excessively sensitive and timorous\ncreature, the hare, is seen dropping from exhaustion with a pack of\nharriers in full cry on its track, is not an element of true manliness,\nbut a survival from a pre-human state. In the savage state the mighty\nhunter was a hero because he bravely risked his life for the defence of\nwife and child against strong and fierce beasts that might else have\ndevoured them, or endured toil and hardship, and encountered danger\nin the search for food and clothing. But in England to-day hunting\nis an anachronism, which survives only because land-monopoly, and an\nunjust distribution of the national inheritance, have led our \u201csplendid\nbarbarians,\u201d in the absence of the need for work, through the pressure\nof social distinctions, and the want of higher mental development, to\nseek release from boredom and fill up an aimless life by the indulgence\nand artificial stimulation of subhuman instincts.\n\nEven those sports which, like cricket and football, take the form of\nhealth-giving games in the open air, and may really help to develop\nmanliness, are to a large extent spoiled by the rise of professionalism\nand gambling. The great crowds which assemble to see other men engage\nin the hazardous game of football, and to exercise themselves merely\nin betting on the players, are being trained neither in manliness nor\nmorals. We should indeed do all in our power to cultivate manliness,\nbut it must be the quality which truly answers to the name; a fortitude\ncapable of enduring hardships without whining, and a deliberate human\ncourage which realises the danger, and consciously and resolutely\nfaces it, not the mere brute fearlessness of animal excitement,\ninsensibility, and stupidity.\n\nIt behoves all, therefore, who have the interest of humanity at heart,\nand are striving to help it on its upward way, to set themselves\nresolutely against blood-sports in any form, as a relic of savagery and\nan enemy to true manliness, and to endeavour to dissociate manly and\nhealth-giving sports from gambling, and to abolish the professional.\nTo do all this effectively we must work for the abolition of the\nparasitic classes; we must strive to give all a share in the national\ninheritance, and such an education, mental, moral, and physical, as may\nfit them for the work of life, and for a wise and healthy use of the\nincreased leisure in which all should share.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ECONOMICS OF HUNTING\n\nBY W. H. S. MONCK\n\n\nIt is often maintained that hunting, whatever objections may be\nraised to it on grounds of humanity, is beneficial to the public. The\nreasoning by which it is sought to establish this thesis reminds one of\nthat by which Dr. Mandeville endeavoured to prove that private vices\nwere public benefits; but it is proposed in this article to examine\nthe subject more fully. Cruel sports, generally speaking, are not, I\nbelieve, public benefits, even from the pecuniary point of view; but as\nthe grounds for this assertion are not the same in all instances, they\ncannot all be dealt with in a single article. Nor do I propose in the\npresent instance to deal with all sports that come under the head of\nhunting. I shall confine myself to hunting animals with hounds, the men\nand women who participate in the sport being usually mounted.\n\nLabour generally may be referred economically to the two heads of\nproductive and unproductive. It is productive if it produces more than\nthe cost of the labourer\u2019s maintenance (taking his past maintenance\npreparatory to his work into consideration), and unproductive if it\nproduces less. And in general there is an objection to employing labour\nin a less productive manner than it might otherwise be employed. A\ngreat author or a great statesman might be able to earn more than his\nbread by breaking stones on a road, but everyone would regard forcibly\nemploying him in this manner as a waste of labour. Horse-labour and\neven dog-labour may be similarly regarded; or, to put it otherwise,\nthe labour of every horse and every dog represents a certain amount of\nhuman labour which must be regarded as usefully employed or as wasted,\naccording to the work which the horse or dog does. If I set a horse to\ndraw a big stone to the top of a hill and then down again, everyone\nwould regard this amount of horse-labour as wasted; but it would be\ndifferent if the same horse were employed in drawing stones to the\nsite of a building where they were required. And in estimating the\nproductiveness or unproductiveness of labour in any given case, we must\nhave regard to the value of what it produces to society in general, and\nnot merely to the amount which the labourer receives for producing it.\nOne might earn \u00a3100 by walking a mile in the shortest period on record\nwithout producing anything of the slightest utility to mankind.\n\nHuman labour, however, in a country like this, is capable of\nproducing more than is required to feed and clothe the population and\nto supply them with fire and shelter. There remains a surplus which\nmay be devoted to mental improvement or to any innocent recreation.\nRecreation must be regarded as a good thing, and labour employed in\nproducing recreation cannot be regarded as absolutely unproductive.\nIt may, however, be unproductive in the wider sense in which I have\nused the term--viz., the value of the product does not suffice to pay\nfor the maintenance of the labourers. I mean, of course, the value of\nthe labour _to society_. Those who employ it, I presume, consider it\nworth what they expend on it--_to themselves_. But they might be of a\ndifferent opinion if they had less money to expend.\n\nTurning then to our recreations, I think I may lay down in the first\ninstance that the best recreations are those in which the largest\nnumber of persons can participate. And it is more especially desirable\nthat the working-classes should participate in them, for the man who\nspends most of his available time at hard labour stands in much greater\nneed of recreation than the man or woman who has little or nothing\nto do--whose ordinary life, perhaps, includes more recreation (or,\nat least, idleness) than labour. But working men cannot afford to\nkeep or to hire horses, and seldom possess any skill in horsemanship;\nand if one of them did happen to obtain a mount and was able to ride\nsuccessfully, his presence at a hunt would be resented as an intrusion.\nHunts are recreations for the wealthy classes only, and this mainly\nresults from their expensiveness. The poor could not join in a hunt\nwithout paying more than they could afford to pay. But money always\nrepresents labour, and an expensive recreation means a recreation on\nwhich a large amount of labour has been expended without any useful\nresult except this recreation.\n\nIn these last remarks I have anticipated the next condition of a good\nrecreation--viz., that the expenditure of labour on it should be small.\nThe more labour we can spare from recreation for works of more abiding\nutility, the better. But hunting is very expensive, and the promoters\nare not philanthropic enough to expend the additional sum which might\nenable a greater number of persons to participate in it. The hounds\nconsume a large amount of food which could be used to better purpose if\nthey were out of the way. A number of persons are employed in looking\nafter the hounds whose labour has no productive result except in\ncontributing remotely to the pleasures of the chase. Kennels have to\nbe erected for keeping them, and horses and machines are required for\nmoving them. Great numbers of horses used in hunting do no other useful\nwork whatever, and these are often high-class and high-priced horses.\nThen there are huntsmen, whippers-in, etc., to say nothing of the food\nsupplied to the horses, and of the persons employed to look after\nthe foxes or other animals intended for the chase. Fox-coverts often\noccupy land that would otherwise be valuable, and the preservation of\ndeer and hares prevents land from being put to the best agricultural\nuses. That hunting always reduces, and very materially reduces, the\nproceeds of labour available for the use of the public cannot, I think,\nbe seriously disputed; and in many cases labour is diverted from these\nproductive uses to the production of recreation for others, in which\nthe labourer himself does not participate. A similar remark is often\napplicable to grooms.\n\nAnother condition of a good recreation is that it should do no harm\nto others. But can this be said of hunting? As regards fox-hunting\nin particular, the fox is a mischievous animal, and would have been\nexterminated like the wolf long ago if he had not been preserved for\nthe pleasure of hunting him. He kills young lambs, fowl, and anything\nof the kind that comes in his way; and woe to the farmer who revenges\nhimself by killing the depredator! Even the hare and the deer are far\nfrom innocuous. But the hunt does more mischief than the animals that\nare hunted. The hunters break down the farmer\u2019s fences and frighten\nhis cattle and sheep, often causing the loss of his calves or lambs,\nand injure his crops, while he has no redress because the landlord has\nreserved the right of hunting over the land.\n\n\nTHE RECREATION OF THE FEW.\n\nWe are told that hunting necessitates a large expenditure of money\nin the district. Every expensive amusement must do that. But if the\nmost expensive amusement was the most valuable to society, it would\nfollow that the way to benefit society was to increase the amount\nof unproductive labour. But even with productive labour our great\nobject is to obtain the desired product with as little labour--as\nlittle expense--as possible. The more cheaply we can produce the\nnecessaries and conveniences of life, the better it will be for the\npeople. This will hardly be disputed. Why, then, should we apply a\ncontrary rule to recreations, and lay down that the more expensive\nthey are, the more beneficial they will prove to society? Granted that\na hunt produces a large expenditure of money in the district, that\nsome deserving shopkeepers and tradesmen make a profit thereby, and\nsome honest labourers are employed at better wages than they would\nreceive if the money in question were not expended--what then? What\nwould become of the money thus expended if there were no hunt? It is\nalmost certain that it would be expended in a manner more advantageous\nto the community. Even if the owner of the money wished to invest it\nrather than to spend it, he would probably do so by employing it in\nthe working of a railway, or a mine, or some other work of public\nutility. If he simply lodged it in a bank it would enable the bank to\nlend more money to its customers to be employed by them for useful\npurposes; and if he kept it in his house in bank-notes the results\nwould be pretty much the same as if he had lodged it in the bank. It\nmight not, of course, be expended in the district, but we should look\nto the interests of the kingdom rather than those of the district.\nBut save in the few cases in which persons come from a distance to\nenjoy the pleasures of hunting in a particular district, I believe the\nmoney would usually be expended in the same district, and with greater\nadvantage to the inhabitants, if there were no hunt. The comparison\nshould not be made between the district with this expenditure and\nthe same district without it, but between the district with this\nexpenditure and the same district with the same sum expended in a\ndifferent manner. Would the same sum, if otherwise expended, be likely\nto prove less beneficial to the district? I think not.\n\nHunting is, therefore, objectionable as a recreation on many distinct\ngrounds. It affords recreation to only a small number of persons, these\nbeing the very persons who are least in need of recreation. It involves\nthe expenditure of a large amount of labour (direct or indirect) as\ncompared with the amount of recreation produced; and, passing over the\nsufferings of the hunted animal altogether, it involves no small amount\nof injury and accidents both to men and animals. But, in the wider\nview of the modern economist, it is also objectionable as cultivating\na callousness of feeling and disregard of suffering which is in the\nlast degree undesirable--and especially as cultivating this feeling\namong the class from which our legislators are largely drawn. They\nbecome inured to regard with indifference not only the sufferings of\nthe hunted animal, but those of other animals and even people which\nthey witness. If there were less hunting and shooting among the class\nfrom which the majority of the legislature is drawn, the humanitarian\ncause would receive a fairer hearing in Parliament, as would also be\nthe case if flogging were abolished at the public schools, where the\nmembers of this class are for the most part educated. But what are\nwe to think of education at a school like Eton, where flogging is\nsupplemented by a pack of beagles? I would rather \u201cteach the young idea\nhow to shoot\u201d than how to hunt, or how to flog. How often do we hear\nthe argument--stated in somewhat more circuitous terms--\u201cI hunt, and\ntherefore hunting must be right. I was flogged, and therefore flogging\nmust be right!\u201d\n\nWe have only to break down the barriers between the different classes\nsomewhat farther, in order to put an end to all such class-amusements\nas hunting undoubtedly is. In cricket, for example, we see gentlemen\nand professionals playing side by side and vying with each other as\nto who will do the best service for his county, while thousands of\nspectators of all ranks assemble to watch the play. But in games\nconducted on horseback the public can rarely participate. When, like\npolo, they are conducted in a confined space, the public can look on,\nbut they cannot keep the hunt in view for any considerable time.\n\nIn dealing with sports and their cost, there is a principle which\nwe must never lose sight of: Sports do not produce money or wealth.\nTheir function is merely to distribute money or wealth when otherwise\nproduced. Is the mode of distribution which we are considering a good\none? It is certain that those who decided on expending their money\nin this manner were not actuated solely or chiefly by considerations\nof public utility; and considering how difficult it often is to\ndetermine what mode of expending a given sum will on the whole\nprove most beneficial to the public, the chance of our hitting on\nan almost perfect distribution, when we are looking at the whole\nsubject from a totally different standpoint, seems rather remote. This\nundesigned coincidence may have taken place, but it is one which, in\nthe circumstances, requires to be strictly proved. I assume that the\nmajority of sportsmen are not fools or bad people. How would such men\nand women as they are have spent this money if the hunting-field had\nbeen closed against them? And would this new mode of spending it be\nbetter or worse for the public than the present one?\n\n\n\n\nFACTS ABOUT THE GAME LAWS\n\nBY J. CONNELL\n\n\n    \u201cThe Game Laws are the tribute paid by the over-worked and\n    over-taxed people of England to the Lords of the Bread--to\n    the predatory classes who have appropriated the land and\n    depopulated the hills and valleys, to increase their own\n    selfish pleasures. The destruction of the Game Laws is as\n    inevitable in the long-run as was the destruction of Slavery,\n    the repeal of the Corn Laws, the overthrow of an alien\n    Church in the sister isle; but the fight will be a stiff one\n    between the freemen of this country and our savage or only\n    semi-civilised aristocracy and plutocracy.\u201d--ROBERT BUCHANAN.\n\nBy the common law of England and Scotland, following that of Rome, wild\nanimals in a state of nature are common to all mankind. A legal writer\nsays: \u201cBy the very nature of the case wild animals cannot be made the\nsubject of that absolute kind of ownership which is generally signified\nby the term _property_. The substantial basis of the law of property is\nphysical possession, the actual power of dealing with things as we see\nfit, and we can have no such power over animals in a state of nature.\u201d\n\nIt is, for instance, impossible to confine pheasants, partridges,\ngrouse, etc., to a particular estate, and, taking fences as they are,\nthe same may be said of the great majority of hares and deer in this\ncountry. Moreover, the individuals of each species are so much alike\nthat it is impossible for anyone to identify them as his property. All\nlegal writers without exception acknowledge that living wild creatures\nare not property. Nevertheless, the Game Laws were placed on the\nStatute Book to establish a proprietary right in those animals, and,\nas Mr. Barclay, Sheriff of Perthshire, once told a House of Commons\nCommittee, they \u201cput game, which was not property, in a higher scale\nthan property.\u201d They did this by means of a system of licences for\nkilling and selling game, and by making trespass, which, in itself, is\nonly a civil offence, a criminal offence of great magnitude.\n\nAt an early stage it was discovered that a free right of hunting was\nincompatible with the preservation of game in sufficient numbers to\nafford enough sport to the monarch and the nobles, and accordingly a\nseries of laws known as the Forest Laws were enacted, by means of which\ncertain districts were reserved for purposes of sport to the sovereign.\nThe increase of population soon rendered protection necessary for areas\noutside the Royal Forests if the supply of game was to be kept up, and\nthe result was a series of enactments known as the Game Laws. It will\nthus be seen that the right of taking wild animals, which originally\nbelonged to the whole people, was filched from them by a selfish and\nprivileged class, who, we need hardly add, stole the common lands, by\nmeans of \u201cEnclosure Acts,\u201d in much the same manner. It is strange but\ntrue that, except in Ireland, and in the north of Scotland, the people\nhave come to acquiesce more readily in the robbery of the land than in\nthe robbery of the game.\n\nThe Act which is considered the first or oldest of the Game Laws became\nlaw in the thirteenth year of Richard II., and it is interesting to\nobserve the reasons for placing it on the Statute Book which the\nlegislators of the time advanced. Said they:\n\n    \u201cIt is the practice of divers artificers, labourers, servants,\n    and grooms to keep greyhounds and other dogs, and on the\n    holidays when good Christian people be at church, hearing\n    Divine service, they go hunting in parks, warrens, etc., of\n    lords and others, to the very great destruction of the game.\u201d\n\nWe know hundreds of districts, from Kent to Caithness, of which the\nsame might be written to-day, thus showing that the Game Laws have\nutterly failed to obtain a moral sway over the people.\n\nThe term \u201cgame\u201d includes hares, pheasants, partridges, grouse,\nblack-game, ptarmigan, and bustards. In addition to these there\nare a number of animals to which one or other of the game statutes\nextends protection. These are rabbits, deer, roe, woodcock, snipe,\nquail, landrails, and wild duck. Although there is no property in\nwild animals, it has been settled by the Courts that the right to\npursue or take game is a private privilege. In England this privilege\nbelongs to the occupier of the soil, in the absence of any agreement\nto the contrary, and in Scotland to the owner. In the former country\nagreements reserving the game to the owner are almost universal. The\noccupier or the owner of the soil has the right to claim any game\nkilled on his land; but such is the curious state of the law that the\npoacher who takes away what he kills is not guilty of theft.\n\nThe Game Laws are held in abhorrence by the majority of people,\nchiefly for two reasons: first, on account of their injurious economic\neffects, and, second, because of the harsh punishments which they\ninflict for trivial offences. By their action large tracts of land\nhave been rendered almost totally unproductive, cultivation has been\nabandoned and immense numbers of labourers thrown out of employment;\nthe crops of farmers near preserves, although often on a different\nestate, have been injured or even destroyed; ill-feeling has been\nengendered between the authors and the victims of game preserving,\nand not infrequently the landless, workless labourer has been driven\nto break the law in order to procure food, thus landing himself in\nviolence, or even murder. In addition to all this, the irrepressible\nsporting appetite of the people, sustained by a consciousness of having\nmoral right on its side, leads to a reckless love of breaking laws\nwhich are unjust, unfair, and injurious. No believer in democratic\ngovernment, no lover of order, can uphold statutes which demoralise\nthose who live under them.[9]\n\n\nADMINISTRATION OF THE GAME LAWS.\n\nBut bad as are the Game Laws in essence, the manner in which they are\nadministered makes them far worse and more hateful. It is notorious\nthat a large number of Justices of the Peace are game preservers. The\npeople who break the Game Laws almost all belong to one class, the\npeople who sit in judgment on them almost all belong to another and\nhostile class. The effect of this arrangement is made very clear by the\nfollowing questions and answers:--\n\n    When Mr. J. S. Nowlson was asked by a Select Committee of the\n    House of Commons, \u201cDo game preservers ever act as magistrates\n    in cases of offences against the Game Laws?\u201d he replied, \u201cYes,\n    but not in their own cases. For instance, if A has got a case B\n    will take it, and if B has got a case A will take it.\u201d Again,\n    \u201cIn case a man was brought up for an offence against the Game\n    Laws, and there was a certain amount of evidence given, do you\n    think he would stand a greater chance of conviction than if it\n    were an offence against some other law?\u201d Reply: \u201cWe do consider\n    so.\u201d\n\nEverybody acquainted with agricultural labourers is aware that a\nstrong feeling prevails among them that justice is not to be expected\nin cases of offence against the Game Laws. A House of Commons Committee\nreported that \u201cvery few of the Game Law convictions are regular in\npoint of form, and they would have to be set aside had they gone before\nthe Judges.\u201d It was a common occurrence for justices to sentence\npoachers to longer terms of imprisonment than the law allowed. For\nthis and other reasons the Home Office has liberated a vastly greater\nproportion of offenders against the Game Laws than of any other class\nof offenders. An impartial observer might be excused for thinking\nthat the penalties for poaching are high enough to satisfy the most\nexacting. For instance, the penalty for trespass in pursuit of game in\nthe daytime is a fine of two pounds with imprisonment in default, and\nif the offence be committed by a party of five or more the penalty is\nfive pounds each with imprisonment in default. In the case of night\npoaching, the penalty for a first offence is three months\u2019 imprisonment\nwith hard labour, and at the expiration of that period the offender\nis compelled to find sureties for his good behaviour for a year, or\nundergo a further imprisonment for six months with hard labour. For\na second offence the penalty is six months\u2019 imprisonment with hard\nlabour, and at the end of that time the offender must find sureties for\nhis good behaviour for two years or undergo a further twelve months\u2019\nimprisonment with hard labour. For a third offence the penalty is seven\nyears\u2019 penal servitude. But this is not all. If a party of three or\nmore enter land at night for the purpose of taking game or rabbits, and\nif any of the party be armed with gun, crossbow, firearms, bludgeons,\n_or any offensive weapon_, each and everyone of such persons shall be\nliable to penal servitude for fourteen years.\n\nYet there are persons who think that those laws are not severe enough.\nA witness, for instance, before that Select Committee cheerfully\nproposed that poaching be made felony all round. It is needless to say\nthat the harshness, or rather barbarity, of the punishment in store for\nthem renders poachers but little inclined to yield themselves up when\nthey find themselves confronted by gamekeepers. This accounts for much\nof the bloodshed of which we read in connection with poaching. It also\naccounts for much of the sympathy which is felt for poachers by all\nclasses of the population except game preservers and their agents.\n\n\nTHE GAMEKEEPER.