STEAM FIELD-SPORTS.
THE Globe, rich in the gossip of the Palace-halls, understands "that the expensive establishment of the Royal Buckhounds, which, with the salary to the noble Master, the Earl of Rosslyn, 12,000/., the chiefhuntsman, Mr. Davis, and the wages to whippers. in, feeders, &c., amounted to a considerable item in the Civil List, is to be broken up."
On this the editor of the Morning Post exclaims—" Can this be possible ? We suppose we shall next bear that the old English sport of hunting is to be carried on by steam, with the aid of special trains on railroads." And why not ? The change would not be so very great a departure from the present use ; for a con- aiderable step has already been made in the right direction. By the system of preserve-shooting, " sport" has already been reduced to a very mechanical process ; as any one may tell, by the vast amount of slaughter which every royal sportsman can get done by luncheon- time. The application of steam to field-sports would be quite in accordance with the prevalent taste for doing every thing as fast, punctually, and unerringly as possible. Sport might be reduced to & dead certainty. The adoption of the steam gun to preserve- shooting would enable royal marksmen to add a cipher to their Agures in the list of slain and bagged ; and as already a good deal of trouble is put off upon attendants, so it might be altogether abolished, for the sportsman need hardly hold his gun—it might work away merely with his superintendence, the noble Duke becoming a sort of factory " tenter " to that self-acting Nimrod. ale advantage of steam hunters and steam hounds is still more obvious ; for the speed might be so exactly regulated as to capture he deer at the precise spot and hour desired; and the steam dogs would not hurt or alarm the docile /era natures. One improvement semains—why not have steam game, the fere themselves, made to order ? This would perfect the completeness of the whole arrange- ment. The steam gun might not only be made to point with unerring aim, but the steam pheasant would be sure to fly right opposite to the gun. There is no end to the amount of " killed " that might be contrived in that way. And a steam stag : how manageable, portable, fleet, fugacious, and undeviating The economy would be great ; for whole parks or preserves would be Superseded by an engine-house, and the same fere would serve for all times, until out of date through mechanical improvements : the humanity would be no less, for the patent quarry would not suffer ; the philanthropy greatest of all, since game-laws would be obso- lote. This would indeed be consummating the art of aristocratic existence, and making pleasure a business.
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