Country Life and Sport
Two incidents in the hunting of the deer in southern England have roused protests that the more deeply engrooved sports- man would be wise not to disregard. It is his duty, and not the humanitarian's, to see to it that his sport is sportsmanlike. To drive a deer to such terror that it throws itself over a cliff, to pursue along the shore a deer—and that a hind—driven to swim miles out to sea, are acts as remote from good sportsman- ship as from humanity itself.
A very large number of English people of all classes and interests feel deeply that when the Devon and Somerset staghounds " pursued a hind into the sea for over a mile, and having brought the helpless and exhausted animal to land, proceeded with much ceremony to butcher it "—they committed an inhuman and brutal act, unworthy of the name of sport.
The protest is a protest by sportsmen as well as humani- tarians, and many of the best in this instance, as in others, begin to feel and confess that a certain number of established practices and etiquettes in British sport stand in need of revision—in hunting, in shooting and in so-called game- keeping. It may be as well to consider for a moment and without prejudice in favour of conventions, the general issue between the sportsman and the humanitarian. It is not easy, perhaps it is not logically possible, to advocate sport and preach humanity. Every sportsman must face this dilemma ; but the professed humanitarian has as troublesome a problem. Even if he is a vegetarian he wears wool and leather ; and must condone killing by accepting the by- products of the slaughter-house. A famous vegetarian used to say, " We are defeated by the bull calf" and indeed none of us can escape altogether from the penalties of "nature red in tooth and claw." Men and women will continue to hunt and shoot, to eat pheadarits and- venison ; and,hanikinitarians will continue to protest ; and neither can wholly rely on logic either for attack or defence. The sportsman feels a little bit like Rob Roy in Wordsworth's poem. He falls back on " distinctions that arc plain and few," and adopts :
The good old rule, the simple plan That he should take who has the power And he should keep who can."
He says : " some must hunt and some be hunted. The swallow kills the fly, the fox the rabbit, and man the fox." And he may quote the " argument to the man " ; our greatest soldiers most love peace. Our best sportsmen are our makers of sanctuaries.
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