\n\nAmong the many unsatisfactory products of the Game Laws not the least\nobjectionable is the gamekeeper. Mr. Joseph Arch once said: \u201cKeepers\nare generally taken from the louting men one sees idling about.\u201d The\nknowledge that their masters sit on the Bench of Justice, and that\ntheir evidence will be believed in preference to that of trespassers,\nfrequently emboldens them to acts of the worst brutality. Some years\nago, in charging a Grand Jury at the Nottingham Assizes on certain\nindictments for malicious wounding and murder, arising out of poaching\naffrays, Mr. Justice Vaughan Williams commented on the way in which\nthese private police of individuals go out armed to the teeth,\naccompanied by savage dogs, _and without any code of instructions to\nregulate their proceedings_. Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, referring to\narrests, etc., said: \u201cI believe myself that in three cases out of\nfour, the gamekeepers act illegally.\u201d Whatever the men may have been\noriginally, it is certain that their method of living demoralises the\ngreat majority of keepers. They are often selected at first because\nof their brutality. A humane man would be useless in such a post.\nHead-keepers, who are generally well paid, as a rule act honestly by\ntheir employers, but it is a fact known to the writer that the more\npoorly paid ones not only take game for their own use, but frequently\nsell it in order to provide themselves with drink. In almost every\ndistrict in which game is preserved it is well known to the working\npeople that the keepers will purchase, on behalf of their masters, eggs\nwhich they know to have been stolen.\n\nIn August, 1900, a show of gamekeepers\u2019 dogs was held at the Royal\nAquarium, London. We quote from a London paper:\n\n    \u201cI would rather have one of these dogs with me in a night\n    row than three men,\u201d said Mr. W. Burton to a representative\n    yesterday. He was gazing fondly at five ferocious-looking\n    bull mastiffs in the Westminster Aquarium, where a show of\n    gamekeepers\u2019 dogs is being held. \u201cIf they were unmuzzled,\u201d he\n    added, \u201cone alone could tear a strong man to pieces in five\n    minutes. At Thorneywood Kennels, Nottingham, I have trained\n    these dogs to help the gamekeeper in catching night poachers,\n    and although they are kept muzzled a man has no chance with\n    them. If he attempts to run away he is knocked down instantly\n    and kept a prisoner until the keeper arrives. They are the\n    same breed of dogs that were used for bull-baiting in the last\n    century.\u201d\n\nWith long imprisonment, or even penal servitude staring him in the\nface, and the prospect of immediate violence from man, or dog, or both,\nit is not to be wondered at that the poacher often turns out \u201ca rough\nhandful.\u201d All will remember Kingsley\u2019s lines:\n\n    \u201cThere\u2019s blood on your new foreign shrubs, squire,\n      There\u2019s blood on your pointer\u2019s feet;\n    There\u2019s blood on the game you sell, squire,\n      And there\u2019s blood on the game you eat.\u201d\n\nIt is probably not too much to say that hundreds of encounters between\npoachers and gamekeepers occur every winter in this country. Except\nin cases where life is lost, the London papers do not report them,\nand even then they do not always do so. Local papers, published in\ndistricts where game is preserved, are the sheets to search for such\nrecords.\n\nIt may be mentioned here that in the neighbourhood of London\ngamekeepers are much less aggressive and brutal than in remote\ndistricts. Near London they seldom attempt to arrest poachers. Acting\nunder orders, presumably, they content themselves with following\npoachers and identifying them if possible, for the purpose of summoning\nthem afterwards. Moreover, the punishment meted out to poachers in the\nneighbourhood of the Metropolis is much lighter, as a rule, than in the\nprovinces. This is believed on all hands to be due to the criticism and\ndenunciation of harsh sentences by _Reynolds\u2019s Newspaper_ and other\nRadical organs. Such is the effect of this criticism that some years\nago, after the occurrence of some bloody affrays, orders were given on\nsome estates near Croydon, that in future poachers were to be simply\nordered off the land, and were not even to be summoned unless they\nresorted to violence. These orders were afterwards withdrawn, but the\nfact that they were given shows that game-preservers are fearful of\nlosing their privileges if public attention is directed to them.\n\nIn reading reports of poaching affrays it is well to remember that\nit is almost invariably the gamekeeper\u2019s side of the case that is\npresented to the public. If the poacher escapes, he of course is\nnever heard from. Even if he be caught he is seldom believed, and his\ndescription of the encounter seldom reported. There are exceptions to\nevery rule, but it is the sincere belief of the present writer that,\nwhen they find themselves confronted by keepers, the vast majority of\npoachers would go away quietly if allowed. The abolition of the power\nof arrest would, therefore, be a long step in the direction of peace.\nThe poacher, whether he poach for food or for sport, never believes\nthat he is guilty of a moral crime. For this reason, the gamekeeper\nwill never command the respect which is almost invariably accorded the\npoliceman, even by the most hardened criminals. Policemen, as a rule,\nare humane in their treatment of prisoners, and chiefly because they do\nnot suffer from any sense of personal wrong. With gamekeepers the case\nis widely different. From the depredations of the poacher they suffer,\nor think they may suffer, in repute or convenience, or even in pocket.\nIn the circumstances it is little wonder that they frequently act\nbrutally. As there are exceptions to all rules, there are, of course,\nexceptional magistrates who occasionally let light in on the dark ways\nof game-preserving. The following paragraph, culled from the _Airdrie\nAdvertiser_ of March 5, 1898, reveals a case in point:\n\n    \u201cCHARGE AGAINST GAMEKEEPERS.--On Thursday, before Sheriff\n    Mair, at Airdrie, Robert Connor M\u2019Guire, steelworker, 14,\n    Watt Street, Mossend, pleaded guilty to a charge of daylight\n    poaching. He was fined 31s., including expenses. Accused\n    complained to the Sheriff that he had been assaulted by\n    the two gamekeepers, and that he still bore marks of their\n    violence upon his arms, which he was desirous of showing. The\n    gamekeepers were called in and appeared to treat the accusation\n    lightly, one of them remarking that \u2018it was immaterial to him.\u2019\n    The Sheriff sent for the Inspector of Police, whom he directed\n    to take the gamekeepers into custody and M\u2019Guire to make the\n    charge of assault against them.\u201d\n\nWe may here mention that all appointments of gamekeepers are invalid\nunless registered with the Clerk of the Peace. Very many of them\nare not so registered, and, therefore, their arrests, and attempted\narrests, of poachers are illegal. The truth is that on many preserves\nnearly all the young labourers are keepers\u2019 assistants. Many of them\nare desirous of getting appointed as keepers so as to escape from hard\nwork, and these are often anxious to distinguish themselves by brutal\nconduct towards not only poachers, but the most harmless trespassers.\n\n\nTHE POACHER.\n\nAnd what sort of man is he against whom all this machinery of law and\nauthority and brutality is directed? We refer to the poacher. There\nis probably no better-abused individual on earth; but abuse is not\nargument, and still less is it evidence. If the reader will turn to\nthe report of the Select Committee of 1846, he will see that after\ncarefully sifting the evidence the conclusions arrived at were: (1)\nThat the poacher was generally far superior to the average agricultural\nlabourer in intelligence and activity; (2) that the great majority\nof poachers would break no law other than the Game Laws; (3) that\nthe poacher was not regarded as a criminal, either by himself or the\npeople amongst whom he lived; and (4) that this opinion was shared even\nby the game-preserver, who not infrequently offered him employment\nas gamekeeper. The reader may not be aware that many poachers become\nkeepers. The well-known writer, \u201cStonehenge,\u201d remarks on this:\n\n    \u201cReformed poachers, if really reformed, make the best keepers,\n    but it is only when worn out as poachers that they think of\n    turning round and becoming keepers.\u201d\n\nIt is worthy of remark that every writer on sport of any ability (as\nfar as we are aware) feels himself constrained to say a good word of\nthe poacher. We have just now at our elbow a well-known and standard\nwork, entitled \u201cThe Moor and the Loch,\u201d by John Colquhoun. Writing of\npoachers in bulk (so to speak) the author denounces them in unmeasured\nterms, but when he comes to speak of individual poachers whom he had\nknown, his tone is altogether different. We quote from vol. ii., p. 146:\n\n    \u201cWhen I first knew Gregor More, of Callander, his poaching days\n    were over, for he had a mortal disease from having lain out in\n    the fields one cold night. He still managed to saunter down the\n    river and give those beautiful sweeps with his line and salmon\n    fly which were the admiration of the whole clachan.\u2026 I looked\n    at him with some curiosity; a nobler specimen of manhood I\n    never beheld. Upwards of six feet high, of the finest herculean\n    proportions, and straight as an arrow, he seemed equally formed\n    for activity and strength. There was nothing mean or sneaking\n    about his manner. His face was open and manly, and, despite the\n    sad discipline to which he had exposed both mind and body, he\n    had not effaced the natural and sure marks of force and truth\n    from his countenance. Although wan and emaciated, there was a\n    coolness, a will to dare in his eye, backed by his tremendous\n    shoulders and still powerful frame, so that I could not look at\n    him without thinking of the words, \u2018Majestic though in ruins.\u2019\n\n    \u201cVery unlike Gregor More was ----. Strange to say, he had once\n    been a placed minister of the Kirk (answering to a beneficed\n    clergyman), and although he often returned late on the Saturday\n    night, after being all the week poaching the deer, his sermons\n    were both clever and popular. I met him once when traversing a\n    wild range of hills, and was impressed both with his general\n    information and the courtesy of his address.\u201d\n\n\nSOME RESULTS OF GAME-PRESERVING.\n\nAmong the evils incidental to game-preserving, not the least is the\ndestruction of rare and beautiful birds and beasts. I remember how\nthere was on exhibition in the window of a Liverpool taxidermist a\nsplendid specimen of the golden eagle, measuring 7 feet 2 inches from\ntip to tip of the wings, and 3 feet 2 inches from beak to tail. It had\nbuilt its eyrie in a small cave in the face of a high cliff at Benula\nForest, Glencannich, Beauly, N.B. It was watched by a keeper, who\ndescended the face of the cliff after dark, killed the mother bird, and\ncarried away the only eaglet from the nest.\n\nIn most preserves steel traps are set for the purpose of catching\nbirds or beasts of prey. When they are caught they are often allowed\nto linger in agony for hours, or even days before being despatched.\nThe writer has seen dozens of hares which had each lost a leg in these\ntraps. When a fox is caught in this manner it will often gnaw the leg\noff.\n\nThe horrors of the battue have been described and denounced so often\nthat little need be said about it here. It is simple butchery, often\nvery clumsily performed. For days after a battue hares may be seen with\nbroken backs, dragging their hind-quarters after them among the bushes,\nand pheasants may be seen running about with broken wings trailing the\nground. Pigeon-shooting from traps is justly condemned, but the evils\nattending it are small compared with those inseparable from the battue.\nMr. Frederick Gale, in \u201cModern English Sports,\u201d says: \u201cAt the Gun\nClub Grounds and similar places, which are frequented by noblemen and\ngentlemen, the cruelty is comparatively _nil_ to that occasioned by the\nbattue.\u201d It is within our knowledge that the battue is condemned even\nby gamekeepers. They cannot be expected to speak their minds freely\nbefore their employers, but if questioned privately many will be found\nto condemn it as affording no test of marksmanship, no opportunity for\nexercise or excitement, and as being wasteful of the game. The animals\nthat escape wounded often become emaciated, or even die of hunger\nbefore being found.\n\nThe game preservers are never tired of arguing that the preservation\nof game increases the food-supply of the people. To this there are two\nanswers, either of which is crushing. In the first place, with the\nexception of rabbits, game is scarcely ever touched by the masses, for\nthe very good reason that its price is far beyond their ability to pay.\nIn the second place, that which they do buy occasionally, rabbit, in\norder to come within their reach has to be sold at a price far below\nits cost of production. This is equivalent to saying that the same\namount of time, energy, capital, etc., employed in the production\nof any other sort of food, would increase the food-supply to a much\ngreater extent.\n\nIt seems impossible to obtain an accurate estimate of the loss and\ndamage occasioned by game-preserving. We know, however, that the\nScottish deer forests alone cover an area of over two million acres,\nand the best authorities assure us that all land which will rear\ndeer will rear sheep. The latter are vastly more profitable to the\ncommunity, although not always so to the landowner. But all must be\nsacrificed to game-preserving. For this purpose are footpaths closed,\nand labourers compelled to walk long distances to their work. For this\nare children debarred from playing or picking flowers in the woods or\nthe glens. For this is the factory-worker or the slum-dweller forbidden\nto breathe the pure air of the hills. For this are vast areas kept\nbarren, whilst millions hunger for the produce which they might have\nyielded, and willing hands, only too anxious to till them, are driven\nto seek employment in the already overcrowded docks.\n\nAnd we think ourselves a practical people!\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[9] See the \u201cReport of the Land Enquiry Committee,\u201d vol. i. (1913), Ch.\n\u201cGame.\u201d Also, for some descriptions of Highland \u201cClearances,\u201d the Rev.\nDonald Sage\u2019s book, \u201cMemorabilia Domestica,\u201d and \u201cGloomy Memories,\u201d by\nDonald McLeod.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DESTRUCTION OF WILD LIFE\n\nBY E. B. LLOYD\n\n\nThere is one most regrettable result of killing for sport (and more\nespecially of game-bird shooting) which, though important in itself,\nis yet frequently overlooked in discussing the question. This is the\ndestruction of wild life involved, other than those forms directly\nslaughtered for pleasure. Sir Harry Johnston has written forcibly of\nthe necessity of insisting on the \u00e6sthetic value of wild animals in our\nlandscape, and the desirability of preserving the species that remain,\nbecause they are beautiful and intellectually stimulating;[10] and\nthe ordinary Nature lover, not to mention the naturalist, cannot but\nregard with detestation the ceaseless war of extermination waged by the\ndevotees of \u201cshooting\u201d on so many of our finest and most interesting\nbirds and mammals. Indeed, numbers of so-called bird-lovers not\nactively opposed to shooting might change their views if they would but\nreflect seriously on the damage to our native fauna, and the consequent\ndulling of the charm of our country-side, which game-preserving\ninevitably brings in its train. For--putting on one side the moral\nissue--our British \u201cgame birds\u201d cannot compare, for interest and\nbeauty, with many of the species which are sacrificed on their behalf,\nor rather on behalf of the thoughtless folk who slaughter them for\namusement. Moreover, it must be remembered that we do not even possess\nany great tract of natural country as a National Park or reserve, such\nas Yellowstone Park in the United States of America, or its Canadian\nequivalent, or the grand Swedish Wild Park in Lapland.\n\nThe gamekeeper, generally speaking, is the most ruthless of beasts of\nprey. If he is a good gamekeeper his great aim is to see that there\nis always a plentiful supply of partridges in his master\u2019s fields,\npheasants in his master\u2019s coverts, or grouse on his master\u2019s moors, as\nthe case may be. With this object in view he endeavours to extirpate\nall wild life which either is, or is supposed by him to be, in any way\ninimical to the birds in his charge; and, unfortunately, owing to the\nabysmal ignorance of the average keeper in all that relates to Nature\u2019s\nintricate interplay of what we choose to call useful, harmless, and\nharmful forms, the list of _supposed_ enemies is a long one.[11]\nMoreover, the special position occupied by the gamekeeper gives him the\npower (a power all too frequently exercised) of shooting, either for\namusement or profit, any strange or rare bird that strikes his fancy,\nbesides making it very difficult to restrain his murderous propensities\neven in the case of legally protected species. On the whole it may\nsafely be said that gamekeepers as a class are just as unappreciative\nof the true beauty and interest of animal life as are their masters\nthe sportsmen. To quote one who, among all living writers, is probably\nat once the most sympathetic and penetrating observer and the most\ndelightful interpreter of wild bird life: \u201cThe gentleman, like the\ngamekeeper, cannot escape the reflex action of the gun in his hand. He,\ntoo, has grown incapable of pleasure in any rare or noble or beautiful\nform of life until he has it in his hand--until he has exercised his\nawful power and blotted out its existence.\u201d[12]\n\n\nSOME \u201cVERMIN.\u201d\n\nTo come now to the _species_ which are thus warred upon on the plea\nof facilitating \u201csport.\u201d Taking the mammals first--and the list of\nour British mammals is at best a miserably scanty one--we find that,\nleaving out of consideration such exceedingly scarce ones as the wild\ncat, polecat, and pine-marten, and such admitted marauders as the\nstoat and rat, there still remain among those classed by gamekeepers\nas \u201cvermin,\u201d the badger, the weasel, and the hedgehog: the first\nperhaps the most interesting of all our wild quadrupeds, the two latter\ncertainly not the least interesting and charming. Yet although the best\nauthorities are agreed that the harm done by the badger to \u201cgame\u201d is\nalmost infinitesimal, the keeper is usually his sworn foe.[13] Badgers\nalso suffer at the hands of the fox-hunting fraternity, being destroyed\nbecause they are said to be harmful to young foxes, and because they\nsometimes open up fox-earths which have been \u201cstopped\u201d in readiness for\nthe hunt.[14] This, it may be noted, affords another example of the\nfalseness of the argument so often advanced that fox-hunting is \u201cfair\u201d\nbecause the fox has every chance left him to escape. Fortunately the\nbadger is a very shy, nocturnal animal, exceedingly wary and clever,\nand in some few districts the landlords are enlightened enough to see\nto it that he is left in peace.\n\nThe fiery little weasel--ruthlessly persecuted--is one of the farmers\u2019\nmost trusty allies, for its food consists chiefly of voles, mice, and\nrats. As for the hedgehog, deadly enemy of slugs and snails and insects\nthough it be, the fact that it will suck eggs if it gets the chance\nsuffices to make its corpse a welcome addition to the gamekeeper\u2019s\nmuseum--that collection of the rotting bodies of birds and small\nmammals nailed or hung on to a tree or fence, with which all who have\nrambled much in the woods and fields of our country-side must be\nfamiliar. What a motley company may often be seen thus strung up on one\nof these gibbets in some upland hedgerow or woodland glade: a selection\nof stoats, weasels, moles, hedgehogs, crows, jackdaws, magpies, jays,\nowls, sparrow-hawks, kestrels, merlins, and so forth, according to\nthe locality. The writer has actually seen--and it is not an isolated\ninstance--that delightful bird, the green woodpecker, occupying a\nplace among these trophies of the keeper\u2019s prowess; and with regard to\nanother victim, the harmless nightjar (Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cbuzzing dor-hawk,\ntwirling his watchman\u2019s rattle about\u201d), whose strange, churning note\nis so pleasant a feature of an evening ramble in woody or heathy\ndistricts, one keeper told Mr. Hudson: \u201cI don\u2019t believe a word about\ntheir swallowing pheasants\u2019 eggs, though many keepers think they do.\nI shoot them, it\u2019s true, but only for pleasure.\u201d[15] The kestrel\nagain--the expressively named \u201cwindhover,\u201d which hangs aloft poised so\ngracefully against the wind--\n\n    \u201cAs if let down from heaven there\n    By a viewless silken thread\u201d--\n\na little hawk which preys almost exclusively on voles, mice, insects,\netc., is a valuable friend to the farmer, and certainly no enemy to\nthe gamekeeper. Yet large numbers are destroyed by the latter; for as\nCharles St. John, himself an ardent sportsman, wrote in his well-known\n\u201cWild Sports of the Highlands\u201d:[16] \u201cIt is impossible to persuade a\nkeeper that any bird called a hawk can be harmless; much less \u2026 that a\nhawk can be useful.\u201d And much the same still applies, it is shameful to\nrelate, to other extremely useful species, such as the barn-owl--which\nfarmers ought to encourage--and the tawny-owl, etc. Worse than this:\nincredible as it may sound, there are several well-authenticated cases\nof _nightingales_ having been destroyed by keepers because their\nsinging kept the pheasants awake at night! And Mr. Hudson, among\nother instances, records a case where a whole heronry was blotted\nout, the birds being shot on their nests after breeding had begun,\nbecause their cries disturbed the pheasants; and yet another, where\na whole tract of woodland estate was denuded of doves, woodpeckers,\nnuthatches, blackbirds, missel and song thrushes, chaffinches, and many\nother smaller birds, all of which were shot, any nests found being\nalso destroyed. The keeper said he was not going to have the place\nswarming with birds that were no good for anything, and were always\neating the pheasants\u2019 food.[17] Though these, of course, are extreme\ncases, they are notable as showing to what lengths this folly may be\ncarried--what monstrous sacrifices are made to the insatiable Moloch of\ngame-preserving.\n\nBesides such striking birds as the brilliant, eager jay, the elvish\nmagpie, the crows, the fierce sparrow-hawk, and the bold little merlin,\nwhich are still, relatively speaking, common, and the various beautiful\nbirds of prey--the kite, the harriers, the peregrine falcon, and many\nothers now almost exterminated--the British craze for game-preserving\nhas led to the bitter persecution of two especially fine species,\nboth of which have been almost extirpated in Southern England, at any\nrate--the raven and the absolutely innocent buzzard. The former, round\nwhich centres so much of myth, legend, and story, is now seldom met\nwith, save in a few secluded mountainous districts, though less than\nforty years ago the head-keeper of Exmoor Forest was able to record the\ndestruction of fifty-two of these grand birds in a single year;[18]\nwhile the Common Buzzard, which in virtue of its voice, appearance,\nlarge size, and grandeur of flight, is about the nearest approach to\nthe eagle still left to us, is now, alas! exceedingly uncommon. Not\nlong ago, while wandering near Dartmoor, I was fortunate enough to\nwatch six buzzards floating high in the air together, circling round\nabove one another in great spirals, and uttering from time to time\ntheir wild plaintive cry: an extremely rare sight in England to-day,\nand one the beauty and impressiveness of which I shall not soon\nforget. Any true nature-lover who has watched these splendid soaring\nbirds on the wing will readily understand what an irreparable loss\nthe gamekeeper\u2019s ban on them is inflicting on our landscape, more\nespecially in these days when, in spite of the trammels of modern\ncivilisation, an ever-increasing number of people are learning to\nappreciate the joy of a more direct communion with wild nature, and,\nincidentally, are discovering the truth of the poet\u2019s words:\n\n    \u201c\u2026 that such beauty varying in the light\n    Of living Nature, cannot be portrayed\n    By words, nor by the pencil\u2019s silent skill;\n    But is the property of him alone\n    Who hath beheld it, noted it with care,\n    And in his mind recorded it with love.