STAG-HUNTING BY TELEPHONE
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sm,—Many of your readers must have seen with astonishment and indignation the report in the Press of the incident which occurred last week at the Hawkcombe Head Meet of the Devon and Somerset Stag Hounds.
It appears that a " large and beautifully antlered " stag, after having provided a thrilling chase, eluded the hunt by taking a desperate leap into the sea. Hounds and huntsmen for a time raced along the beach in the hope that their quarry would land, but as this did not happen, most of the field.gave up the chase and went home. One of those who remained, however, " went to an Automobile Association telephone box on the moor and telephoned to Porlock Weir for a boat." The swimming stag was chased in the Bristol Channel. When the boat was near enough a rope was flung over its antlers and the animal hauled on board and killed. Those who " gave up the chase and went home " may have remembered the public outcry last year after a stag—in similar case— took to the sea and was caught by boatmen. The official explanation of that episode was that the boatmen acted upon their own initiative, although it was a huntsman who killed the animal on that occasion.
In spite of the indignation aroused by last year's incident, nothing clearly has been done to prevent a repetition of this outrage. The Spectator has championed many good causes— among others recently that of the cage bird. Could not these stag-hunters be made to understand that their methods do not add to the dignity of British sport ? If they cannot see this point of view, let them consider what the foreign 1-eader will think when, on the one hand, he hears of our •
protests against Riviera pigeon-shooting ; of our horror of the cruelties of bull-fighting ; and of our criticisms of the treatment of horses and other animals in some continental countries ; and on the other hand of how we, in our own land, harry partly tame stags into the sea, and use the apparatus of our motoring organizations to summon boatmen to help us to despatch them.—I am, Sir, &c., F.Z:S. •
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