27 DECEMBER 1930, Page 13

Curious anomalies, that displease many sportsmen, are to be found

here and there. The loudest and most continuous bombardment that I have heard this year proceeded not from any guests at the Great House but from a posse of keepers. They are told off at frequent intervals to kill so many hundred pheasants, and proceed to the work with the same business-like thormighness they devote to the fox-drives organized in the early autumn just before the local hounds begin tubbing. This is not written to defend the fox ; but it is a pity—and quite unnecessary—that a state of civil war should exist between two classes of sportsmen.