\u201d\n\n\nTHE KILLING MANIA.\n\nNext to the gamekeeper, who, after all, is but the instrument of\nthe game-shooter, and the \u201ccollector\u201d (whose crimes in respect of\nour rarer avifauna would fill a volume), the worst sinners are those\ngun-sportsmen whose amusement is the wanton destruction of wild life,\nwithout even the flimsy pretext that their victims are eatable. Nothing\ncomes amiss to them--from seals,[19] and rare birds like the osprey and\nthe great northern diver, to seagulls, shore-birds, and waders, and\neven poor little pipits and thrushes. These are the folk of whom Sir\nHarry Johnston has truly observed that \u201cthey are often not nearly so\ninteresting, physically and mentally, as the creatures they destroy.\u201d\nThey are dingy-souled Philistines, to whom a dead bird in the hand\nis worth more than many living birds in the bush. Some even profess\nthemselves bird-lovers.[20] A West Country farmer\u2019s wife once observed\nto me: \u201cMy husband is a great lover of birds; he\u2019s got several cases\nfull of stuffed ones that he shot himself.\u201d This is as though one\nshould prefer an ancient Egyptian mummy to the chance of watching and\nstudying a living breathing being of that race. Little wonder if, when\nthinking of this senseless and careless and callous destruction of\nso much feathered loveliness, we should feel inclined to echo Robert\nBurns\u2019s angry words:\n\n    \u201cInhuman man, curse on thy barb\u2019rous art,\n    And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye.\u201d\n\nMoreover, the \u201cdeep-rooted instinct,\u201d about which we hear so much,\ncan easily be diverted to a far finer, more beautiful, and more useful\npleasure than the absurd, antiquated, and useless one of _killing_ for\nsport. I can speak from my own personal experience in saying that the\nactual thrill and joy of tracking and watching wild creatures for study\nand observation is far superior to that which is derived from tracking\nand watching them for slaughter. In other words, hunting animals to see\nhow they _live_ is finer sport than hunting them to see how they _die_.\n\nIt seems, therefore, that the real issue is between Natural History\nas opposed to _Unnatural_ History. On the one hand, grouse, pheasants\n(\u201csemi-domesticated exotics\u201d), and partridges (very likely imported),\nreared at immense cost for slaughter: on the other, all these\ninfinitely more varied and natural and gracious creatures--the true\nsylphs and elves of our woodlands--whose glad, free beauty so thrilled\nMeredith, and drew from him that impassioned cry:\n\n    \u201cFor joy in the beating of wings on high,\n    \u2026\n    My soul shoots into the breast of a bird,\n    As it will for sheer love till the last long sigh.\u201d\n\nAnd all this wild, winged life possesses a twofold beauty: for it is\nbeautiful both in itself, and--as poetry all down the ages has borne\nwitness--in its influence on the mind of man.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[10] \u201cBritish Mammals,\u201d 1903.\n\n[11] I can speak from a fairly extensive acquaintance with keepers in\nvarious districts; and (to quote impartial opinion) a pheasant-shooting\nfriend lately observed to me, while discussing the absurd destruction\nof kestrels: \u201cThe English gamekeeper is a fool: there\u2019s nothing to be\nsaid for him.\u201d And Mr. J. G. Millais, another sportsman, in his great\nwork on \u201cBritish Mammals,\u201d remarks that \u201cgamekeepers are often among\nthe most unobservant of men\u201d (vol. ii., 1905). _Cf._ also, _e.g._,\nSeebohm\u2019s \u201cBritish Birds\u201d (Falconid\u00e6, _passim_).\n\n[12] W. H. Hudson, \u201cThe Land\u2019s End,\u201d 1908.\n\n[13] See, _e.g._, Sir A. Pease, \u201cThe Badger,\u201d 1896.\n\n[14] Similarly, one of the reasons often given for otter-hunting is\nthat otters eat trout and salmon, and so lessen the angler\u2019s chance of\nkilling more of them.\n\n[15] \u201cAdventures among Birds,\u201d 1912.\n\n[16] Ninth edition, 1907.\n\n[17] \u201cAdventures among Birds,\u201d 1912.\n\n[18] W. H. Hudson, \u201cBirds and Man,\u201d 1901.\n\n[19] Here is one instance selected from many. \u201cDuring a yachting cruise\nin the summer of 1902, the suite accompanying \u2018very distinguished\npersons\u2019 gleefully took advantage of their proximity to little\nfrequented Scotch islands, to shoot and leave, to kill uselessly\nwithout excuse, quite a large number of the seals which still remain in\nScottish waters\u201d (Sir H. H. Johnston, _op. cit._).\n\n[20] Perhaps from similar causes to those which lead Sir Alfred Pease,\nin defending his hunting habits, to inform us, \u201cI hunt, paradoxical as\nit seems, because I love the animals\u201d (see \u201cThe Badger,\u201d 1896).\n\n\n\n\nTHE CALLOUSNESS OF FOX-HUNTING[21]\n\nBY H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON\n\n\nUndoubtedly we are a complacent and unimaginative nation, which defects\nprobably explain and excuse certain indictments brought against us by\nforeigners.\n\nComplacency and practicality may have raised us commercially and\npolitically, but they do not breed the finer graces, and they are apt\nto misrepresent us. No one, for example, would say that the English or\nBritish race was callous or cruel in comparison with other races. On\nthe contrary, its reputation for kind-heartedness stands higher than\nthat of its compeers and rivals. Yet this same race is engaged to-day\nin the practice and pursuit of the most brutal sport conceivable.\n\nOf bull-baiting, of cock-fighting, of various barbarous pastimes of\nour fathers we know nothing now save by hearsay; but it is safe to say\nthat whereas bull-baiting and cock-mains have long been prohibited by\nlaw, the most cruel sport remains unpenalised and undiscouraged; nay,\neven protected by the law. I can only attribute the continued existence\nof fox-hunting to that lack of imagination to which I have referred.\n\nIt is necessary for one making a desperate protest of this kind\nagainst an inhuman sport to dissociate himself at the outset from\nsentimentalism and the sentimentalist. Death is inevitable. We must\nlook facts in the face. The law of life is Death, and Nature has\nordained that the strong should prey on the weak throughout her serried\nranks of organic life. The sentimentalist will shriek in vain against\nthe destruction of animal life, simply because he is shrieking against\nan ultimate law of Nature. Nature destroys ruthlessly, and so does\nman, who is part of Nature. But what civilisation may and must demand,\nwhat humanitarianism should and does demand, is that this inevitable\naccomplishment of death should happen with the least possible pain.\n\nDeath, in short, is necessary, but torture is not. And fox-hunting\nis framed to produce the maximum of torture to the quarry. A fox is\n\u201cvermin,\u201d they say; then in Heaven\u2019s name let it be classed as vermin,\nand destroyed as such. But what happens is precisely the reverse of\nthis. Foxes are carefully preserved in order that they may be hounded\nto a hapless, miserable death, the conception of which transcends any\nordinary imagination. Gamekeepers and farmers, to whom foxes are a\ngrave nuisance, are paid _not_ to destroy them painlessly by gun or\notherwise. Gamekeepers, indeed, receive so much for each fox found on\ntheir preserves.\n\nThe object, then, of the hunt is to keep foxes from being destroyed in\nthe natural course of that warfare between item and item of human and\nferal life, and to preserve them for a more cruel fate. Let us see how\ncruel that is. The gamekeeper on land which is announced to be hunted\non a certain day has carefully during the night earthed up a fox\u2019s hole\nso that the beast cannot get back to it in the morning. At a certain\nhour pack and company arrive, and the master learns from the gamekeeper\nthat he is likely to \u201cfind\u201d in such and such a spinney. Thither all\nproceed, gay ladies and fresh-coloured men, and presently hounds give\ntongue and are in cry. They have \u201cfound.\u201d\n\nImmediately the field is in commotion. Gay ladies and fresh-faced men\nthunder off irregularly. The fun has begun; they are going to enjoy\nthemselves. But what is the fun? To each of those amiable people it\nno doubt is involved in the music of the hounds, in the company, in\nthe cross-country ride, in the excitements and hazards and humours of\nthe run. To the master and his huntsmen it involves in addition the\nresponsibility for keeping hounds in hand--a matter of considerable\nskill.\n\nBut what does it involve to the fox? This sleek, furry creature that\nsteals chickens and ducks, and young pheasants and partridges, who is a\nnuisance to farmer and gamekeeper alike, but to preserve whom is made\nworth their while--this poor \u201cvermin,\u201d having no \u201cearth\u201d to hide in,\nis flying for his life before a pack of strong dogs, any one of which\nwould be capable of answering for him.\n\n\nTHE DEATH.\n\nHe has (it may be) three or four hours\u2019 run before him, with that\nterrible bell-tongued chorus behind him. One can conceive him towards\nthe close, his strength failing, even his vulpine cunning, his eyes\nstarting from his head and glassy with terror, his jaws dropping\nfoam, his heart like a hammer that must break, straining--straining,\nhelplessly, hopelessly towards some covert that he knows now is not.\nAnd upon that at last the more merciful rush, the feeble turn at bay of\nan exhausted creature, the mellay of hounds, and--Death. Is it possible\nto conceive that to a creature any greater torture could be applied?\n\nIs it really necessary to deal with that fatuous argument--the\nargument of minds that are either wholly dishonest or ignobly\nunintelligent--that the fox is \u201cvermin,\u201d and that he enjoys the run?\nSurely it has only to be stated to glare at one in all its farcical\nabsurdity. I know of a household in which it is considered cruel to\nallow the cat to play with the mouse she has caught, and yet this\nhousehold--men and women--is engaged in hunting other \u201cvermin\u201d--the\nfox--three days a week during the season.\n\nIs it credible? But it is true. Women, who I have no reason to suppose\nare not kind daughters and affectionate mothers, will gleefully\nboast how they were in at the death--to see, that is, one poor furry\ncreature torn into pieces by a swarm of hounds while in the throes of\nexhaustion, of terror, and of despair. Is it lack of imagination, or is\nit worse?\n\nAnd that time-worn defence of all sport is no defence here--I mean the\nplea that men are improved in health and certain lofty animal qualities\nby the pursuit of this savage sport. For, to speak plainly, the fox is\nwholly unnecessary. The essentials of hunting are the hounds, who enjoy\nthemselves, the horses, who as a rule must be admitted to do likewise,\nunless over-ridden, and the hunters, to whom the gratification of the\nhunt is the ride through brisk air, the cross-country fences, the air\nof adventure surrounding the run.\n\nAll these essentials are found equally in a drag hunt. Those who\nhave had experience of drag hunts (from which an animal quarry is\neliminated) will admit that there is as much pleasure in them as in\nthe fox-hunt. Nay, they are more advantageous, and for two reasons. In\na \u201cdrag\u201d you are sure of a run; you are not dependent on the accident\nof a \u201cfind.\u201d And, secondly, you have the benefit of knowing when you\nmay order your change to meet you, and thus avoid inflicting pain on\nyour horse. The drag obviates all cruelty in a sport which is otherwise\ninvigorating and virile. Therefore, in Heaven\u2019s name, let the masters\nof hounds, who are also men of feeling, cease to preserve the fox, and\ncultivate the drag.\n\nThe abolition of the Royal Buckhounds did much to throw into disfavour\nthe abominable sport of hunting a tame stag, and it is known that\naristocratic circles do not look with favour on the atrocious sport of\ncoursing. Is it impossible to enlist the sense of the upper classes in\nthis country in the abolition of fox-hunting?\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[21] This article originally appeared in the _Daily Mail_ of February\n8, 1905.\n\n\n\n\nBIG-GAME HUNTING\n\nBY ERNEST BELL\n\n\n    \u201cIf asked why I had gone elephant-hunting at the age of\n    nineteen, I would say that it is simply because I am the lineal\n    descendant of a prehistoric man.\u201d\n\n                                                          F. C. SELOUS.\n\nApparently there is a considerable public who like reading books about\nthe slaughter of what is called \u201cbig game,\u201d or we should hardly have\nsuch a continuous supply of them issued from the press. As, however,\nvanity is apparently no small incentive to the deeds of the big-game\nhunters, it is perhaps a fair deduction that the same feeling may have\nsomething to do with the publication of their records, and that such\nbooks are in fact not always speculations on the part of publishers,\nbut are sometimes printed by the authors themselves.\n\nCertainly the unbiassed reader might be excused for agreeing with the\nsentiment expressed in the preface of one of the exponents of the art,\nwhen he writes: \u201cI shall guard myself against the desire to make the\nreader be present at the death of my 500 victims, which would be very\nmonotonous to him, for after all, though circumstances may vary, the\nresult of a hunt after wild animals is always the same.\u201d\n\nA study of several books of the sort certainly confirms the impression\nthat the subject is a very monotonous one. The illustrations also share\nthe same want of variety, for almost all represent dead animals, varied\nonly by the arrangement of guns and naked savages about them. They\napparently illustrate nothing at all but the one fact--which one would\nthink was neither surprising nor creditable--that the perpetrators,\nwith the aid of Express double-barrelled rifles, Winchester six-shot\nrepeaters, revolvers, explosive bullets, smokeless powder, rockets,\nthe electric projector, Bengal lights, etc., and a band of natives to\nload and work the machinery, succeed in destroying the lives of some\nmore beautiful animals. As it is expressed by one author: \u201cAt the very\nspot where a minute before there rose, in all its savage beauty, this\nmajestic conception of Nature, the largest and the most powerful of the\nanimals of the earth, nothing more than a mass of grey flesh appears\nin the blood-spattered grass.\u201d The climax is reached when we see the\n\u201chero,\u201d as sometimes happens, sitting with proud mien on the top of\nsome huge animal, not apparently realizing that the same juxtaposition\nwhich brings out the size of the animal is apt to suggest also the\n_smallness_ of the man whose greatest pride and delight can be wantonly\nto destroy so grand a creature. We must beg to differ with this\nwriter\u2019s enthusiastic exclamation that elephant-hunting is certainly\n\u201cthe greatest and noblest sport in the world.\u201d Rather we should be\ninclined to call it the meanest and most contemptible abuse of man\u2019s\nsuperior powers.\n\n\nEXPLOSIVE BULLETS.\n\nOf the means employed to accomplish the hunters\u2019 ends let us say a few\nwords. Explosive bullets we know have been universally condemned in\nhuman warfare on account of their barbarity, but against defenceless\nanimals they are still held to be legitimate by so-called sportsmen.\nThus, we read: \u201cThe impact causes the bullet to expand. Often it\nbreaks into pieces or else takes a mushroom shape, the head in its\ntremendous velocity dragging and catching with its edges the flesh and\nviscera; and it often happens in the case of delicate animals that\nupon leaving the body it makes a hole as big as the crown of a hat.\u201d\nThat a sportsman writing for other sportsmen should feel no shame in\nmaking such a statement shows only how we take our morality from our\nsurroundings, and how demoralising in this case the surroundings must\nbe. After this, we cannot expect to find much chivalry displayed in\nthis \u201cthe greatest and noblest\u201d of sports, and we cannot be surprised\nto find the author telling us with pleasure how in pure wantonness\nhe hid behind a tree within 10 yards of a female elephant and lodged\na bullet in her heart. This, however, is outdone by an incident in\nanother volume we remember, where we were told that the finest stag was\nshot by a certain Grand Duke, \u201cwhile it was asleep, at 20 yards.\u201d In\nfact, most big-game hunters seem--perhaps not unnaturally--to suffer\nfrom a similar want of chivalry. We find Mr. Seton-Karr, an authority\non the subject, relating how one of his party imitated the young fawn\u2019s\ncry of distress, when, as he says: \u201cThe immediate result was to entice\nwithin range numbers of Virginian deer or blacktail, most of them\ndoes, and eight fell victims to this somewhat unsportsmanlike device.\u201d\nWhether such treachery is to be considered \u201cunsportsmanlike\u201d must\ndepend on what meaning we attach to the word, but if it means \u201cunlike a\nsportsman,\u201d we fear the word is misused here.\n\nOf the impartiality of the big-game hunter in his slaughter we have\nmany instances. Any creature that can be shot is fitting game for\nhim, and he delights in shooting it. One well-known writer gives the\nfollowing list of creatures killed by him during six weeks:\n\n    \u201cFive elephants, 2 lions (male), 8 leopards, 2 wart hogs, 11\n    great spotted hy\u00e6nas, 7 striped hy\u00e6nas, 4 oryx beisa antelope,\n    10 awal antelope, 2 common gazelle, 2 bottlenose antelope,\n    2 gerenuk antelope, 1 lesser koodoo, 18 dig-dig antelope, 4\n    bustard, 2 small bustard, 2 sand grouse, 3 genet, 14 guinea\n    fowl, 22 partridge, 4 hares, 30 various.\u201d\n\nThus 155 animals--mostly wholly unoffending creatures--were\nslaughtered by one man in six weeks. We are assured that on a second\nexpedition much the same bag was made, but that he then got no\nelephants (which are rapidly being exterminated in that country). To\nfurther whet the appetite, the would-be young slaughterer is favoured\nwith a view of a room in the mighty hunter\u2019s house, which is decorated\n(or disfigured) apparently from floor to ceiling with the heads,\nskulls, and skins of these slaughtered animals--\u201ctrophies,\u201d they are\ncalled--with a lavishness hardly inferior to that exhibited in a\nbutcher\u2019s or poulterer\u2019s shop at the season when we commemorate the\nbirth of Christ.\n\n\nTEMPORARY REMORSE.\n\nOf the actual cruelty involved in this kind of amusement--for it\nprofesses to be nothing more--we may give a few specimens:\n\n    \u201cMy victim, which I see only through a curtain of raindrops,\n    visibly suffers, her flank swelling out abnormally and then\n    subsiding; she is shot in the lungs. We pass round her in such\n    a way that she shall not see us approach, but she seems more\n    taken up with her sufferings than with us, and at the moment I\n    am going to fire she falls down on the grass, still breathing.\n    I draw near and give her the _coup de gr\u00e2ce_ behind the ear.\n    Around her is a large pool of blood, which the rain carries in\n    a red stream towards the bottom of the little valley.\n\n    \u201cIt is the male at which I fired first of all. As I afterwards\n    found, his shoulder was broken. Maddened by pain and his feeble\n    efforts, the animal roars with rage, and, blowing furiously\n    with his trunk, tears at everything within reach.\u2026 His cries\n    and groans become so terrible that they must be heard a mile\n    away.\n\n    \u201cPoor beast!\u2026 Never have I been able to contemplate so near\n    the death of an elephant in all its details. She is lying eight\n    yards from us in the full sunlight at the edge of the water,\n    which is tinged with red, and we look on in silence while\n    life leaves the enormous body; her flank heaves, blood flows\n    from breast and shoulder, her mouth opens and shuts, her lip\n    trembles, tears flow from her eyes, her limbs quiver; with\n    her trunk hanging down, her head low, she sways to right and\n    left, then falls heavily on one side, shaking the ground and\n    spattering blood in every direction.\u2026 All is over!\n\n    \u201cSuch a spectacle is enough to make the most hardened hunter\n    feel remorse. It seemed to me that I had done a bad action.\n    Several times have I said to myself, upon seeing those splendid\n    animals suffer, that I ought to place my rifle in the gun-rack\n    for ever.\u201d\n\nThat a man who has spent several years in little else but the\ndestruction of animals for his own pleasure should feel even a\ntemporary remorse is evidence of the brutality of this particular\nscene, but we do not know how to characterise the combination of\neasy sentiment, costing nothing, with the cruel selfishness which\nimmediately turns to the account of fresh slaughter.\n\n\nTHE HUNTER\u2019S JOY.\n\nOr take the following bloody tale, told with evident pride:\n\n    \u201cAs I came round a bush, I saw at the bottom of a kind of\n    natural alley in the forest, framed in like a picture by the\n    trees, a massive old female rhinoceros. She was facing me,\n    and standing half in sunshine, half in shadow. From a bush\n    protruded the hind-quarters of another. The distance was about\n    seventy yards. I at once sat down and \u2018drew a bead\u2019 upon her\n    chest. However, she swerved off, and the two broke away across\n    the forest, crash after crash, dying away in the distance,\n    marking their course as they receded. I followed, and once\n    again caught sight of the animal standing motionless behind\n    a bush; I fired, and the shot was followed by a couple of\n    short, angry snorts, the stamp of heavy feet, and an appalling\n    crashing which advanced and then swept round toward the left.\n    A shot delivered standing, from the shoulder, was followed by\n    two shrill squeaks, as the animal tottered a few paces and\n    fell over on its side; I shall not easily forget that cry, a\n    sound most disproportionate to the size and bulk of so large\n    a creature, but which I instantly recognised, from Sir Samuel\n    Baker\u2019s description, as the death-cry of the rhinoceros; and\n    the hearing of it filled me with a hunter\u2019s joy!\u201d\n\nThe hunter\u2019s joy is in the death-cry of his victim, and he glories in\nthe fact that he is the descendant of a line of prehistoric savages.\nWhat more evidence can we want of the barbarity of the whole proceeding?\n\nOr, again, take and ponder the following extract from Ex-President\nRoosevelt\u2019s recent book, \u201cAfrican Game Trails\u201d:\n\n    \u201cRight in front of me, thirty yards off, there appeared from\n    behind the bushes, which had first screened him from my eyes,\n    the tawny, galloping form of a big maneless lion. Crack! the\n    Winchester spoke; and as the soft-nosed bullet ploughed forward\n    through his flank the lion swerved so that I missed him with\n    the second shot; but my third bullet went through the spine\n    and forward into his chest. Down he came, sixty yards off,\n    his hind-quarters dragging, his head up, his ears back, his\n    jaws open, and lips drawn up in a prodigious snarl, as he\n    endeavoured to turn to face us. His back was broken, but of\n    this we could not at the moment be sure; and if it had merely\n    been grazed he might have recovered, and then, even though\n    dying, his charge might have done mischief. So Kermit, Sir\n    Alfred, and I fired, almost together, into his chest. His head\n    sank, and he died.\u201d\n\nIs it right, seriously speaking, that people who, by their own\nadmission, are still under the influence of very primitive impulses,\nshould be allowed to take their pleasure in this barbarous fashion\nwithout some voice being raised on behalf of the innocent victims?\n\n\n\u201cLIVE BAIT.\u201d\n\nIt appears that there are various ways of hunting the lion. One is to\ntrack him to some thick part of the jungle, and having set fire to it\nat one end to wait at the other with several guns until the terrified\nbeast rushes out and meets his fate.