17 FEBRUARY 1917, Page 3

There is great significance, for all who know our English

love of field-sports, in Captain Bathurst's announcement in the House that .the masters of foxhounds have decided to hold fewer nieet.. to slaughter most of the hounds, and, in some eases, to encourage the shooting of foxes—normally the most heinous of crimes in a fox-hunter's eyes. Captain. Bathurst, who spoke on behalf of the Food Controller, said that hounds consumed very little food and that the Department was taking no action. But the elderly men and the women who still hunt have long since made up their minds that their sport must be curtailed.