19 NOVEMBER 1927, Page 16

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In your last issue

Mr. Lancaster Smith quotes from the Western Morning News a statement that in the Scottish High- lands over four thousand stags were shot last season. That calls to mind one result of hunting which affects the pleasure of the public, though it may not claim to be an argument - for its morality or otherwise.

Thanks very largely to. hunting, the harmless pedestrian who neither hunts nor shoots can ramble freely over Exmoor, but is liable to have a sorry- time in a Scottish deer forest. Anyone who finds delight in cross-country walking in England soon finds the difference between the hunting and the shooting, districts. The " trespasser " is viewed with a far more jealous eye in those countries where game-preserving is the chief interest than in those where fox-hunting comes first. It is not only the fox who might become a rarity, if fox-hunting disappear, but the rambler too.—I am, Sir, &c., ,

CHAS. S. COLMAN.

Alliolt House, The College, Bishop's Stortford.