\n\nAnother method, which seems to us a specially dastardly one, is the\ntying up of some domestic animal--donkey, bullock, or goat--as a \u201clive\nbait\u201d for the larger carnivora, while the sportsman lies in wait,\nsafely concealed, to shoot the \u201cgame\u201d or afterwards to track him out to\nhis lair. We read in one instance as follows:\n\n    \u201cI woke up to find myself being vigorously shaken by the\n    watchman. A terrible struggle was going on between the donkey\n    and the lion, but a cloud of dust completely obscured them,\n    notwithstanding the brilliant light of a tropical moon. The\n    lion succeeded in breaking the ropes and carrying off the\n    struggling animal for some distance. The latter, however,\n    gaining his legs, emerged from the cloud of dust and made\n    slowly for the camp. Before he had gone many yards the lion had\n    got him again, and this time he killed him without giving me a\n    chance of aiming at all on account of the great cloud of dust.\u201d\n\nThis practice is also mentioned in the Hon. J. Fortescue\u2019s \u201cNarrative\nof the Visit to India of Their Majesties King George V. and Queen\nMary,\u201d where we read:\n\n    \u201cOvernight, or in the afternoon, bullocks are tied up in likely\n    places for a tiger, generally at the edge of thick jungle; and\n    in the morning the shikaris (or gamekeepers, as we should call\n    them) go round to see if any of these have been killed.\u201d\n\nMr. Fortescue mentions that \u201cthe reports of the morning of December 26\nset forth that, though sixty bullocks had been tethered in the jungle\non the previous night, only one had been killed.\u201d The paucity of the\nkills on this occasion is explained by the fact that many tigers had\nalready been shot and the \u201cgame\u201d was becoming scarce. It is not stated\nhow many oxen in all were thus sacrificed.\n\nNow we submit that, whatever may be said in defence of big-game\nshooting in general, this usage of domestic animals--animals towards\nwhom in all civilised countries it is recognised that mankind has\nmoral, and often legal, obligations--is a very shocking malpractice.\n\nThat the actual suffering witnessed and chronicled is a small part\nonly of the whole is everywhere obvious. These books teem with cases\nin which the animals escape wounded, to linger for days, or perhaps\nweeks. We read, for instance: \u201cI kill a big male (elephant). As to\nthe other male and a female, I wound but lose them both after a day\u2019s\npursuit. However, as the male seemed to me to be doomed, I send four\nmen in search of it. They return without result after passing the night\nout of doors. I found this elephant dead on the 26th\u201d--that is, after\nseventeen days in a climate where bodies do not lie long on the ground.\nWe can quite believe that this author does not overstate the case when\nhe candidly admits: \u201cA good hunter, however careful, adroit, or well\nseconded he may be, must count one out of every two animals which he\npursues as lost, owing to the many difficulties of his profession. This\nis the minimum, for how many wound or miss three or four animals before\nkilling one!\u201d\n\n\nPRIMITIVE INSTINCTS.\n\nIt remains only to say a few words about the morality of this form of\namusement. It is often said amongst humane people that hunting is only\na relic of more barbarous times, but it seems to us to be something\nmore than this. It may have taken its origin with primitive man, but it\nhas certainly made important developments of its own in recent times.\nThere is little in common between the act of the primitive savage,\nwho, for the sake of his food, pitted his strength and skill against\nan animal, and the wholesale and reckless slaughter, aided by the\nappliances of modern science, and carried on merely for the pleasure of\nkilling. Acts otherwise disagreeable and disgusting may sometimes be\njustified by the motive, but a search through several volumes devoted\nto this sport has failed to reveal any more exalted motive than the\ndesire for trophies--as they are called--to show to admiring friends,\nand the love of killing. \u201cAt daylight we start on the trail, on which\nthere are spots of blood, followed by spurts and large clots. When we\nsee that, \u2018the heart laughs,\u2019 as the natives say, and victory is almost\ncertain.\u201d We learn that \u201cto bring down an animal as big as an omnibus\nhorse with each barrel, to roll it over as though it were a rabbit, is\na pleasure which one does not often experience\u201d; and we are also told\nhow the author had \u201cthe pleasure of looking at a magnificent maneless\nlion stretched in a pool of blood.\u201d\n\nOf the real motive there can unfortunately be little doubt, and the\nexcuses that are made by the perpetrators for their murderous work are\nhardly worthy of serious consideration.\n\nThe moral defences for this kind of sport are of the same nature as the\nfamous snakes in Iceland--there are none; and the flounderings of the\nbig-game hunter, when he tries to defend himself, show that his ethics\nand theology are of the same primitive kind as are his other springs of\naction, handed down from barbarous ancestors.\n\nOne writer quoted above tells us, of course, that he gives place to no\none in his \u201clove of all dumb creatures collectively\u201d--whatever that may\nmean--which he seems to think justifies his putting bullets into them\n_individually_ whenever he has a chance, and letting them crash through\nthe forests, as he describes, in pain and terror, very likely to die in\nagonies days afterwards.\n\nAnother excuse urged is that the hunting instinct in us has been\ngiven us by God, and therefore should be followed. It apparently never\noccurred to the writer that pity for the unoffending animals \u201cbutchered\nto make a sportsman\u2019s holiday\u201d may also be a God-planted instinct, no\nless than the love of slaughtering them, though apparently he vastly\nprefers the latter.\n\nThat blood-sports develop and encourage a manly spirit, necessary for\nthe progress of the race and especially of the British nation, is\nperhaps the most common. But here, surely, at the outset we need a\ndefinition of terms. If manliness is synonymous with indifference to\nthe suffering of the weaker, and selfish gratification at the cost of\nothers, if it is manly to blow a piece \u201cas big as the crown of a hat\u201d\nout of the side of a timid deer, just for amusement, then certainly\nthis sport is eminently manly. If, on the other hand, the qualities\nwhich differentiate the civilised man from the barbarian are a greater\nregard for the rights of the weak and a deeper sympathy with the\nfeelings of others, then without doubt these amateur butchers should be\nregarded as an anachronism in civilised communities.\n\nThe chocolate-coloured native, we read in one book, \u201cwould not and\ncould not understand that we had not come to fight elephants and lions\nlike gladiators in the arena, but to overcome them by superior tactics\n_without more risk than was necessary_, and by the judicious handling\nof arms of precision\u201d (italics ours). Certainly we think the naked\nsavage here shows a finer instinct for what may be noble and manly in\nwarfare than his so-called civilised brother. For the gladiator who\nhas the hardihood to meet his enemy in fair single combat, at mortal\nrisk to himself, we can feel some admiration, even though the game\nis a barbarous one; but for the butcher who skulks behind a tree and\nslays his innocuous victim by mechanical contrivances with as little\nrisk to himself as possible, we can feel nothing but contempt. \u201cIn\na short time,\u201d we are told by our hero, \u201cfour elephants were lying\ndead, shot through the head or heart, never having caught sight of\nus. The remainder of the herd decamped.\u201d A glorious achievement in\nthe estimation of the perpetrators apparently, but one to which we\npersonally should be ashamed to see our name attached.\n\n\nTHE BLOOD LUST.\n\nIn the preface to one of the books from which we have quoted, we are\ntold the story of a certain French hunter who, having been made an\nofficer, was asked by a friend if he intended now to give up killing\nlions, to which he replied: \u201cIt is impossible; it seizes me like a\nfever, and then I absolutely must go and lie in wait.\u201d This does seem\nin some cases to be the most charitable explanation of a strange mental\ncondition, and in view of the harm which these so-called sportsmen are\ndoing, it is becoming a question for the community, whether they should\nnot be temporarily confined, like others suffering from dangerous and\ndestructive mania. With shooting-galleries and a continuous series of\ntin elephants and antelopes they could be allowed to indulge their\nmania quite harmlessly, and in the evenings they could write up their\ndiaries and chronicle their wonderful adventures without fear of\ncontradiction.\n\nApart from the question of the cruelty involved, we have now the sad\nspectacle of the rapid extermination of many animals merely for the\nselfish gratification of a very small section of the public. The\nrecent efforts of Governments to save them are not likely to have much\neffect. They are not based on any humane principles, of course, but are\ndirected apparently to preventing the total extermination of certain\nanimals, in order, at any rate partly, that a favoured few may still\nhave the pleasure of killing them under game restrictions.\n\nThus _The Times_ drew attention to the fact that in Nyasaland for a \u00a310\nlicence you may kill 6 buffaloes, 4 hippopotamus, 6 eland, and so on up\nto a total of 94 animals. For \u00a310 you may buy the privilege to deprive\nthe world of 1 elephant, while you may kill 4 for \u00a360. The writer of\nthe article from which we quote tries to show that the ivory of the\ntusks will pay expenses.\n\nWe may quote here the following from an article by Sir H. H. Johnston,\non \u201cThe Protection of Fauna, Flora, and Scenery,\u201d in the _Nineteenth\nCentury_, of September, 1913:\n\n    \u201cAn agitation is again arising for leave to destroy the\n    big game of Africa--especially in Rhodesia, Nyasaland, and\n    East Africa--wherever there are possibilities of European\n    settlement. The plea advanced now is that the big game, more\n    than man or the smaller mammals and birds, serve as reservoirs\n    for trypanosomatous or bacillic disease-germs, which are then\n    conveyed by tsetse-flies or ticks to the blood of domestic\n    animals and man. This argument should be examined with\n    scientific impartiality, because so great is the blood-lust on\n    the part of young Englishmen or their Colonial-born cousins\n    that they are for ever trying to find some excuse to destroy\n    whatever is large or striking in the local fauna.\u201d\n\nThe only method which would have any likelihood of really protecting\nthe animals would be to make it penal for anyone to kill any of them,\nor to have in his possession any skin, skull, or other \u201csouvenir.\u201d\nWithout their trophies and without the possibility of recounting their\nexploits to their admiring readers, the big-game hunters would lose\ntheir main stimulus, and might devote their time and energies to some\nmore useful and less barbarous pursuit.\n\n\n\n\nBLOOD-SPORTS AT SCHOOLS\n\nTHE ETON HARE-HUNT.\n\n\nWe are often told that the true way to teach kindness to animals is \u201cto\nbegin with the young.\u201d Let us see how they begin with the young at the\nchief of English public schools.\n\n    \u201cI have told the Master of the Beagles that he must not do\n    anything which is unlawful. I am sure that he would not do\n    anything cruel willingly. But until the common sense of the\n    nation expresses itself in the shape of a law forbidding the\n    hunting of wild animals, I cannot interfere with the Beagles,\n    which are here an old institution.\u201d\n\nSuch were the terms in which Dr. Warre, when Headmaster of Eton,\nexpressed his refusal--his first of many refusals--to substitute a\ndrag-hunt for the hare-hunt now in favour at Eton College; and his\nargument has since been the subject of much humanitarian protest,\nand of not a few memorials to the Governing Body. But there is one\npoint concerning Dr. Warre\u2019s remarks which seems to have almost\nescaped attention--that the Eton Beagles are not, after all, so old\nan \u201cinstitution\u201d as his words would imply, in the sense of being\nrecognised and encouraged by the school authorities, for, as a matter\nof fact, they have only been openly permitted since about sixty years\nago, and they were not actually legalised until 1871. In the old Eton\nStatutes of Henry VI. it was ordained under the head of \u201cDiscipline\u201d\nthat \u201cno one shall keep in the college any hounds, nets, ferrets,\nhawks, or falcons for sport,\u201d and for this reason the authorities long\nrefused to give official recognition to the Beagles. In the reign of\nDr. Keate the hunt, according to Mr. Wasey Sterry\u2019s book on Eton, was\n\u201cunlawful, though winked at,\u201d and this state of affairs continued\nuntil about the middle of the past century, when the Beagles began to\nbe regarded as on a par with cricket and football. At last, under the\nrevised Statutes framed by the new Governing Body, which was called\ninto being by the Public Schools Act of 1868, all earlier regulations\nwere repealed, and the Beagles became legalised, having thus passed\nthrough the three successive stages of being prohibited, winked at, and\nrecognised as \u201can old Eton institution.\u201d\n\nIt may seem strange that the sporting propensity of schoolboys should\nhave thus defied and survived the ban placed upon it by the pious\nFounder; but the history of Eton shows it to have been always the home\nof cruel sports. We are told by Sir H. Maxwell Lyte, the historian of\nthe school, that \u201csports which would now be considered reprehensible\nwere tolerated and even encouraged at Eton in the seventeenth and\neighteenth centuries.\u201d \u201cNo work,\u201d he says, \u201cwas done on Shrove Tuesday\nafter 8 a.m., and at Eton, as elsewhere on this day, the practice\nprevailed of torturing some live bird. The college cook carried off\na crow from its nest, and, fastening it to a pancake, hung it up on\nthe school door, doubtless to serve as a target.\u201d Then, again, there\nwas the once famous and popular ram-hunt. \u201cThe college butcher had to\nprovide a ram annually at election-tide, to be hunted and killed by\nthe scholars,\u201d the unfortunate animal being hamstrung and beaten to\ndeath in Weston\u2019s Yard. Even in the nineteenth century such sports as\nbull-baiting, badger-baits, dog-fights, and cat and duck hunts, were\n\u201corganised for the special edification of the Eton boys.\u201d\n\nIt is from these good old times that the present hare-hunt is a\nsurvival, and though it may now be conducted, as Dr. Warre has stated,\nin a legal and \u201csportsmanlike\u201d manner, this certainly was not the case\nat a period no more remote than the headmastership of Dr. Balston\n(1857-1864), as we learn from Mr. Brinsley Richards\u2019 well-known book,\n\u201cSeven Years at Eton,\u201d from which the following passage is quoted:\n\n    \u201cIt is not pleasant to have to write that the Beagles were\n    often made to hunt a miserable trapped fox which had lost one\n    of its pads. Those who bought maimed foxes, as more convenient\n    for beagles to hunt than strong, sound foxes, should have\n    reflected that they might thereby tempt their purveyors to\n    mutilate these animals. How could it be ascertained whether the\n    fox supplied by a Brocas \u2018cad\u2019 had been maimed by accident or\n    design? It was an exciting thing for jumping parties of Lower\n    Boys, when out in the fields they saw the beagle-hunt pass them\n    in full cry--first the fox, lolloping along as best he could,\n    but contriving somehow to keep ahead of his pursuers; then\n    the pack of about ten couples of short, long-eared, piebald,\n    or liver-streaked hounds, all yelping; then the Master of the\n    Hunt, with his short copper horn; the Whips, who cracked their\n    hunting-crops and bawled admonition to the dogs with perhaps\n    unnecessary vehemence; and lastly the Field of about fifty.\u201d\n\nIt is specially worthy of note, as bearing upon a later controversy,\nthat Mr. Brinsley Richards states that \u201cruns were far better when a\nman was sent out with a drag.\u201d The drag is thus proved to have been\nin successful use at Eton almost as long ago as when the Beagles were\nfirst openly tolerated.\n\nThe prohibition once being cancelled, the popularity of the hare-hunt\ngrew apace until it reached its zenith in the reign of Dr. Warre, when\nthe doings of the hunt were regularly reported--in choice sporting\njargon--in the _Eton College Chronicle_, so that the whole school,\neven to the youngest boys, was made aware of them. A reference to old\nnumbers of the _Chronicle_ will show plenty of instances. Here are one\nor two extracts taken almost at random from these records of the chase:\n\n    \u201c_March 20, 1897._--A hare was soon put up in the first\n    wheat-field, and, running back through two small spinneys in\n    the field she was found in, went away towards Ditton Park.\n    Hounds ran very fast over the Bath Road and straight away into\n    Turner\u2019s gardens. After being bustled about for fifteen minutes\n    in the gardens, our hare went away at the far end. Turning\n    left-handed, our hare was viewed running parallel with the road\n    and into some brickfields.\u2026 After we had been casting round for\n    some time without success among the rows of bricks, hounds were\n    taken back into a small hut. Hardly had they got inside before\n    old Varlet pulled her out from under a rafter, absolutely\n    stiff.\u201d\n\n    \u201c_February 23, 1899._--Time, one hour, fifty minutes. A very\n    good hunt, since scent was only fair, and we were especially\n    unlucky to lose this hare, which was beat when she got back to\n    Salt Hill. On the next day we heard that our hare had crawled\n    up the High Street to Burnham, and entered a public-house so\n    done that it could not stand, and was caught by some boys, who\n    came to tell us half an hour afterwards, but we had just gone\n    home. Too bad luck for words!\u201d\n\nAnd so on, with repeated references to \u201cbreaking her up,\u201d and hounds\n\u201cthoroughly deserving blood.\u201d[22]\n\nHere, again, is the published testimony of a spectator of one of these\nsuccessful runs:\n\n    \u201cOn February 4, 1899, being in the vicinity of Eton, I had an\n    opportunity of seeing one of these hare-hunts, and I will give\n    a short and exact description of what took place.\n\n    \u201cAt three o\u2019clock some 180 boys, many of them quite young,\n    sallied forth for an afternoon\u2019s sport with eight couples of\n    the College Beagles. A hare was found at 3.15 near the main\n    road leading to Slough. It was chased through the churchyard\n    and workhouse grounds at this town into a domain dotted with\n    villas, called Upton Park. Escaping from this spot, it ran\n    towards Eton, but soon doubled back to Upton Park, the numerous\n    onlookers in the Slough Road lustily shouting at the dazed\n    creature all the time. These circular chases were thrice\n    repeated, the hare always getting back to Upton Park.\n\n    \u201cTwice did the animal come within a few paces of where I was\n    standing, and its condition of terror and exhaustion was\n    painful to behold. The boys, running after the hounds, were\n    thoroughly enjoying the thing, and two masters of the College,\n    I was told, were amongst them. Now for the final scene, at\n    which a friend of mine was present.\n\n    \u201cThe hare, which had been hunted for two hours, having got into\n    a corner at Upton Park which was bounded with wire-netting, was\n    seized by the hounds and torn. The master of the pack then ran\n    up, got hold of her, and broke her neck. The carcass was handed\n    to one of the dog-keepers, who cut off the head and feet, which\n    trophies were divided among the followers. The keeper with his\n    knife then opened the body, and the master, taking it in his\n    hands and holding it high above the hounds, rallied them with\n    cries, and finally threw it into their midst, as they had,\n    in the language of the _Eton College Chronicle_, \u2018thoroughly\n    deserved blood.\u2019\n\n    \u201cI make no comments upon these doings; I only say that I think\n    the British public ought to know how boys are being trained\n    at our foremost school in respect to the cultivation of\n    compassionate instincts towards the beings beneath us.\u201d\n\nIt is not surprising that the Humanitarian League should have\naddressed remonstrances to Dr. Warre on the subject of the Beagles;\none wonders rather that this \u201cold Eton institution\u201d should have so\nlong remained unchallenged by societies which profess to protect\nanimals from injury, and to teach humanity to the young, especially\nas Dr. Warre was himself a member of the committee of the Windsor and\nEton Branch of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to\nAnimals, and as Etonian subscriptions go yearly to provide a fund for\nprosecuting carters and drovers who ill-use the animals under their\ncharge!\n\n\nTHE LIBERTY OF THE BOYS.\n\nTo all these protests Dr. Warre had practically but one answer--that\nhare-hunting not being _illegal_, he could not interfere with the\nliberty of the boys in the matter, many of whom, he stated, are in\nthe habit of hunting \u201cwhen at home in the holidays, and with the\napproval of their parents.\u201d But this plea is at once invalidated by\nthe fact that many things are prohibited to schoolboys which may (or\nmay not) be permitted to them at home, and which are not in themselves\nillegal. Some of the elder boys, for example, smoke when at home in the\nholidays, and with the approval of their parents; yet if these young\ngentlemen, relying on Dr. Warre\u2019s argument, had started a smoking-club\nat Eton, he would not have hesitated to interfere very promptly with\ntheir freedom. Why, then, should an excuse which is not nearly good\nenough to justify a smoking-club be seriously put forward by the\nheadmaster of a great public school when a cruelty-club is in question?\n\nOn one point only would Dr. Warre make any concession--viz., with\nregard to the reports that appeared in the _Eton College Chronicle_ of\nthe \u201cbreaking up\u201d of hares and the \u201cblooding\u201d of hounds. \u201cThe phrases\nin question,\u201d he said, \u201care among those current in sporting papers,\nand I regret that they should have found their way into the pages of\nthe _Eton College Chronicle_, being objectionable in sound, and liable\nto misinterpretation. I understand, however, that these phrases do not\nimply anything more than that the dead hare is devoured by the hounds.\u201d\nThis led to a pertinent inquiry in the press, whether the Eton boys\nwere in the habit of hunting \u201ca dead hare.\u201d The cruelty of the sport\nobviously consists less in the actual killing of the hunted animal\nthan in the prolonged torture of the hunt that precedes the death--the\n\u201cbustling\u201d which, as we have seen in the extracts from the _Eton\nCollege Chronicle_, often renders the panic-stricken little animal\n\u201cdead beat,\u201d \u201cabsolutely stiff,\u201d \u201cso done that it cannot stand.\u201d And,\nreally, if the boys are encouraged to _do_ this thing, it is a somewhat\ndubious morality which is content with forbidding them to _speak_ of\nit! \u201cObjectionable in sound\u201d such practices are, beyond question; but\nare they not also somewhat objectionable in fact?\n\nThus, while on the one side Dr. Warre hardened his heart and would not\nlay a sacrilegious finger on the time-honoured institution which had\nbeen forbidden in the Statutes of the Founder, humanitarian feeling,\non the other side, became more and more aroused, and memorial after\nmemorial was presented to the Eton authorities, suggesting that,\n\u201cas there is now an increasing tendency among teachers to inculcate\na more sympathetic regard for animals, it is desirable that Eton\nCollege should no longer stand aloof from this humane spirit.\u201d It is\nsignificant of the growth of public opinion on this subject that,\nwhereas, some twenty years ago, the very existence of the Eton Hunt\nwas unknown to many except Etonians, we now find among the signatures\nappended from time to time to these memorials such diverse names\nas those of Mr. Herbert Spencer, Archbishop Temple, the Bishops of\nDurham, Ely, and Newcastle, Dr. Clifford, Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. William\nWatson, Mr. Frederic Harrison, Sir A. Conan Doyle, Sir John Gorst, Sir\nFrederick Treves, and Lord Wolseley, also a number of heads of colleges\nat Oxford and Cambridge, the headmasters of numerous grammar schools\nand training colleges, officials of the branches of the Royal Society\nfor the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and many distinguished clergy\nand laymen, representative of almost every shade of opinion.