STAG HUNTING
• [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR]
Sat,—Miss Chapman's letter reveals perfectly the mingled ignorance and false sentiment upon which the anti-stag- hunting agitation is based. She admits that she has never seen a stag-hunt, nor lived in the Exmoor country, and yet considers herself competent to condemn the hunt on hearsay evidence of friends whose stomachs are turned at the- sight Of a pack of hounds. Hearsay evidence - is inadmissible in a court of justice, and yet it is used by humanitarians to arouse prejudice in the minds of a well-meaning public which is, for 'the most part, town-dwelling, and therefore ignorant of wild life.
It is impossible to reason with people who boast of their indifference to facts. But to those who are capable of seeing more than one side of a question I would suggest that the real point at issue is whether the cessation of stag hunting would mean more or less cruelty to the deer. Ciuelty ard terror, of a varying degree, there is bound to be, whether they are hunted or shot. Hunted deer- are now killed with a humane killer at' short range, and when they take to sea they are not followed, but quickly come to land. I never -saw a deer, hunted or un-hunted, leap over the cliffs, nor can I discover anyone who has ever seen or heard of one doing - Deer sometimes fall over ; so do sheep, but we do not hunt the latter, though Miss Chapman would probably believe we did if someone told her so.
What the consequences would be if it were attempted to keep down the deer by driving or stalking is made quite clear by Sir F. Acland's letter. It is too long to quote here, but his conclusion is that stalking on Exmoor is "im- possible as a merciful form of destruction " : Sir Francis, at any rate,- knows what he is talking about. That " regu- lated shooting over a term of years " would mean more maimed and tortured deer and involve more cruelty and terror than any for which the hunt is responsible is admitted by all who have actual, and not hearsay, knowledge of local conditions. - -
What Miss Chapman and hei friends really want is exter- mination. To a naturalist who loves the deer and knows intimately how they enjoy- their present life this is a cold- blooded and perverted form of humanitarian cruelty which sooner or later would bring-about the destruction of all wild life. The point in my allusion to Mr. Fraser's statement that stag hunting is the sport of the rich is that, rightly or wrongly, the poor enjoy it as much as the rich. Why drag in class-hatred ?—I am, Sir, &c., E. W. HENDY. Holt Anstiss, Porlock, Somerset.
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