Despair for rural England
From Nancy Penn Smith Hannum
Sir: On 26 December last year, Wayne Pacelle, who is president of the Humane Society of the United States, made a broadcast to the American public, in which he said that the entire animal rights movement welcomed, ‘with unfettered glee’, the ban on hunting with dogs in England and Wales.
It should be made clear that Mr Pacelle’s views, and those of his supporters, are not widely held in America, where common sense, lucid thinking and an appreciation of the true facts inform the minds of the majority. Most Americans despair that the illinformed town-dweller may dictate to an English countryman what is not acceptable, and that the practice of husbandry of animals in the wild has passed from those who performed it with skill and forbearance to a politically motivated clique who do not care whether their newly acquired charges live or die, and that the economic prosperity of rural England is damaged beyond recall. We despair for rural England, its country traditions, its pageantry and beauty and, above all, its liberty.
Nancy Penn Smith Hannum
Former master of Mr Stewart’s Cheshire foxhounds Unionville, Pennsylvania
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