[23]\n\nWhen it was known that Mr. Lyttelton was to be Dr. Warre\u2019s successor\nin the headmastership of Eton, it was thought probable that his\nnotorious humanitarian sympathies would lead him to the desired reform;\nbut these expectations proved to be too sanguine. The immense stability\nof an \u201cold institution,\u201d in so conservative a stronghold as Eton, is a\nfact that must be reckoned with; for Eton is not like Rugby, where a\nreforming headmaster might venture, as Dr. Arnold did, to sweep away at\na stroke an ancient sporting custom which had nothing but its age to\nrecommend it. We all know the passage in \u201cTom Brown\u2019s Schooldays\u201d--the\nspeech of \u201cold Brooke\u201d--where Arnold\u2019s abolition of the Rugby Beagles\nis incidentally referred to:\n\n    \u201cA lot of you think and say, for I\u2019ve heard you, \u2018There\u2019s this\n    new doctor hasn\u2019t been here so long as some of us, and he\u2019s\n    changing all the old customs.\u2026\u2019 But come, now, any of you, name\n    a custom that he has put down.\n\n    \u201c\u2018The hounds,\u2019 calls out a fifth-form boy, clad in a green\n    cutaway, with brass buttons, and cord trousers, the leader of\n    the sporting interest.\n\n    \u201cWell, we had six or seven mangy harriers and beagles, I\u2019ll\n    allow, and had had them for years, and the doctor put them\n    down. But what good ever came of them? Only rows with all the\n    keepers for ten miles round; and big-side Hare and Hounds is\n    better fun ten times over.\u201d\n\nIf we compare this passage with the report of Mr. Lyttelton\u2019s address\nto the Eton boys at the commencement of his headmastership, in which\nhe frankly avowed his own \u201cstrong opinions\u201d on the subject of the\nhare-hunt, but added that he did not hold these views in his boyhood,\nand did not see why he should force them on the boys, we see the\ndifference, not so much between an Arnold and a Lyttelton, as between a\nRugby and an Eton. It is doubtful if even an Arnold could have safely\nflouted Etonian susceptibilities in this matter of worrying hares with\nhounds. The reason given by Mr. Lyttelton for allowing the hare-hunt to\ncontinue is that all legislation which outstrips \u201cpublic opinion\u201d is\ninjurious and unwise, by which he presumably means the \u201cpublic opinion\u201d\nof Eton itself--for it is certain enough that public opinion outside\nEton would bear the disappearance of the hare-hunt with equanimity--and\nundoubtedly Eton opinion, to those who dwell under the shadow of\nthe \u201cantique towers,\u201d is a matter of serious consideration, however\nmedieval it may be. It is a curious fact that the large majority of\nEtonians, though nowadays a bit ashamed of the ram-hunt and other\nsporting pleasantries of a bygone period, do not in the least suspect\nthat their beloved hare-hunt belongs in effect to the same category of\namusement. Thus, Sir H. Maxwell Lyte, in his history of the school,\nreferring to the earlier barbarities, remarks that \u201cit is evident that\nin the time of Elizabeth cruelty to animals was not counted among the\nsins for which penitents require to be shriven.\u201d But what, it may be\nasked, of the time of George V.? It is entertaining to find the _Eton\nCollege Chronicle_ itself referring to the ram-hunt of the eighteenth\ncentury as a \u201cbrutal custom,\u201d and remarking that Etonians were \u201conce so\nbarbarous.\u201d Once!\n\n\nMORAL INSTRUCTION OF THE YOUNG.\n\nThe value of the moral instruction given at Eton, as far as the duties\nof mankind towards the lower races are concerned, may be estimated\nfrom the following sentiment of an Eton boy, quoted from a letter of\ndignified remonstrance addressed to the interfering humanitarians: \u201cA\nhare is a useless animal, you must own, and the only use to be made of\nit is for the exercise of human beings.\u201d It will be seen that Etonian\nphilosophy is still decidedly in the anthropocentric stage. It is not\neasy, even for the most progressively minded headmaster, to make any\nimmediate impression on such dense and colossal prejudice.\n\nBut let us at least take courage from the fact that the ram-hunt is\nno more, that the college cook no longer hangs up a live crow to be\npelted to death on Shrove Tuesday, and that the Eton boys are not now\ninvited to indulge in the manly sports of bull-baiting, dog-fighting,\nand cat-hunts. These recreations have gone, never to return, and it is\nequally certain that, sooner or later, the hare-hunt will also have to\ngo. It is not to be supposed that Mr. Lyttelton, who is keenly alive\nto the best and most humane tendencies of the age, is insensible to\nthe discredit which Eton incurs by thus prolonging into the twentieth\ncentury a piece of savagery which Rugby, Harrow, and the other great\npublic schools have long outgrown and abandoned; or that he does not\nfeel the sting of Mr. W. J. Stillman\u2019s remark that \u201cthe permission\ngiven to the boys of Eton to begin their education in brutality,\nwhen they ought to be learning to say their prayers, is the crowning\ndisgrace of all the educational abuses of a nation which instituted the\nRoyal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.\u201d\n\nTo those, of course, who regard blood-sports as not only a proper\npastime for men, but a desirable recreation for schoolboys, and\na fit form of training for military service, the whole protest\nagainst the Eton hare-hunts must needs seem ridiculous; but even\nthese thoroughgoing sportsmen will have to admit that the trend of\npublic opinion is against them, else why does Eton now stand alone\namong public schools in this matter? If the reasoning of the Etonian\napologists be sound, the _absence_ of Beagles at Rugby, Harrow, and the\nother great schools, is a glaring defect in their system which ought\nspeedily to be remedied; yet we have not heard that any enthusiast\nhas gone so far as to suggest that the schools which have long since\nabandoned hare-hunting should now make a return to it, and short of\nthis complete approval of the sport the excuses put forward on its\nbehalf are about as feeble as could be imagined.\n\nIt cannot, for instance, be seriously argued that boys whose\nstudies are notoriously endangered by the very numerous athletic\nexercises--cricket, rowing, football, fives, racquets, running,\netc.--in which they are able to indulge, are in need of yet another\npastime in the form of hunting hares. Granted that it would be\ninadvisable for the school authorities to preach advanced humanitarian\ndoctrines to boys whose family traditions and prejudices they are bound\nto consider, still, it is not necessary to go to the other extreme\nof encouraging them in familiarity with sights and scenes which must\ntend to deaden the sense of compassion. From the moral standpoint,\nblood-sports cannot be regarded in quite the same light as athletic\nexercises; and there are many persons nowadays who, without raising\nthe question of the morality of field sports for adults, think that\nthe license given to young boys to spend their half-holidays in the\n\u201cbreaking up\u201d of hares is as great a stain on the English public-school\nsystem as any of the admitted \u201cimmoralities\u201d by which that system is\nundermined.\n\nThere is, in the opinion of humanitarians, a grave inconsistency\nbetween the insistence of preachers and teachers on the duty of\nkindness and consideration, and the sanction accorded by the school\nauthorities to practices the very reverse of these. Unconsciously,\nperhaps, but none the less surely, the youthful minds which are trained\nunder such influences are affected in their turn, and learn to conform\nsuperficially to maxims of piety and honour, while practically in their\nown lives they are setting those virtues at defiance.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[22] It should not be forgotten that hare-hunting is also carried on\nby our naval cadets. Here is an extract from the _Naval and Military\nRecord_ of March 1, 1906, describing a run with the Dartmouth\n(\u201cBritannia\u201d) Beagles: \u201cJust outside the covert a hare was moved in the\nploughing by hounds, and gave a most exciting chase around two fields,\nand when killed was found to have only three legs.\u201d A fine sport for\nour future naval officers!\n\n[23] It is also worthy of note that a memorial against the Dartmouth\nBeagles, presented to the First Lord of the Admiralty by the\nHumanitarian League in 1907, was signed by no fewer than twenty-five\nheadmasters of public schools. As a result of the League\u2019s protests,\nthe grant of public money for the maintenance of this sport was\nwithdrawn.\n\n\n\n\nSPORTSMEN\u2019S FALLACIES\n\nBY HENRY S. SALT\n\n\nEveryone knows the old story of the Wildgrave, that spectral huntsman\nwho, for the wrongs done by him in the past to his suffering\nfellow-creatures, was doomed to provide nightly sport for a troop of\nghostly pursuers.\n\n    \u201cThe Wildgrave flies o\u2019er bush and thorn,\n      With many a shriek of helpless woe;\n    Behind him hound, and horse, and horn,\n      And \u2018Hark away!\u2019 and \u2018Holla ho!\u2019\u201d\n\nIf we may judge by the signs of the times, a similar fate has now\novertaken the modern sportsman, who finds to his dismay that his proud\nvocation no longer goes unchallenged, but that he is compelled to\nstand on his defence before the force of ethical opinion, and to play\nthe part less of the pursuer than of the pursued. Nowadays it is the\nhumanitarians who, in the intellectual discussion of sport, derive keen\nenjoyment from the \u201cpleasures of the chase,\u201d and having \u201cbroken up\u201d the\nRoyal Buckhounds after a ten years\u2019 run, are hunting the sportsman from\ncover to cover, from argument to argument.\n\nThe sportsman, in fact, is now himself standing \u201cat bay\u201d; and it may\nbe worth while to consider what value, if any, attaches to the excuses\ncommonly put forward by him in justification of his favourite pastime.\nOn what moral grounds are we asked to approve, in this twentieth\ncentury, such seemingly barbarous practices as the hunting to death\nof stags, foxes, and hares; the worrying of otters and rabbits; or\nthe shooting of vast numbers of game birds in the battue? The hunted\nfox, as we know, has many wily resources for throwing his pursuers off\nthe scent. What are the corresponding shifts and wiles of the hunted\nsportsman?[24]\n\n\nTHE APPEAL TO \u201cNATURE.\u201d\n\nThe first, perhaps, that demands notice is the frequent appeal to\n\u201cNature,\u201d and even (when the hunter happens to be a man of marked\npiety) to the savage instincts which \u201cthe Creator,\u201d it is assumed, has\nimplanted. \u201cWere not otter hounds created to hunt and kill otters?\u201d\nasked a devout correspondent of the _Newcastle Daily Journal_.\n\u201cTherefore,\u201d he continued, \u201clet me ask these persons (the opponents of\nsport) what right they have to place their own peculiar faddism against\nthe wisdom of the Creator?\u201d In like manner a distinguished hunter of\nbig game, Mr. H. W. Seton-Karr, has defended himself as follows in the\n_Daily Chronicle_:\n\n    \u201cIf a person experiences pleasure in the chase, such as in\n    fox-hunting or deer-stalking, or even in lion-hunting, the\n    rights and wrongs of that natural instinct are a personal\n    matter between that man and his God. That, in common with all\n    carnivorous creatures, we do possess God-planted instincts of\n    the chase is a fact. Why did Almighty God create lions to prey\n    nightly on harmless animals? And should we not, even at the\n    expense of a donkey as a bait, be justified in reducing their\n    number, sacrificing one for the good of many?\u201d\n\nThe answer to all this pious verbiage is, of course, very simple. In\nview of the fact that the sportsman of the present day professes to\nbe _civilised_, and is at any rate nominally a member of a civilised\nState, it is quite irrelevant to plead that the propensity to hunt\nis natural to the _savage_ man. We are continually striving in other\ndepartments of life to get rid of ferocious instincts, an inheritance\nfrom a savage past, which may or may not be \u201cGod-planted,\u201d but are\ncertainly very much out of place in a society which regards itself\nas humane. Why, then, should it be assumed that an exception is to\nbe made in favour of the hunting instinct? The charge against modern\nblood-sports is that they are an anachronism, a survival of a barbarous\nhabit into a civilised age; nor can it possibly be any justification\nof them to show that Nature herself is cruel, for as we do not make\nsavage Nature our exemplar in other respects, there is no reason why we\nshould do so in this. And as for the statement that a man\u2019s treatment\nof the lower animals is a \u201cpersonal\u201d affair \u201cbetween that man and his\nGod,\u201d it can only provoke a smile. For man is a social being, and not\neven the sportsman, belated barbarian though he may be, can be allowed\nthe privilege of thus evading the responsibility which he owes to his\nfellow-citizens in a matter affecting the common conscience of the race.\n\nBut the wild animals, it is argued, put themselves outside the pale\nof consideration because they prey on one another. One searches in\nvain for justice and mercy among the lower animals--such is the\nstrange reason advanced as an excuse for showing no justice or mercy\nto _them_.[25] But, in the first place, it is not a fact that these\nqualities are non-existent in the lower races, where co-operation is as\nmuch a law of life as competition; and, secondly, if it were a fact,\nit would have no bearing whatever on the morality of sport. For why\nshould we base human ethics on animal conduct? Still more, why should\nwe imitate the predatory animals rather than the sociable? And finally,\nwhy, because some animals kill for food, should _we_ kill for pleasure?\nThe cruelty of Nature can afford no possible justification for the\ncruelty of Man, for, as Leigh Hunt wrote in that trenchant couplet\nwhich may be commended to the notice of the sportsman--\n\n    \u201cThat there is pain and evil is no rule\n    That I should make it greater, like a fool.\u201d\n\nNext we come to the kindred sophism drawn from \u201cthe necessity of\ntaking life.\u201d To kill, we are reminded, is unavoidable; for wild\nanimals must be \u201ckept down,\u201d or the balance of Nature would be\nderanged. That, of course, is undeniable; but, unfortunately for the\nsportsman\u2019s argument, it is a fact that the breed of foxes, rabbits,\npheasants, and other victims of sport, is artificially kept up, not\ndown, in order that there may be plenty of hunting and shooting for\nthe idle classes to amuse themselves with. So far from securing the\neffective destruction of noxious animals, sport indirectly prevents\nit; more than that, it causes the killing to be done not only\nineffectively, but in the most demoralising way, by making a pastime\nout of what, if done at all, should be done as a disagreeable duty.\nBut here we must in justice mention a new and ingenious excuse for\nblood-sports which (to add to its zest) was put forward by a clergyman.\nIt is necessary to take life, he argued, and what is necessary is a\nduty, and it is right, as far as possible, to make a pleasure of one\u2019s\nduties, and therefore--but the conclusion is plain! Presumably the\nreverend gentleman, had he lived a century back, would have found the\nsame pious justification for the practice of making up pleasure parties\nto see felons hanged.\n\n\nSPORT A BLESSING TO MEN.\n\nSpeaking generally, we may class the remaining arguments under two\nheads: those which aim at showing that sport is of benefit to mankind,\nor at least not a symptom of cruelty in the sportsman; and those which\nactually discover it to be a blessing to the animals themselves.[26] In\nthe former and more prosaic category must be placed the queer assertion\nthat sport \u201cadds to the food-supply\u201d of the nation. We have all read\nhow, after some aristocratic \u201cshoot,\u201d a number of pheasants or other\npalatable game were presented to the local hospital. Sport, it is seen,\ngoes hand in hand with the charitable and the philanthropic--truly a\ntouching picture! But the fact remains that the cost of the animals\nthus reared primarily for sport, and secondarily for the table, is\nfar in excess of their market value as food, and this at once knocks\nthe bottom out of the sportsman\u2019s patriotic contention. Every stag\nthat is stalked, every pheasant that is mown down in the battue, and\nevery hare or rabbit that is knocked over in covert-shooting, has cost\nthe country much more to produce than it is worth when butchered; and\nthe game-preserver, far from being helpful to the community in this\nrespect, is a positive encumbrance to it, as wasting labour in the\nproduction of what is not a food, but a luxury. Game is reared not for\nthe benefit of the many, but at the cost of the many, to gratify the\nidle and cruel instincts of the few.\n\nNot less illusory is the plea so frequently made in sporting journals\nas a justification of sport, that hunting and shooting \u201cgive\nemployment\u201d to a large number of people. \u201cDo these hyper-humane\nfaddists,\u201d asks the _Irish Field_, \u201cever consider how, by doing away\nwith many of what they are pleased to call spurious sports, they would\nbe taking the actual bread-and-butter out of the mouths of thousands\nof men and their families? Hunting, shooting, and other sports give\nemployment to such a vast number of people, directly and indirectly,\nthat it would be nothing short of a national calamity if they were\ndiscontinued for any cause.\u201d What is really proved by such apologists\nis that blood-sports are a terrible drain on the resources of the\nnation, and that millions are annually diverted from productive labour\nto be employed on the silliest form of luxury--the killing of animals\nfor the mere amusement of rich people. It is the old fallacy of\nsupposing that _all_ expenditure of money, without regard to the nature\nof the commodities produced, is beneficial to the community at large.\n\nThen there is the much-vaunted \u201cmanliness\u201d of sport, so important a\nquality, we are told, in an imperial and military nation. Yet what\ncould be more flagrantly and miserably _un_manly than for a crowd of\nmen to sally forth, in perfect security themselves, armed or mounted,\nwith every advantage of power and skill on their side, to do to death\nwith dogs or guns some poor skulking, terrified little habitant of\nwoodside or hedgerow? This is what Sir Henry Seton-Karr has to say on\nthis point:\n\n    \u201cOnly those who have experienced it can realise the strength\n    of the hunter\u2019s lust to kill the hunted, though they may find\n    it difficult to explain. It is certain that no race of men\n    possess this desire more strongly than the Anglo-Saxons.\u2026\n    Let us take it that in our case this passion is an inherited\n    instinct--which civilisation cannot eradicate--of a virile and\n    dominant race, and that it forms a healthy natural antidote to\n    the enervating refinements of modern life.\u201d[27]\n\nThe obvious answer to this claim is that civilisation _is_ eradicating\nthe destructive instincts of sport--with extreme slowness, no doubt,\nas in the case of all barbarous inherited tendencies, but surely and\ncertainly nevertheless; and the fact that blood-sports are already\ncondemned by many thoughtful people is a clear indication of what\nverdict the future will pass on the profession of killing for \u201cfun.\u201d\nThat good physical exercise is provided by field sports none will\ndeny, but it is just as undeniable that such exercise can be as well\nor better provided in other ways--by the equally healthy and far more\nmanly sports of the gymnasium and the playing-field, which, be it\nnoted, are capable of being utilised by a much larger number of people\nthan the privileged pastimes of the crack huntsman and \u201cshot.\u201d There\nis no reason why the mass of the population should not, under a juster\nsocial system, have leisure to derive benefit from cricket, football,\nboating, hockey, and the other rational sports; but it is very evident\nthat only a very few can ever find recreation in those blood-sports\nwhich are absurdly called \u201cnational.\u201d The rational and humane sports\nmay be for the many; the \u201cnational\u201d and cruel sports must be for the\nfew: that is not the least of the striking differences that distinguish\nthem.[28]\n\nTo contend that blood-sports have no injurious influence on the minds\nof those who practise them seems about as reasonable as to assert that\neffect does not follow cause. Yet it is frequently urged, in defence\nof sport, that the pleasure is found not in the \u201ckill,\u201d but in the\nchase. That may be true in a sense. What humanitarians hold is not\nthat sportsmen derive pleasure from the _mere_ infliction of pain,\nbut that they seek excitement without sufficient regard to the pain\ninflicted, and that this is apt, in some cases, to breed a positive\nlove of killing, a real \u201cblood-lust.\u201d Take, for example, the following\nremark quoted from the _Eton College Chronicle_: \u201cAt the time we are\nwriting, the Beagles have killed but twice, though by the time the\n_Chronicle_ appears they may have increased this number by one.\u201d Here\nit will be seen that what the boys\u2019 journal dwells on is precisely the\nkilling--surely a significant side-light on the influence of the sport.\nThere is no escaping this question, whether at Eton or elsewhere: Why,\nif the painful pursuit of a sentient animal be not an essential part\nof the amusement, is the drag-hunt refused as a substitute? And if the\ndrag be disdained as not sufficiently exciting, how can the inference\nbe avoided that the zest of the pastime is enhanced by the peril of the\nquarry?\n\n\nSPORT A BLESSING TO THE ANIMALS.\n\nBut it is when he is demonstrating that sport comes as a boon and a\nblessing to the non-human races which are the victims of it that the\nsportsman is most entertaining. \u201cThey like it,\u201d he asserts, when any\npity is expressed for the hunted fox.\n\n    \u201cHappy the hounds, loud-baying on his track!\n      Happy the huntsmen with their murderous call!\n    But the spent fox, dead-beat before the pack--\n      His are the sweetest, strangest joys of all!\u201d\n\nThis love on the part of certain animals for being hunted to death\nis surely one of the most curious facts in natural history, and makes\nit seem almost an injustice to horses, cows, pigs, and other domestic\ncreatures, that they are denied a privilege which is so freely accorded\nto their wilder brethren. Why should deer, for instance, be specially\nfavoured in this respect? The stag, as a noble lord once remarked, is a\nmost pampered animal. \u201cWhen he was going to be hunted he was carried to\nthe meet in a comfortable cart. When set down, the first thing he did\nwas to crop the grass. When the hounds got too near, they were stopped.\nBy-and-by he lay down, and was wheeled back to his comfortable home. It\nwas a life that many would like to live.\u201d It appears, therefore, that\nit is a loss, a deprivation, not to be hunted over a country full of\nbarbed wire and broken bottles by a pack of stag-hounds. Life is mean\nand poor without it; for, to humans and non-humans alike, sport, as the\nsame nobleman expressed it, is \u201cthe gift of God.\u201d\n\nBut the sportsman can be very \u201cslim\u201d when hard pressed in controversy\nby his implacable pursuers, and among his many devices for confusing\nthe issue, the most subtle, perhaps, is the metaphysical argument which\npleads that it is better for the animals to be bred and killed in sport\nthan not to be bred at all, and that it is to the \u201cpreservation\u201d which\nsport affords that certain species owe their escape from extinction.\nMr. R. A. Sanders, late Master of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds,\nhas thus written of the stag (_Nineteenth Century_, August, 1908):\n\n    \u201cHe has lived a life of luxury for years, and has a bad\n    half-hour at the end. From his point of view surely the\n    pleasure predominates over the pain. For if it were not for the\n    hunting, he would not exist at all.\u201d\n\nWhen a Bill was introduced in Parliament in 1883 for the prohibition\nof the cruel sport of pigeon-shooting, it was opposed by Sir Herbert\nMaxwell on the ground that a pigeon would rather accept life, \u201cunder\nthe condition of his life being a short and happy one, violently\nterminated,\u201d than not be brought into existence; and the same sportsman\nhas since stated, as a \u201csalient paradox,\u201d that one who takes delight in\npursuing and slaying wild animals may claim to rank among their best\nfriends. It escaped his notice, as it escapes the notice of all who\nseek refuge in this amusing piece of sophistry, that it is beyond our\npower to ascertain the feelings or the preferences of a pigeon, or of\nany other being, _before_ he is in existence; what we have to deal with\nis the sentience of animals that _already_ exist.\n\nAnd as for the contention that animals are \u201cpreserved\u201d by sport, it\nis sufficient to point out that it rests on a mental confusion between\nthe individual animal and the species. It would be little comfort to\nthe individual fox who is torn to pieces by the hounds to know, if he\ncould know, that his species is preserved by his tormentors, and that\nthe same process of death-dealing will thus be perpetuated. When it is\nasserted that but for fox-hunting the fox would have been exterminated\nin England like the wolf, the answer of course is that of the two\nmethods extermination is far the more merciful. Can it be pretended\nthat it would have been kinder to wolves to keep a number of them alive\nin order that sportsmen might for ever pursue and break them up?\n\nAnd, really, if it is so kind to animals to preserve them that they may\nbe worried with hounds, we ought to feel some compunction at having\nallowed the humane old sport of bear-baiting to be abolished; for,\naccording to the same \u201csalient paradox,\u201d the bear-baiter was Bruin\u2019s\nbest friend. It is sad to think that there used to be bears in many an\nEnglish village where now they are never seen!\n\nIt is for the fox, perhaps, that the sportsman\u2019s solicitude is most\ntouching and most characteristic. \u201cIf we stay fox-hunting,\u201d it has been\nsaid, \u201cfoxes will die far more brutal deaths in cruel vermin traps,\nuntil there are none left to die.\u201d How tender, how considerate, is this\ndisinterested regard for the welfare of the hunted animal![29] The\nmerciful sportsman steps in to save a noxious species from extinction,\nand in return for such \u201cpreservation\u201d demands that the grateful fox\nshall be hunted and worried and dismembered for the amusement of his\ngentle benefactor. But are not our fox-hunting friends just a trifle\ntoo clever in making, at one and the same time, two quite incompatible\nand contradictory claims for their beloved profession--first, that\nit saves the fox from extermination; and, secondly, that it rids the\ncountry-side of a very mischievous animal? \u201cFor six good months,\u201d says\nthe _Sportsman_, \u201che is allowed to frolic at his ease, with all his\npoultry-bills paid for him.\u201d The argument here is that there can be\nno cruelty in fox-hunting, because the fox is preserved; but, in that\ncase, what about the following defence of fox-hunting by the editor\nof the \u201cBadminton Library\u201d? \u201cThe sentimentalist,\u201d he says, \u201cdoes not\nconsider those other tragedies for which the fox is responsible--the\nrabbits, leverets, poultry, and game birds that he devours daily. The\ndeath of a fox is indeed the salvation of much life.\u201d\n\nSo the farmer is to be grateful to the fox-hunter because the fox\nis killed, and the fox himself is to be grateful to the same person\nbecause he is _not_ killed! It is obvious that the sporting folk\ncannot have it both ways; they cannot take credit for the destruction\nof a pest and also for preventing that pest being exterminated by the\ninjured farmer. Let them choose one of the alternative arguments and\nkeep to it.\n\n    \u201cHark ye, then, whose profession or pastime is killing!\n      To dispel your benignant illusions I\u2019m loth;\n    But be one or the other, my double-faced brother--\n      Be saviour or slayer--you cannot be both!\u201d\n\nThe more one considers it, one cannot but smile at the sportsman\u2019s\n\u201clove\u201d for the animals whom he so persecutes and worries. Tom Tulliver,\nwe remember, was described by George Eliot as \u201cfond of animals--fond,\nthat is, of throwing stones at them\u201d; and so it is with this affection\nof the sportsman\u2019s. \u201cWhat name should we bestow,\u201d says an old writer,\n\u201con a superior being who, without provocation or advantage, should\ncontinue from day to day, void of all pity or remorse, to torment\nmankind for diversion, and at the same time endeavour with the utmost\ncare to preserve their lives and to propagate their species in order\nto increase the number of victims devoted to his malevolence, and be\ndelighted in proportion to the miseries which he occasioned? I say,\nwhat name detestable enough could we find for such a being? Yet if we\nimpartially consider the case, we must acknowledge that, with regard to\nthe inferior animals, just such a being is the sportsman.\u201d[30]\n\n\nTRUST THE SPECIALIST.\n\nSuch, then, are the arguments which are advanced in all seriousness,\nand without a suspicion or twinkle of humour, to prove that\nblood-sports are a benefit to mankind and to the lower races alike. But\nbefore concluding I must mention one other piece of reasoning which\nis as amusing as any specimen of sportsman\u2019s logic--the \u201ctrust the\nspecialist\u201d fallacy, which asserts that none but sportsmen can fairly\npass judgment on sport. For example, when a memorial was presented to\na former Prime Minister against the Royal Buckhounds, a certain paper\ngravely remarked that \u201cwhat proportion of the protesting gentlemen had\never been on horseback, it was not easy to determine.\u201d The assumption,\nit will be seen, is that when any cruel practice is arraigned before\npublic opinion, we are not merely to trust the specialist on technical\nmatters that rightly lie within his ken, but we are to let him decide\nthe wider _ethical_ issues, on which, being no more than human, he is\ncertain to have the strongest professional prejudice. It is an argument\nworthy of the Sublime Porte itself.\n\nIn like manner Lord Ribblesdale, when defending stag-hunting in\nhis book on \u201cThe Queen\u2019s Hounds,\u201d expressed the sportsman\u2019s case\nas follows: \u201cMost people will agree that conclusions founded on\npractice must always have a slight pull when placed in the scales with\nconclusions based upon theory, hearsay, or conjecture--even granting\nthe fullest credit for sincerity and _bona fides_ to the opponents of\nstag-hunting.\u201d\n\nNow, it is, of course, absurd to represent the ethical objections to\nsport as \u201cbased upon theory, hearsay, or conjecture,\u201d for the methods\nof sportsmen are well known and beyond dispute, and many of those who\nmost strongly condemn such practices have been sportsmen themselves and\nare thoroughly conversant with the facts. But what I wish to point out\nis that Lord Ribblesdale\u2019s description of the sportsman\u2019s defence of\nsport as \u201ca conclusion founded on practice\u201d might be just as logically\napplied to the criminal\u2019s defence of crime. To invoke the judgment of\nan expert on the morality of a practice in which he is professionally\ninterested is an error similar to that of setting the cat to watch the\ncream.\n\nOn the whole, it is not surprising that the sportsman who can devise\nno cleverer modes of escape from his humanitarian pursuers than the\nsophisms above mentioned is already being brought to bay, and stands\nin imminent danger of being, controversially, \u201cbroken up.\u201d Indeed,\nconsidering the nature of the arguments adduced in its favour, one is\ninclined to think that sport must be not only cruel to the victims of\nthe chase, but ruinous to the mental capacity of the gentlemen who\nindulge in it. It can hardly be doubted that the ludicrous aspect of\nmodern sport will more and more present itself to those who possess\nthe sense of humour; and we may even hope that the poverty-stricken\ncaricaturists of our comic papers will some day relinquish their\nthreadbare jokes over the blunders of the hunting-field and the\nshooting-box, to discover that the subject of sport is rich in another\nkind of comedy--the essential silliness of the habit itself, and the\ncrass absurdity of the arguments put forward by its apologists.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[24] Some of these fallacies have been incidentally referred to in\npreceding chapters, but it is convenient, at the expense of a little\noverlapping, that they should here be treated together.\n\n[25] _Blackwood\u2019s Magazine_, August, 1899.\n\n[26] Both these lines of argument were followed by Dr. Lang, Archbishop\nof York, when on a recent occasion (November 16, 1913) he pronounced\nwhat may be called the Foxology at the dedication of a stained window\nto the memory of an aged blood-sportsman who was killed in the\nhunting-field. That a Christian minister should have been \u201claunched\ninto eternity,\u201d as the phrase is, while engaged in hunting a fox,\nmight have been expected to cause a sense of very deep pain, and even\nof shame, to his co-religionists. What actually happened was that an\nArchbishop was found willing to eulogise, in a consecrated place of\nworship, not only the reverend gentleman whose life was thus thrown\naway, but the sport of fox-hunting itself!\n\n[27] \u201cMy Sporting Holidays,\u201d by Sir H. Seton-Karr, 1904.\n\n[28] But let us not forget the delightful remark of the Archbishop of\nYork, that \u201ceven the labourer, when he felt the stir of the Meet, got\njust one of those fresh events, excitements, and interests that he\nneeded in what otherwise was often a very monotonous life.\u201d\n\n[29] This humane aspect of sport may be aptly illustrated by a passage\nin De Quincey\u2019s essay on \u201cMurder considered as one of the Fine Arts\u201d:\n\n\u201cThe subject chosen ought to be in good health, for it is absolutely\nbarbarous to murder a sick person, who is usually quite unable to bear\nit. And here, in this benign attention to the comfort of sick people,\nyou will observe the usual effect of a fine art to soften and refine\nthe feelings. From our art, as from all the other liberal arts, when\nthoroughly mastered, the result is to humanise the heart.\u201d\n\n[30] Soame Jenyns, 1782.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\n\n                                         PAGE\n\n     I. SPORT AS A TRAINING FOR WAR       149\n\n    II. \u201cBLOODING\u201d                        155\n\n   III. THE HUNTING OF GRAVID ANIMALS     158\n\n    IV. DRAG-HUNT _VERSUS_ STAG-HUNT      162\n\n     V. CLAY PIGEON _VERSUS_ LIVE PIGEON  166\n\n    VI. COURSING                          170\n\n   VII. THE GENTLE CRAFT                  174\n\n  VIII. SPOILING OTHER PEOPLE\u2019S PLEASURE  179\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nSPORT AS A TRAINING FOR WAR\n\n\nIt is often said, in attempted justification of \u201csport,\u201d that it is\nthe best training for war. This is true only in the sense that as far\nas concerns the creation and the perpetuation of a certain aggressive\nspirit, war and sport are certainly kindred pastimes with a good deal\nin common. They both date from a prehistoric period when man\n\n                      \u201cButted his rough brother-brute\n    For lust or lusty blood or provender,\u201d\n\nand both, having been prolonged into an age which ought to have left\nthem far behind with other antiquated barbarisms, are now defended by\nthe same moral and economic fallacies, as being, in the first place,\npart of the great \u201cstruggle for existence,\u201d \u201csurvival of the fittest,\u201d\nand so forth, and, secondly, as \u201cgood for trade.\u201d Good for trade they\nboth are, in the sense that they help the few to snatch a temporary\nprofit at the expense of the many; and as for the survival of the\nfittest, if you are determined to wrest that theory from its true\nmeaning, it may be made to cover both war and sport at a stretch. As\nRobert Buchanan said:\n\n    \u201cUnder the fostering wing of Imperialism, brute force is\n    developing more and more into a political science. There is no\n    excess of rapacity, no extreme of selfishness, no indifference\n    to the rights of the weak and helpless, which Christian\n    materialism is not ready to justify. The Englishman, both as\n    soldier and colonist, is a typical sportsmen; he seizes his\n    prey wherever he finds it with the hunter\u2019s privilege. He is\n    lost in amazement when men speak of the rights of inferior\n    races, just as the sportsman at home is lost in amazement when\n    we talk of the rights of the lower orders. Here, as yonder, he\n    is kindly, blatant, good-humoured, aggressive, selfish, and\n    fundamentally _savage_.\u201d\n\nWe may take it for granted that, in the long run, as we treat our\nfellow-beings, \u201cthe animals,\u201d so shall we treat our fellow-men. In\nspite of all the barriers and divisions that prejudice and superstition\nhave so industriously heaped up between the human and the non-human,\nthe fact remains that the lower animals hold their lives by the same\ntenure as men do, and that there is no essential difference between the\nkilling of one race and of the other. The tiger that lurks in all of us\nwill not easily be tamed, so long as the deliberate murder of harmless\ncreatures for \u201csport\u201d is a recognised amusement in every \u201ccivilised\u201d\ncountry. Once open your eyes to the kinship that links all sentient\nlife, and you will see very clearly the relation that subsists between\nthe sportsman and the soldier.\n\nWe recall an incident related some years ago at a Humanitarian League\nmeeting, where the craze for \u201cbig-game\u201d shooting was being discussed.\nEveryone knows how the possessors of such \u201ctrophies\u201d as the heads and\nhorns of \u201cbig game\u201d love to decorate their houses with these treasured\nmementoes of the chase. It had been the fortune--good or bad--of the\nnarrator of the story to visit a house which was not only beautified\nin this way, but also contained a _human_ head that had been sent home\nby a member of a certain African expedition and \u201cpreserved\u201d by the\nskill of the taxidermist. When the owner of the head--the _second_\nowner--invited the humanitarian visitor to see the trophy, it was\nwith some trepidation that he acquiesced. But when, after passing up\na staircase between walls literally plastered with portions of the\ncarcases of elephant, rhinoceros, antelope, etc., he came to a landing\nwhere, under a glass case, stood the head of a pleasant-looking young\nnegro, he felt no special repugnance at the sight. It was simply a\npart--and, as it seemed, not especially dreadful or loathsome part--of\nthe surrounding dead-house; and he understood how mankind itself is\nnothing more or less than \u201cbig game\u201d to our soldier-sportsmen, when\nthey find themselves in some conveniently remote region where the\nrestrictions of morality are unknown. The absolute difference between\nhuman and non-human is a fiction which will not bear the test either of\nfearless thought in the study or of rough experience in the wilds.\n\nThe temper which makes war still possible in the twentieth century\nis that which is kept alive and fostered in so-called times of peace\nby the practice, among other practices (for we do not, of course,\nassert that sport is the _only_ accessory to war), of doing to death\nthousands upon thousands of helpless animals for purposes of mere\nrecreation. Peace advocates who declaim against the infamies of war,\nwithout taking note of the kindred infamies of sport, have, to say\nthe least of it, not looked very deeply into the subject of their\npropaganda;[31] and precisely the same holds good of those \u201clovers of\nanimals\u201d who are horrified at the idea of running a fox to death, but\nare ready to accept the flimsiest of flimsy sophisms as an excuse for\ngoing to war. Sport is, in truth, a form of war, and war is a form of\nsport; and those who defend such institutions as the Eton Beagles, on\nthe ground that the schoolboys who indulge in them are thereby trained\nto be the future stalwarts of Imperialism, are fully justified in\ntheir contention--provided only that they look the facts of war and of\nImperialism in the face. The Etonians who, in the eighteenth century,\nused to beat rams to death with clubs, and who now break up hares as\na half-holiday pastime, have always furnished a large contingent of\nofficers to the British Army. Need we wonder that wars flourish without\nregard to morality or justice?\n\nBut when we turn to the assertion that the practice of sport is,\nactually, the best _training_ for war, we find it to be contradicted\nby facts. On this point we cannot do better than quote from a letter\naddressed to the _Humanitarian_ by Mr. R. B. Cunninghame-Graham:\n\n    \u201cThe rise of Japan and the fighting qualities of the Japanese\n    have shaken sportsmen from their \u2018sport-the-image-of-war\u2019\n    position. It is well known that not only are the majority of\n    Japanese vegetarians, but that such a thing as a sportsman is\n    unknown amongst them. Yet, without wishing to disparage the\n    prowess of European soldiers, how many \u2018sportsmen\u2019 would wager\n    much money on the chances of a thousand picked Europeans if\n    opposed to a thousand Japanese soldiers in an open plain with\n    no weapons but swords?\n\n    \u201cThe Boer War, and the miserable figure cut by our officers in\n    comparison with the Boer officers in both shooting and riding,\n    disposed conclusively of the \u2018sport-the-preparation-for-war\u2019\n    argument, so dear to sportsmen. In fact, \u2018sport\u2019 as understood\n    in England cannot prepare men for war, even if they ride to\n    hounds three days a week, shoot the other three, and read the\n    _Pink Un_ on Sunday. English sport and war are different in\n    their essence, and one has no analogy to the other.\n\n    \u201cIn the one case men rise from a comfortable bed, bathe, and\n    breakfast, and even if they are exposed to weather during the\n    day, return at night to a well-cooked dinner and comfortable\n    bed. The horses they ride are valuable, highly-trained animals,\n    who are expected to put out their full strength for at most\n    two or three hours, and are perhaps not required again for two\n    or three days, or even expected to be required. The shooting\n    is done under the same conditions, and though requiring skill\n    (as does the riding in fox-hunting), is not of a nature to be\n    useful in war.\n\n    \u201cIn neither case does the \u2018diversion\u2019 conduce to the\n    self-denying or abstemious habits so essential in war. Of\n    course, I do not mean that sportsmen are of necessity of\n    intemperate habits, but in war the conditions are different\n    from those of sport. In the latter case the soldier rises,\n    perhaps from a night of rain round a camp-fire, gets, without\n    breakfast, on his half-starving horse, and jogs along all day\n    at a footspace, to sleep, supposing there is no fighting and he\n    has not been killed, once more by a camp-fire, perhaps again in\n    rain, or in a driving wind.\n\n    \u201cEvery condition under which the sportsman plays is different\n    from those under which the soldier works. As in the Roman times\n    regiments of gladiators proved the most useless at the front,\n    so I believe a regiment all composed of sportsmen would make a\n    miserable show before a thousand quite unsporting Japanese.\u201d\n\nTo the same effect is the opinion of Sir H. H. Johnston, as expressed\nin an article in the _Nineteenth Century_ of September, 1913.\n\n    \u201cOne is told that fox-hunting is a splendid school for riders,\n    the making of our cavalry, etc. Rubbish! Very few of our great\n    cavalry officers have been fox-hunters, or willing fox-hunters,\n    and practically none of the troopers. A large proportion of our\n    mounted soldiers are recruited from townsmen who never learned\n    to ride until they entered the riding-school. The Boers were\n    admittedly the cunningest, most enduring riders recent warfare\n    has known, but they, like their cousins of the Wild West, would\n    probably show themselves duffers in the hunting-field; at any\n    rate, they never practised in this school of steeplechasing.\n    The last thing I desire to do is to undervalue riding as an\n    exercise, an accomplishment, a necessary art in warfare, a\n    school for teaching suppleness, coolness, and courage. But the\n    fox is not a necessary ingredient in the curriculum.\u201d\n\nWe conclude, then, that Sport, considered as a school for War, is\ndoubly to be condemned, inasmuch as, while it breeds the aggressive\nand cruel spirit of militarism, it does _not_ furnish that practical\nmilitary training which is essential to successful warfare. Sport may\nmake a man a savage; it does not make him a soldier.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[31] Here, for example, is a suggestive heading of an article in a\nLondon paper (October 27, 1913) in reference to a meeting of the German\nEmperor and the Emperor Francis Joseph for the purpose of promoting\npeace: \u201cPEACE EMPERORS MEET. THE KAISER SHOOTS 1,100 PHEASANTS WITH THE\nAUSTRIAN ARCHDUKE.\u201d A strange way of inaugurating peace!\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\u201cBLOODING\u201d\n\n\nTHE BLOODING OF CHILDREN.\n\nOf all practices connected with \u201csport\u201d none are more loathsome than\nthose known as \u201cblooding,\u201d whether it be the \u201cblooding\u201d of children,\nwhich consists in a sort of gruesome parody of the rite of baptism, or\nthe \u201cblooding\u201d of hounds--viz., the turning out of some decrepit animal\nto be pulled down by the pack, by way of stimulating their blood-lust.\nHere are a few examples:\n\nOn January 4, 1910, the _Daily Mirror_ published an account of the\n\u201cblooding\u201d of the Marquis of Worcester, the ten-year-old son of the\nDuke of Beaufort. In a front-page illustration the child was shown with\nblood-bedaubed cheeks, holding up a dead hare for the hounds, while a\nnumber of ladies and gentlemen were smiling approval in the rear.\n\nHere, again, is an extract from the _Cheltenham Examiner_ of March 25,\n1909, in reference to the \u201ceviction\u201d and butchery of a fox which had\ntaken refuge in a drain.\n\n    \u201cCaptain Elwes\u2019s two children being present at the death of\n    a fox on their father\u2019s preserves, the old hunting custom\n    of \u2018blooding\u2019 was duly performed by Charlie Beacham, who,\n    after dipping the brush of the fox in his own [_sic_] blood,\n    sprinkled the foreheads of both children, hoping they would be\n    aspirants to the \u2018sport of kings.\u2019\u201d\n\nPresumably the blood in which the brush was dipped was that of the fox,\nnot of Mr. Charles Beacham. But what a ceremony in a civilised age! One\nwould have thought that twentieth-century sportsmen, even if they would\nnot spare the fox, might spare their own children!\n\nThe following paragraph also appeared in a London paper in 1909:\n\n    \u201cA pretty little girl on a chestnut cob, with masses of fair\n    curls falling over her navy-blue habit, was the chief centre\n    of attraction at a meet of the West Norfolk Fox-Hounds at\n    Necton. The pretty little girl was Princess Mary of Wales, and\n    the day will be a memorable one in her life. She motored back\n    to Sandringham carrying her first brush.\u2026 Princess Mary was\n    \u2018blooded\u2019 by the huntsmen, and was presented with the brush,\n    which was hung on her saddle.\u201d\n\nIn connection with deer-stalking, the practice of \u201cblooding\u201d has been\ndescribed as \u201ca hunting tradition which goes back to the Middle Ages,\nand recalls the days when the gentle craft of venery was the most\ncherished accomplishment of our monarchs.\u201d\n\n\nTHE BLOODING OF HOUNDS.\n\nIn the prosecution of Mr. Alexander Ormrod, joint Master of the\nRibblesdale Buckhounds, by the R.S.P.C.A. on November 11, 1912, for\ncruelty to a doe, there was evidence that the unfortunate deer, turned\nout in private to \u201cblood\u201d a new pack of hounds, was lame and wholly out\nof condition; and, as _Truth_ remarked, \u201cthe mere fact that the animal,\nalthough given a good start, only managed to get two or three hundred\nyards away before being pulled down, \u2018screaming like a child,\u2019 was\nquite sufficient to show that she was incapable of escape.\u201d Take the\nfollowing:\n\n    \u201cMr. Marmaduke Wright, of Bolton Hall, a member of the Hunt,\n    said he saw Oddie (a hunt servant) the day before the hunt took\n    place. Oddie said they were going to let a lame deer out of the\n    pen to blood the young hounds, and witness said he would not go\n    out, as he did not care about hunting tame calves, much less a\n    lame one.\u201d\n\nThe statement of John James Macauley, an eye-witness, was that the deer\n\u201cscarcely put her hind-leg on the ground.\u201d\n\n    \u201cShe was followed by the hounds for a distance of about two\n    hundred yards.\u2026 When the doe could see she was overtaken, she\n    stopped, and he heard the poor little thing screaming like a\n    child.\u201d\n\nLord Ribblesdale, called to speak as to the practice of blooding\nhounds, condemned the method adopted by his colleague.\n\n    \u201cIf blooding had been the object, his opinion was that there\n    should have been a sudden, sharp, and decisive transaction\n    [_sic_], which would have made the hounds, whenever they saw a\n    deer, go at it. If they intended to blood hounds, the method\n    pursued by Mr. Ormrod was most foolish. It was not an uncommon\n    thing to blood hounds, and with regard to the question of\n    cruelty, if they argued from elemental principles, all sport\n    was cruel. He had hunted carted deer, and there had been no\n    cruelty.\u201d\n\nAsked whether, if a lame, emaciated, and weakened deer were released\nfrom a pen, it would be an unreasonable thing to hunt it, Lord\nRibblesdale replied--\n\n    \u201cWith the \u2018if,\u2019 yes. This was a weak deer; therefore I should\n    have blooded hounds with it.\u201d\n\nThe magistrates decided that \u201cthere was not enough evidence to\nconvict,\u201d but the prosecution did great service in showing what\nhorrible practices are still carried on under the name of \u201csport.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE HUNTING OF GRAVID ANIMALS\n\n\nWhatever differences of opinion may exist as to the morality of\n\u201cblood-sports\u201d in general, there is one recurring feature of such\nsports which, whether regarded from the humanitarian\u2019s or from the\nsportsman\u2019s point of view, is almost equally repulsive. We refer\nto the hunting, in some cases accidental, in others deliberate, of\ngravid animals. That such hunting--of the hare, of the otter, of the\nhind--takes place, there is no question whatever, as is proved by the\nfollowing facts.\n\nIt is quite a common practice to continue the hunting of hares with\nbeagles until the middle, or even to the end of March, by which time\nmany of the doe hares are heavy with young. Owing to the remonstrances\naddressed to the headmaster of Eton by the Humanitarian League, the\nEton hunting season has now been curtailed, but it is still prolonged\nbeyond the date which has been suggested by the better class of\nsportsmen. The experience recorded in the _County Gentleman_ (1906) by\nthe writer of the following letter, Mr. John A. Doyle, of Pendarren,\nCrickhowell, seems conclusive:\n\n    \u201cThe question you raise is one in which I feel a good deal\n    of interest. I have not only been for some years master of a\n    pack of harriers (foot), but I am also an Old Etonian, and\n    have always felt much interested in the doings of the school\n    beagles, and sympathy with them. Indeed, before I got your\n    letter I had thought of writing to the headmaster, with whom\n    I am--perhaps I should say was, a long time back--slightly\n    acquainted.\n\n    \u201cMy own practice has always been to have one meet the first\n    week in March, and then end the season. I was once or twice\n    tempted to go on later, and once killed a doe in kindle.\n    Since then I have kept to my rule. She gave us a sharp run of\n    twenty minutes or half an hour. This, I think, disposes of the\n    theory that a pregnant hare has no scent. Possibly she has\n    less than she would have normally. But _per contra_ she must\n    be handicapped by her condition. Then there is the risk of a\n    chop. And it cannot be good for an animal big with young to be\n    bustled and frightened.\n\n    \u201cThere is yet a worse danger. In some forward seasons there\n    may be leverets by the second week in March. The dam might be\n    killed, and the leverets left to die. I would almost sooner\n    never hunt again than run such a risk. Of course, one might\n    hunt through March for several seasons and none of these things\n    happen; but there must be a risk, and I do not myself think\n    that one is justified in running it.\u201d\n\nWhat is true of the Eton beagles is true of every hare-hunt throughout\nthe country. The sport ought to be brought to a close on the last day\nof February, as, indeed, used to be the custom. \u201cCoursing still goes on\namong a few,\u201d wrote the author of the \u201cSporting Almanack\u201d for March,\n1843, \u201cbut in our opinion the fair sportsman will _hold hard_ as soon\nas March sets in.\u201d[32] Much, then, of the hare-hunting of the present\ntime is _not_ fair.\n\nStill worse is the case of otter-hunting, which is carried on from\nspringtime till autumn, with the result that females heavy with young\nmust occasionally be worried, though sportsmen plead that this is never\nintentional. An instance that has often been quoted is recorded in the\nHon. Grantley F. Berkeley\u2019s \u201cLife and Recollections,\u201d where the story\nis told of a female otter disturbed by the hounds \u201cin the act of making\na couch for her young.\u201d\n\n    \u201cAt her we went for seven hours, with constant views, and\n    during that time, on a stump overhanging the river, she\n    miscarried and gave birth to two cubs, born only a few days\n    before their time. A hound found them, and when I took one in\n    my hand it was scarcely cold. She beat us for want of light,\n    and well she deserved to escape.\u201d\n\nSimilar instances are recorded from time to time, as by a correspondent\nof the _Morning Leader_, who told how in Devonshire, in 1891, a female\notter, after being worried for nearly four hours, had given birth to\ntwo dead whelps.\n\nBut of all such malpractices the chasing of in-calf hinds is the most\ndeliberate and the worst. If it be true, as we are informed, that\ntenant-farmers in the Devon and Somerset district complain bitterly of\nthe damage done by deer, what possible reason can be given against the\n_shooting_ (when necessary) of the hinds, in place of the disgusting\nand barbarous custom of hunting them? A few years ago the Rev. J.\nStratton, after personally investigating the matter, described some of\nthe inevitable results of hind-hunting till the end of March, instead\nof stopping the \u201csport,\u201d as ought to be done, at the beginning of\nMarch at the latest, and gave specific cases in which, when the dead\nhinds were \u201cbroken up\u201d to feed the hounds, calves as large as hares\nwere seen to be taken from the bodies. Since that time there is reason\nto believe that, owing in part to the Humanitarian League\u2019s protests,\nthere is a growing local feeling against this especially cruel feature\nof the sport, and it is hoped that those landowners and residents who\nhave humane scruples in the matter will use their influence to bring\nabout the discontinuance of this disgraceful practice. The whole system\nof hunting these West Country deer is cruel enough--involving, as it\ndoes, the death of many of them by leaping from the cliffs on to the\nrocks, or being drowned in the sea, or being hung up on wire-fences\nand mangled by the hounds. But the hunting of the hinds, at a time\nwhen even savages might compassionate them, is one of the very worst\nabominations for which even \u201csport\u201d is responsible.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[32] Quoted in _Fry\u2019s Magazine_, June, 1911, in an admirable article\nentitled \u201cShabby Blood-Sports Worth Ending.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nDRAG-HUNT _VERSUS_ STAG-HUNT\n\n\nThe fact is too often overlooked that a ready substitute for the savage\nchase of animals may be found in the drag-hunt, a form of sport which\npreserves all that is valuable in the way of exercise, while getting\nrid of one thing only--the cruelty to the tortured stag or fox or hare.\nAs has been pointed out in the _Sheffield Daily Telegraph_, a paper\nfavourable to sport:\n\n    \u201cThere is little doubt that in time the drag-hunt will become\n    the popular hunting pastime. For years it has been supported by\n    the officers of the Guards, and, besides having the merit of\n    disarming criticism on the part of the Humanitarian League, it\n    can be enjoyed by thousands of sightseers, as it defines the\n    tract of country over which the drag leads the hounds.\u201d\n\nThe attempts of some sporting writers to belittle the value of\nthe drag have been very infelicitous. If they personally prefer a\nblood-sport to a bloodless pastime, let them say so--it is a matter on\nwhich we will take their word--but when they assert that a drag-hunt\nis not suitable for pedestrians, or for schoolboys, they only convict\nthemselves of knowing as little about the practical as about the moral\nside of the controversy. The following statement was made by the late\nLady Florence Dixie, who spoke with unquestionable authority:--\n\n    \u201cDrags can be fast run or slow run, according to the way they\n    are laid. My husband owned a pack of harriers and a pack of\n    beagles, and I was able to get him often to hunt them on\n    drags, and have often ridden with the harriers and run with\n    the beagles. When a very fast, non-hunting run was wanted with\n    the harriers, the drag was laid straight and continuously, and\n    hounds ran fast, and riding was like a steeplechase, without a\n    pause, except when any of us came a cropper! When a hunting run\n    was required, we laid a catchy drag, twisting here and there,\n    lifting the scent, and copying as near as possible the wily\n    ways of Reynard. With the beagles we imitated the hare, who\n    is a ringing, not straight-running animal, lifting the scent,\n    doubling back, and so on, and, in fact, we brought thus two\n    competitors into the sport--_i.e._, the drag-layer _versus_ the\n    huntsman, and pitted their wiles and their cunning against each\n    other. I may be accepted as an authority, as few have perhaps\n    ridden in harder-fought hunting runs of all kinds than I--fox,\n    stag, harrier, guanaco, ostrich, and suchlike--and I have had\n    considerable experience with beagles as well, on foot.\u201d[33]\n\nIn face of this testimony, and of the fact recorded by Brinsley\nRichards, in his \u201cSeven Years at Eton,\u201d that a drag was successfully\nused at Eton half a century ago, it is absurd to pretend that it\ncould not be used there again; but if further proof be needed, it is,\nfortunately, available in the following letter from Mr. A. G. Grenfell,\nHeadmaster of Mostyn House School, Parkgate, Cheshire. It will be seen\nthat the idea, very commonly held, that the drag-hunt is suitable only\nfor those following on horseback, and that it would too severely tax\nthe energies of boys running on foot, is absolutely erroneous.\n\n                                              \u201c_December 16, 1903._\n\n    \u201cOn the subject of Beagle Drag-Hunting at Schools, I think you\n    will be pleased to know that we have owned and run a pack of\n    beagles at this school for the last ten years on the lines that\n    you suggest, and with the greatest success. The drag affords\n    any amount of healthy and interesting exercise without cruelty.\n    Ours is just an ordinary preparatory school, with ten masters\n    and ninety boys. Our hounds are twenty-three or twenty-four in\n    number. The sport of following them is very popular with all\n    of us, and it would be hard to devise an easier or better form\n    of school variant to the everlasting football. Not only does\n    drag-hunting keep boys from tiring of the regulation game, but\n    it is to the wind and endurance these runs give us that we owe\n    the fact that we seldom, if ever, lose a match against boys of\n    our own size and weight. The beauty of the drag-hunt is that\n    you can pick your course, you can choose your jumps, you can\n    regulate your checks and keep your field all together, and you\n    can insure the maximum of sport and exercise.\u201d\n\nHere, too, is the testimony of another headmaster of a preparatory\nschool, Mr. F. H. Gresson, of The Grange, Crowborough.\n\n                                                 \u201c_March 23, 1909._\n\n    \u201cI can fully endorse all that Mr. Grenfell says with regard to\n    the pleasure and amusement to be derived from a drag-hunt. I\n    have kept a small pack of beagles and hunted a drag with them\n    for the last five years with very successful results. In my\n    opinion, it is a very suitable form of amusement for boys of\n    the preparatory school age, as you can regulate the distance\n    and the checks, and there is no fear of their getting overdone.\n\n    \u201cAs one who is very keen upon both fox-hunting and\n    hare-hunting, I cannot pretend to say that a drag compares\n    in any way with either. At the same time, however, I get a\n    great amount of enjoyment out of it myself, in addition to the\n    exercise, and I do not find it at all a dull sport.\u201d\n\nWe do not, of course, _compare_ the drag-hunt with the stag-hunt,\nthe hare-hunt, or any other blood-sport, in the sense of saying that\nit yields equal excitement; it lacks, no doubt, the thrill of the\nlife-and-death struggle that is going on in front of the hounds. But\nfor those who are aware that such excitement is cruel and morbid,\nthe drag-hunt may be made to provide an excellent _substitute_ for\nblood-sport, with plenty of skill as well as plenty of exercise; and\nsportsmen who refuse such substitute merely give proof that their\naddiction to a barbarous practice is very strong.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[33] In like manner, Mr. W. H. Crofton, president of the Beagle Club,\nhas admitted in _The Times_ that the drag-hunt, \u201crun with skill by one\nwho understands the art,\u201d can be made to yield \u201cexcellent exercise\u201d for\nschoolboys.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nCLAY-PIGEON _VERSUS_ LIVE PIGEON\n\nBY THE REV. J. STRATTON\n\n\nPigeon-shooting is one of those practices which generous minds must\nregard with aversion. There is not a single element in it which\ncultivates any good quality in mankind.\n\nThe late Lord Randolph Churchill, in the House of Commons, 1883,\nalluding to Monte Carlo doings, gave an effective description of a\npigeon-shooting scene:\n\n    \u201cHe had had the opportunity, he said, of watching the sight\n    at Monte Carlo, though he had never had the satisfaction of\n    killing a pigeon himself. The pigeon-shooting at Monte Carlo\n    was conducted on the same principles as that at Hurlingham, and\n    under similar rules. He saw the birds taken out of the basket,\n    and before being put into the trap a man cut their tails with\n    a large pair of scissors. That probably was not very cruel,\n    because he only cut the quill, though at times he seemed to cut\n    very close. But worse followed. After cutting the tail, he saw\n    the man take the bird in one hand, and with the other tear a\n    great bunch of feathers from the breast and stomach of every\n    pigeon. On asking the man what he did that for, he replied\n    that it was to stimulate the birds, in order that, maddened by\n    excitement and pain, they might take a more eccentric leap in\n    the air, and increase the chance of the pigeon gamblers.\n\n    \u201cHe saw another very curious thing, too. One of the pigeons was\n    struck and fell to the ground; but when the dog went to pick\n    it up, the wretched bird fluttered again in the air, and for\n    an appreciable time it remained so fluttering, just a little\n    higher than the dog could jump. While the bird\u2019s fate was thus\n    trembling in the balance, the betting was fast and furious, and\n    when at last the pigeon tumbled into the dog\u2019s jaws, he would\n    never forget the shout of triumph and yell of execration that\n    rose from the ring-men and gentlemen.\u201d\n\nNow, what honest-minded man can approve of such a performance as this?\nYet the so-called sport is in much favour still, from aristocratic\ngatherings down to those promoted by low public-houses.\n\nIt is surely of the nature of anything claiming to be legitimate sport,\nthat the quarry should be in its natural, wild condition, and should\nhave a chance of saving its life from its would-be destroyer. What\nchance of this kind has a dazed pigeon, fluttering from a box in the\npresence of guns ready to fire the moment it appears? The whole thing\nis cowardly and contemptible, and should be suppressed by law. This\nfate it would have met in 1883 had the House of Lords done its duty as\nwell as the House of Commons; for a Bill which aimed at its abolition\nwas rejected in the former House after it had passed in the latter.\n\nMore lately, however, there has occurred an event which proves that\nthe views we hold respecting pigeon-shooting are beginning to find\nacceptance with the public. As everybody is aware, the Hurlingham Club\nused to lend its patronage to this sport, but recently a change in its\npolicy took place. A meeting of members was held, and the question was\nput to the vote, whether the shooting of pigeons from traps should be\nany longer permitted in the grounds. A two-thirds majority decided that\nit should be abolished. The minority endeavoured to get this settlement\nreversed by law, but they were unsuccessful.\n\nIt was instructive, as well as cheering, to observe the favour with\nwhich the Press as a whole received the judgment delivered by Mr.\nJustice Joyce on the case submitted to him.\n\nAs an example of newspaper utterances I may quote the comments of the\n_Daily News_ of February 26, 1906:\n\n    \u201cAll those who believe that 1906 is better as regards\n    blood-sports than 1868 will rejoice that Hurlingham is not to\n    be bound fast to the older date, and its defective morality.\n    Pigeon-shooting is emphatically not now--as Mr. Justice\n    Joyce said it was considered in 1868--a manly sport, fit for\n    gentlemen. It may seem a hard saying to those who, having\n    acquired proficiency in the practice, have lost their sense\n    of moral truth. The fashion at Hurlingham has slowly changed\n    in deference to surrounding opinion. Pigeon-shooting has not\n    only its negative side of unmanliness, but the positive side of\n    cruelty, and we are glad that the Club is not so indissolubly\n    built on this base sport but that a two-thirds majority may\n    decide when the time has come to abolish it.\u201d\n\n\nCLAY-PIGEON.\n\nSupposing all shooting of birds from traps were prohibited by law,\nis there any kindred diversion which might take its place? Yes; there\nis the clay-pigeon shoot, which affords good practice in gunnery and\namuses its patrons by enabling them to meet and settle contests for\nprizes and so forth. It ought to satisfy all who have not got into the\nvicious habit of thinking that sport is poor work unless it inflicts\nagony or death on animals.\n\nThe clay-pigeon, so-called, does not bear any resemblance to a living\nbird. It is like a small saucer, brown in colour, and brittle.\n\nOne of the ways in which the artificial shoot is carried on is this.\nA pit is formed, deep enough to allow a man to stand in it and remain\nunseen. In the pit is placed machinery which a person can employ for\nprojecting a \u201cpigeon\u201d to a considerable distance, at a quick speed, and\nat any angle. The pigeon may be shot up in the air, or sent skimming\nalong the ground, and fly to right or left. The shooter stands some\nyards behind the pit, gun in hand, waiting for the appearance of the\nobject. And, not knowing what course the pigeon will take, he is kept\non the _qui vive_. From the sporting point of view, this is so much to\nthe good, as uncertainty is an element of enjoyment in the matter.\n\nAt shooting grounds such as those of Messrs. Holland and Holland, of\nNew Bond Street, situated at Kensal Rise, there are many diversities\nattached to the recreation. Birds are thrown, in many cases, from high\nstructures, or go flying over trees, and move in a mode similar to that\nof pheasants or driven grouse or partridges. Then, further, at this\nestablishment, the figures of birds with outstretched wings appear for\na few seconds on a whitened screen, and form interesting objects to\nfire at. Across this screen, again, metal representations of rabbits\nare made to run on an iron rod. From this it will be understood what a\ndeal of variety may be introduced into this form of amusement.\n\nWhat humanitarians desire to see is the substitution everywhere of this\nkind of shooting for that of firing at pigeons and starlings and other\nliving birds liberated from traps.\n\nI ought to say that at Messrs. Holland and Holland\u2019s establishment live\npigeons are kept for those who wish to fire at them, but I was pleased\nto learn that, for every living bird killed, a hundred clay birds are\nshot at.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nCOURSING\n\n\nCoursing, the practice of chasing a hare with two greyhounds,\nslipped simultaneously from the leash, is one of the most ancient of\nblood-sports; but the spirit of those who take part in it does not seem\nto have improved with time. It may be doubted whether modern patrons\nof the sport are as chivalrous as those referred to by the old writer\nArrian, whose work on Coursing dates from the second century:\n\n    \u201cFor coursers, such at least as are true sportsmen, do not take\n    out their dogs for the sake of catching a hare, but for the\n    contest and sport of coursing, and are glad if the hare escape;\n    if she fly to any thin brake for concealment, though they may\n    see her trembling and in the utmost distress, they will call\n    off their dogs.\u201d\n\nWhat is the attraction of coursing? The author of \u201cThe Encyclop\u00e6dia of\nRural Sports\u201d (1852) is forced to admit that coursing has been found\ndull:\n\n    \u201cWe may be asked,\u201d he says, \u201cwhat pleasure there can be for\n    people marshalled in a line, at certain distances from each\n    other, monotonously to walk or ride at a foot pace over a\n    ploughed field or across a wide heath on a bleak November day,\n    the eye anxiously directed hither and thither to catch the clod\n    or the sidelong furrow that half conceals poor puss, or to espy\n    the tuft she has parted to make her form in.\u201d\n\nBut even so stupid a pastime as this has its charms for many people,\nwhen to the zest of seeing a timid animal\u2019s life at stake there is\nadded the more modern excitement of betting on the prowess of the dogs.\n\nOf the cruelty of coursing, as practised in the chief contests, from\nthe Waterloo Cup down, there can be no question. \u201cWhat more aggravated\nform of torture is to be found,\u201d says Lady Florence Dixie, \u201cthan\ncoursing with greyhounds--the awful terror of the hare depicting itself\nin the laid-back ears, convulsive doubles, and wild starting eyes which\nseem almost to burst from their sockets in the agony of tension which\nthat piteous struggle for life entails?\u201d\n\nOpen coursing is bad enough, on the score of inhumanity; but when\nthe coursing is enclosed, or the hares are bagged ones turned out for\nthe occasion, the case is still worse. The use of enclosed grounds\ndates from about 1876, and we learn from the volume on \u201cCoursing\u201d in\nthe Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes (1892), that \u201cmany of\nthe old school opposed it strongly, and with the best reason, for it\nutterly lacked the elements of real sport.\u201d At the present time it is\nby a strict system of \u201cpreserving\u201d hares rather than by keeping them\nin enclosures, that a sufficient supply is maintained for the great\ncoursing matches. What an object-lesson in cruelty these meetings\nafford may be judged from the fact that at some of them, such as the\ncompetition for the Waterloo Cup, there is an attendance of several\nthousand spectators.\n\nHere is an \u201cImpression of the Waterloo Meeting,\u201d by Mr. John Gulland,\nwhich appeared in the _Morning Leader_ in 1911:\n\n    \u201cStretching away into the far country (if you use your eyes)\n    may be seen two long, thin black lines, representing quite a\n    little army of beaters. In a short while dozens of hares may\n    be seen gaily sporting between these lines, in delightful\n    ignorance of the terrible enemy which is lying in wait for\n    them in front. It is the business of the beater to divert a\n    good hare from his playful companions; and if you keep your\n    eye well directed on the black lines, you will soon detect the\n    white flutter of a handkerchief passing along the lines, and a\n    brown shape leaping swiftly along the ground, nervously anxious\n    to turn to one side or the other, but kept to an inexorable\n    straight course by the living wall of beaters. A shout from the\n    crowd, growing every moment more excited as the short drama\n    is about to begin, proclaims the fact that the hare is in the\n    battle-ground, and is about to meet his Waterloo. And, higher\n    still, and louder than all, the raucous cry of the bookmaker,\n    \u2018Take 7 to 2,\u2019 \u2018Take 2 to 1,\u2019 rises shrill in the air.\n\n    \u201cAll this time a couple of greyhounds are held tight by a\n    slipper in a box, open on two sides, in the middle of the\n    field. As soon as the hare is beaten past the slipper\u2019s box\n    the greyhounds tug and strain at the leash, almost dragging\n    the slipper with them. When the hare has had about fifty\n    yards\u2019 start the hounds are released, and off they dash\n    together, looking at first like one. This is the most thrilling\n    part of the game, and is watched in a few seconds of almost\n    breathless silence. Pussy hasn\u2019t, however, much chance against\n    a greyhound, and is soon overtaken; but he still has a few arts\n    at his command. For, just as the dog is about to hurl himself\n    on pussy\u2019s unoffending body, the little creature makes a deft\n    turn aside, his pursuer flying harmlessly past. Then follow a\n    series of turns, feints, dodges, and bounds. Puss may, indeed,\n    lead his enemies a sorry dance for a little while, but it is an\n    unequal contest. These greyhounds at Altcar are the best and\n    fastest of their kind, and it is seldom that a hare escapes\n    their teeth on Waterloo Cup day. In half a minute--at the\n    outside two minutes--all is over.\u201d\n\nThe writer states that he thinks he has never seen \u201cso many bookmakers\nand bookmakers\u2019 clerks per head of the population\u201d as at the Waterloo\ncoursing. \u201cIt was the merriest gambling I have seen for many a long\nday,\u201d for coursing lends itself particularly well to betting.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE GENTLE CRAFT\n\n\n    \u201cIt has been gravely said that a good angler must also be a\n    good Christian. Without literalising the assertion, it may well\n    be admitted that there is much in the contemplative character\n    of his pursuit, and in the quiet scenes of beauty with which it\n    brings him face to face, to soften and elevate as well as to\n    humanise.\u201d\n\nThus writes Mr. H. Cholmondeley-Pennell, a distinguished authority\non angling. We fear, however, that an examination of the \u201cgentle\ncraft\u201d will scarcely justify the assertion; for the fact cannot be\ngainsaid that to kill fish for mere _amusement_ is to gratify one\u2019s\nown pleasure at the cost of another being\u2019s pain, and that, regarded\nfrom a moral standpoint, it will not materially affect the case to\nplead that the fisherman is \u201ccontemplative,\u201d or that in the pursuit\nof his pastime he is brought into touch with the softening influences\nof nature. Unfortunately, as far as his sport (which is the only\npoint in question) is concerned, there is no sign of this softening\ntendency on _him_. Contemplative he may be (in the intervals between\n\u201crises\u201d or \u201cbites\u201d), but his contemplation has apparently not taken\nthat introspective turn which would seem to be most needed. He may be\ngentle--in _some_ relations of life; but in the matter of impaling\nlive-bait and hooking fishes his gentleness is of a worse than\ndubious quality. One would have thought that a sense of humour would\nwithhold fishermen from making these ludicrous claims to virtues in\nwhich, _qua_ fishermen, they are very signally deficient. \u201cThere are\nunquestionably,\u201d says Leigh Hunt, \u201cmany amiable men among sportsmen,\nwho, as the phrase is, would not hurt a fly, that is to say, on a\nwindow; at the end of a string the case is altered.\u201d\n\nThe stories told by anglers of the alleged \u201cinsensibility\u201d of fish--how\na hooked salmon that has just broken away will sometimes return to the\nbait--do not prove very much; for that fish are less intelligent and\nless sensitive than warm-blooded animals is no excuse for torturing\nthem to the extent of their feeling. And it is evident, on the showing\nof the fishermen themselves, that the process of \u201cplaying\u201d a large fish\nis a very cruel one, since it means gradually and mercilessly wearing\ndown the strength of the victim during a desperate struggle prolonged\nsometimes for hours. Reading, for example, such a passage as the\nfollowing, taken from Dr. Hamilton\u2019s book on \u201cFly-Fishing,\u201d one marvels\nat the mood which can find enjoyment in so barbarous a sport:\n\n    \u201cI know of no greater excitement when, after casting the fly,\n    a sudden swirl of the water tells you that a salmon has risen,\n    and the tightening of your line that he is hooked. Then the\n    mighty rush of a fresh-run fish; the rapid whirl (sweet music!)\n    of the reel, as the line is carried out; the tremendous leaps\n    and tugs and efforts as the fish tries to free himself. Good\n    fisherman as you may be, the chances are against you. You at\n    one end of the line doing all you can, and putting all your\n    experience to the test, to keep and bring to bank the prize you\n    covet. The fish at the other end, with all his knowledge of the\n    rocks and bad places at the bottom of the river, doing all he\n    can to circumvent you.\u2026 And then, after a slight pause, with\n    skilful management the strain is put on. An anxious moment; he\n    gives, but oh! how slowly, how reluctantly. The question is,\n    who is to conquer. You feel your power as you wind up; you see\n    his silver side; you know there will be yet one or two terrific\n    struggles for life as he gets a glimpse of you and the gaff;\n    then comes the final rush, the line paying out inch by inch. It\n    is over! Another roll or two, and he is on the bank--and then\n    the soothing pipe while you study his fine proportions.\u201d\n\nUnder some conditions the sport consists in practically _drowning_ the\nfish in its own element. \u201cThe most killing place,\u201d says Dr. Hamilton,\n\u201cwhen the hook is well fast, is in the lower jaw. The strain of the\nline prevents in a great measure the free current of water through the\ngills, and the fish becomes suffocated.\u201d\n\nTo what extravagance the angling mania can run may be seen from\ncertain forms of sea-fishing. The tarpon, an inhabitant of the Gulf of\nMexico, is a great fish of the herring kind, weighing from 50 to 180\npounds, and measuring from 5 to 7 feet in length. It is not used as\nfood by any but the negroes and \u201clower classes,\u201d and its chief value,\nwe are told, is for \u201csporting\u201d purposes. In _The Queen_ of December 7,\n1895, an account was given of \u201can angling feat\u201d performed by a lady\nwho caught a monster of this kind. \u201cThe lady\u2019s grip,\u201d we were told,\n\u201cwas firm,\u201d and defeated the endeavours of the fish \u201cto shake the cruel\nhook from its throat.\u201d In this, and in all angling records, it will be\nobserved that the cruelty is purely wanton--the killing being done not\nbecause it is necessary or useful, but because the sportsman _enjoys_\nit.\n\nAgain, one of the most nauseous features of the \u201cgentle craft\u201d is the\nuse of \u201clive bait\u201d--that is, of worms, maggots, flies, grasshoppers,\nfrogs, and small fish. Here is one of the directions given by Mr.\nCholmondeley-Pennell:\n\n    \u201cIn using the lob-worm-tail only, the worm must be broken about\n    the middle, longer or shorter according to circumstances, and\n    the hook inserted at the point of the breakage, the worm being\n    then run up the hook until the shank is somewhat more than\n    covered and only the end of the tail remains at liberty.\u201d\n\nIt is pointed out by Mr. Alexander Mackie in \u201cThe Art of Worm Fishing,\u201d\nthat a \u201cparticularly beautiful\u201d blue-nosed lob will account for as many\nas four trout, if cut in two parts and used successively, and that no\nworm of this class should be thrown away when only \u201cslightly shattered.\u201d\n\nThe impaling of a worm or maggot is disgusting enough; but when live\nfish are used as bait the cruelty is still worse. It will be observed\nthat it is the angler\u2019s object to _prolong_ the misery of the living\nbait to the utmost extent. Thus Mr. Cholmondeley-Pennell, with\nreference to pike fishing:\n\n    \u201cWith regard to live-baits, a good deal must of course depend\n    upon the state of the water. Should it be very bright and\n    clear, a gudgeon, which is also a very tough fish, will\n    generally be found the best, and in extreme cases even a\n    minnow used with a small float and a single gimp hook passed\n    through its upper lip or back.\u2026 Probably the best live-bait\n    of all for thick or clouded water is a medium-sized dace, as\n    its scales are peculiarly brilliant, and the fish itself by no\n    means easily killed. In case of waters in which the pike are\n    over-fed, I should recommend my readers to try them with live\n    gold-fish.\u2026 If gold-fish are not forthcoming, small carp form a\n    very killing and _long-lived_ bait. The bait should not be left\n    too long in one place, but be kept gently moving. It should\n    also be held as little as possible out of water, on to which,\n    when cast, its fall should be as light as possible, to avoid\n    injury and premature decease.\u201d\n\nA very cruel way of taking freshwater fish is by night-lines. The\nvictims are often left for hours with large hooks in their mouths;\nand when at last taken from the water are exhausted or dead. This\nperhaps is a poacher\u2019s method rather than a sportsman\u2019s; but it is to\nbe observed that as a rule the despised poaching methods--such as the\nnetting, wiring, or \u201ctickling\u201d of fish--are far less barbarous than\nthose which are honoured as \u201csportsmanlike.\u201d\n\nIt is clear, then, that the title of \u201cthe gentle craft\u201d is an absurd\nmisnomer when applied to angling, and that, if humaneness had been\nreckoned among the virtues, we should not have seen the canonisation of\nIzaak Walton, the patron saint of fishermen. For as Byron says of him:\n\n    \u201cThe quaint old cruel coxcomb in his gullet\n    Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt would have taught him humanity at least,\u201d adds the poet in a\nfootnote. \u201cThey may talk about the beauties of nature, but the angler\nmerely thinks of his dish of fish; he has no leisure to take his eyes\nfrom off the streams, and a single \u2018bite\u2019 is worth to him more than all\nthe scenery around. The whale, the shark, and the tunny fishery have\nsomewhat of noble and perilous in them; even net-fishing, trawling,\netc., are more humane and useful. But angling!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nSPOILING OTHER PEOPLE\u2019S PLEASURE\n\n\nIt is a grave charge that is brought against us humanitarians, of\n\u201cspoiling other people\u2019s pleasure.\u201d We are reproachfully bidden to look\nat \u201csport,\u201d for instance, and to ponder all the manifold enjoyment\nwhich it provides for its votaries--the pleasure of the riders, the\npleasure of the horses, the pleasure of the hounds, the pleasure\n(some assert) even of the fox himself--or, if not exactly pleasure,\nat least a praiseworthy acquiescence in the r\u00f4le assigned him as the\npurveyor of amusement for others; for has he not, like Faust, purchased\nthe happiness of a lifetime at the cost of this brief hour of pain?\nAnd all this sum of pleasure the humanitarian would deliberately\ndestroy! No wonder that speculation is rife among sportsmen as to any\nintelligible reason for such malice. Are humanitarians insane? Or is it\na dog-in-the-manger instinct that prompts them to wreck a pleasure in\nwhich they themselves--poor joyless creatures that they are--can have\nno part?\n\nWe shall be expected, perhaps, in answer to these accusations, to plead\nsome austere and weighty reasons, such as the danger of an excess of\npleasure, the need of self-sacrifice, the duty of altruism, and the\nlike. We shall do nothing of the kind. On the contrary, we shall point\nout that humanitarians seek not to diminish but to _increase_ the\npleasures of which life is capable; for it is precisely because we,\ntoo, love pleasure, and regard it, when rightly understood, as the sum\nand purport of existence, that we deplore the absurd travesty of it\nwhich at present passes muster among the thoughtless. Our complaint\nagainst the sportsman and his like is not that they enjoy themselves,\nbut that they prevent other persons from doing so, through their very\nrudimentary and barbarous notions of what enjoyment means.\n\nConsider, for instance, the exquisite pleasure, surely one of the\ngreatest joys in life, of seeing perfect confidence and fearlessness\nin the beings around one--the intrepidity which is the special charm\nof children, when well-treated, and which is characteristic of animals\nalso, in the rare cases when they have nothing to fear from man.\nWe know with what child-like trust and guilelessness the primitive\ninhabitants of the West Indies greeted their Spanish discoverers, and\nhow the wild animals in newly-found lands have often shown the same\nunguarded friendliness to man, until they knew better--or worse. The\npleasure of the humanitarian consists in preserving and cherishing\nto the uttermost this friendly relationship; the pleasure of the\nsportsman consists in rending and shattering it, in making a hell out\nof a heaven, and is sowing distrust and terror where there might be\nconfidence and love. _Chacun \u00e0 son go\u00fbt._ It is useless to dispute\nabout tastes. But that the sportsman should proceed to denounce the\nhumanitarian as being \u201ca spoiler of pleasure\u201d is a stroke of unintended\nhumour from a very humourless source.\n\nThe part which the sportsman plays in the animal world--that world\nwhich might be a source of much genuine pleasure to us--may be easily\npictured if we look at one of the London parks where the bird-life is\nprotected. There we see a truce reigning between human and non-human,\nwith a vast amount of obvious human enjoyment as the result. Imagine\nwhat would happen if a man were to run with a gun or some other weapon\namong the unsuspecting animals, and pride himself on the dexterity\nwith which he reduced them from beautiful living creatures to limp\nand ugly carcases. He would be arrested as a lunatic, you say, by the\npark-keepers. True; yet that is exactly the way in which the sportsman\nis continually running amuck in this larger park of ours, the world,\nwhere unfortunately there are as yet no park-keepers to restrain him.\n\nNor is it only the sportsman, but everyone addicted to cruel practices\nof any sort, who makes the world a poorer and less happy place to live\nin. Centuries of persecution have, in fact, left so little _real_\nhappiness in life that men have been fain to content themselves with\nthese wretched beggarly amusements, which, from bull- and bear-baiting\nto stag-hunting, have disgraced our national \u201csports\u201d from time\nimmemorial, yet have always been defended on the ludicrous ground that\ntheir abolition would diminish the \u201cpleasures\u201d of the people.\n\nWho, then, is the mar-joy? Surely not the humanitarian, whose desire\nit is that there should be far greater and wider means of enjoyment\nthan at present, and who, far from discouraging the sports of the\npeople, would establish in every part of the land facilities for manly\nand wholesome sports, such as cricket, football, rowing, swimming,\nrunning, and all kinds of athletic and gymnastic exercises. To\nhumanitarians, pleasure--real pleasure--is the one precious thing; and\nit is just because there is so little real pleasure in the present\nconditions of life that we desire to see those conditions changed and\nameliorated. Why else should we \u201cagitate,\u201d sit in committees, write\nletters to newspapers, and organise public meetings to expound our\nprinciples? Certainly, not because we enjoy such occupation in itself,\nfor a more thankless task could scarcely be imagined; but because life\nis at present so narrowed and saddened by brutalitarian stupidity that\nto try to alter it, even in the smallest measure, is to us a necessary\ncondition of any enjoyment at all.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n    Accidents involved by hunting, 66\n\n    Adams, Maurice, on cost of sport, 45 _et seq._\n\n    Afforestation conflicts with game preservation, 53\n\n    Agriculture ruined by sport, 38\n\n    Athletic exercises compared with blood-sports, 129\n\n\n    Badgers as \u201cvermin,\u201d 88\n\n    \u201cBag,\u201d a six weeks\u2019, 104\n\n    Balance of Nature upset, 40\n\n    \u201cBattue,\u201d horrors of the, 83\n\n    \u201cBattue-shooting,\u201d 13\n\n    Beagles:\n      Eton, 18;\n      _Tom Brown_ on Rugby, 125;\n      forbidden by original statutes, 117;\n      not legalised until 1871, 117;\n      Dr. Warre\u2019s attitude _re_, 116;\n      strength of the opposition to, 124\n\n    Big-game hunting:\n      Mr. Ernest Bell on, 101;\n      monotony of, 101, 102\n\n    \u201cBlooding,\u201d 155\n\n    Blood-sports:\n      not manly, 56, 112, 136;\n      at schools, 116\n\n    Buchanan, Robert, quoted, 69, 150\n\n    Buckhounds, abolition of Royal, 100, 130\n\n    Buddha, humane teachings of, 29\n\n    Burmese, the, and compassion, 29\n\n    Burns, Robert, on shooting, 93\n\n    Byron, Lord, on angling, 178\n\n\n    Callousness of fox-hunting, the, 95\n\n    Carlisle otter hounds, 30\n\n    Carpenter, Edward, on sport and agriculture, 34 _et seq._\n\n    Carted deer, 22\n\n    Civilised _versus_ savage life, 132\n\n    Clay-pigeons and live pigeons, 166\n\n    Colquhoun, John, on the poacher, 81\n\n    Compassion taught by Buddha, 29\n\n    Compensation, farmers and, 37\n\n    Cornfields damaged by mice and sparrows, 40\n\n    Coursing, 170\n\n    Cricket compared with hunting, 67\n\n    Cruel sports not public benefits, 60\n\n    Cruelties of stag-hunting, 10\n\n    Cruelty, definition of, 2\n\n    \u201cCub-hunting,\u201d barbarities of, 9\n\n    Cultivated area of Great Britain, 53\n\n\n    Deer, carted, \u201caccidents\u201d to, 22\n\n    Deer-forests:\n      acreage of, 84;\n      effects of, 84\n\n    De Quincey\u2019s satire, 142\n\n    Dixie, Lady Florence, quoted, 163\n\n    Dogs, gamekeepers\u2019, 76\n\n    Drag-hunt _versus_ stag-hunt, 162\n\n    Drag-hunting a pleasurable sport, 99, 163\n\n    Durham, Lord, defends rabbit-coursing, 27\n\n\n    Economics of hunting, 60 _et seq._\n\n    Elephants, extermination of, 105\n\n    \u201cEnclosure Act,\u201d 71\n\n    Eton Beagles, 18;\n      eminent opponents of, 124;\n      hare-hunt, the, 116;\n      sports, brutality of, 117 _et seq._\n\n    Evolution and animal kinship, 33\n\n    Expenditure on hunting, 65\n\n    Explosive bullets, 113\n\n\n    Farmers and compensation, 37\n\n    Farmers injured by hunting, 64\n\n    _Field, The_, on tame-deer hunting, 24\n\n    Fishing, 174\n\n    \u201cFood-supply\u201d fallacy, the, 83\n\n    Fortescue, Hon. J., quoted, 109\n\n    Fox, the hunted, 6, 98\n\n    Foxes \u201cmade in Germany,\u201d 35\n\n    Fox-hunting, 5 _et seq._;\n      excuses for, 8;\n      H. B. M. Watson on, 95;\n      illogical, 97, 98\n\n    \u201cFoxology,\u201d Dr. Lang\u2019s, 135\n\n\n    \u201cGame,\u201d animals included as, 71\n\n    Gamekeepers:\n      brutality of, 79, 86;\n      Joseph Arch on, 75;\n      Justice Vaughan Williams and, 76;\n      increase of, 39;\n      Mr. Lloyd George on, 39\n\n    Game Laws:\n      facts about the, 69 _et seq._;\n      a legal anomaly, 70;\n      _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ of, 71;\n      popular dislike of, 72\n\n    Grand Duke\u2019s exploit, 103\n\n    Gravid animals, hunting of, 158\n\n    Greenwood, George, M.P., on cruelty of sport, 1 _et seq._\n\n    Grouse-moors and farmers, 38\n\n\n    Hare-hunting, 16;\n      Sir Thomas More on, 16\n\n    Hedgehogs as \u201cvermin,\u201d 88\n\n    Heron, destruction of the, 41, 90\n\n    Home Office, the, and Game Laws, 74\n\n    Hudson, W. H., quoted, 87 _et seq._\n\n    Hunt, Leigh, quoted, 133, 175\n\n    Hunter, the, as a \u201clover of animals,\u201d 93\n\n    Hunting:\n      expensiveness of, 62;\n      a limited recreation, 66;\n      a rich man\u2019s sport, 62\n\n\n    Instincts, \u201cGod-planted,\u201d 132\n\n\n    Japanese, prowess of the, 57\n\n    Johnston, Sir Harry:\n      on big-game killing, 114;\n      on gun-sportsmen, 93;\n      on wild life, 85\n\n    Justice ignored in Game Law administration, 74\n\n    Justices of the Peace as game-preservers, 73\n\n\n    Kropotkin\u2019s, Prince, estimate on produce of soil, 53\n\n\n    Land, effect of Game Laws on, 72\n\n    Legislation affected by hunting, 67\n\n    \u201cLive bait,\u201d cruelty of using, 108\n\n    Lloyd, E. B., on destruction of wild life, 85 _et seq._\n\n    Londonderry\u2019s, Lord, economic argument, 51\n\n    \u201cLost\u201d animals, sufferings of, 110\n\n    \u201cLust, the blood,\u201d 113\n\n    Lyte, Sir H. Maxwell, on Eton barbarities, 117, 126\n\n\n    Martin, Howard, on benefits of sport, 49\n\n    Meredith, George, quoted, 94\n\n    Mice and cornfields, 40\n\n    Modern sport not heroic, 58\n\n    Monck, W. H. S., on economics of hunting, 60 _et seq._\n\n    Moral defence of sport lacking, 7, 111\n\n\n    Natural _versus_ _un_natural history, 94\n\n    Nightingales, destruction of, 89\n\n    Nyasaland licences, 114\n\n\n    Otter hunt at Longtown, 30\n\n    Otter hunting, 18, 19, 160\n\n\n    Penal servitude for night poaching, 75\n\n    Penalties for trespass, 74\n\n    Pheasant shooting and vivisection, 1\n\n    Pheasants, artificially reared, 13, 36, 51, 94\n\n    Pigeon-shooting:\n      not true sport, 21;\n      Lord Randolph Churchill on, 166;\n      prohibited at Hurlingham, 22, 167\n\n    Poacher:\n      character of the, 80;\n      the, as gamekeeper, 81;\n      described, 81\n\n    Poachers, illegal sentences on, 74\n\n    Polo and hunting compared, 67\n\n    Preservation of game, 15\n\n    Professionalism spoiling sport, 59\n\n\n    Rabbit-coursing, 24\n\n    Rabbits, a nuisance to farmers, 39\n\n    Recreations:\n      best available to largest numbers, 62;\n      essentials of, 62-64\n\n    Remorse of the hunter, 106\n\n    Reserves for wild animals, 44\n\n    Ribblesdale, Lord, and stag-hunting, 145, 157\n\n    Roosevelt, T., quoted, 107\n\n    Rousseau, J. J., on compassion, 31, 32\n\n\n    Salt, Henry S., on _Sportsmen\u2019s fallacies_, 130 _et seq._\n\n    Sargent, Henry R., defends sport, 45\n\n    Schopenhauer and the basis of morality, 31, 32\n\n    Select Committee of 1846, 80\n\n    Sentimentalism _versus_ humanitarianism, 96\n\n    Seton-Karr, H. W., 131\n\n    Seton-Karr\u2019s, Sir H., fallacy, 137\n\n    Shooting, 11 _et seq._\n\n    Small holdings _versus_ sporting interests, 42\n\n    Sparrows and cornfields, 40\n\n    Spoiling other people\u2019s pleasure, 179\n\n    Sport:\n      importance of ethical issues, 1;\n      as a fetish, 4;\n      cost of, 45-59;\n      confusion in the use of the term, 56\n\n    Sports:\n      morally unjustifiable if cruel, 2;\n      two kinds of, 3;\n      spurious, 20 _et seq._, 58;\n      and agriculture, Edward Carpenter on, 34 _et seq._\n\n    \u201cSportsman,\u201d a popular appellation, 3\n\n    Sportsmen\u2019s claims criticised, 139 _et seq._;\n      logic, 8;\n      fallacies, 130\n\n    Stag-hunting, cruelties of, 10\n\n    Steel traps, barbarity of, 82\n\n\n    Torture unnecessary, 96\n\n\n    Unmanliness of pheasant-shooting, 57\n\n    Unregistered gamekeepers, 80\n\n    Unsportsmanlike devices, 104\n\n\n    \u201cVermin\u201d exterminated by game-preservers, 88\n\n    Vivisection and field sports compared, 1\n\n\n    Wallace, A. R., on gamekeepers, 76\n\n    War, sport as training for, 149\n\n    Warre, Dr., his defence of the Eton hare-hunt, 116, 123\n\n    Watson, H. B. Marriott, on fox-hunting, 95 _et seq._\n\n    Weasels as \u201cvermin,\u201d 88\n\n    Wild life, destruction of, 85 _et seq._\n\n    Women and hunting, 11, 19\n\n    Woodpecker destroyed by gamekeeper, 89\n\n    Wounded victims of sport, 14\n\n\n    Young, need of humane teaching for the, 18\n\n\nTHE END\n\nBILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.","title":"Killing for Sport: Essays by Various Writers","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":54278}