CRUELTY IN SPORT.
THERE is a Bill before Parliament in which powers are sought to prohibit the coursing or chasing of released captive animals. It is aimed more particularly at the coursing of rabbits and the hunting of released deer. On reading the tirades in the morning papers, I was frankly amazed to know that such things still went on unpunished. " Cruel," " debasing," " brutal '! —I agreed with every word, and wondered how such spectacles had been tolerated so long in our humane and animal-loving country. And yet a doubt, a faint stirring of my sense of justice and fairness, assailed me again and again until I verily know not where I stand.
In sport, as in everything else, we find that one's inclinations, one's amusements, one's desires, only too readily colour one's point of view, and we fall back upon that time-worn statement, " Thy sport is more cruel than mine, therefore cease." When we consider the amazing lack of proportion and the partisanship with which we regard such matters, we can only come to the sad conclusion that the human race has not yet advanced far enough upon the path of evolution to judge of such things in an impartial spirit. The same person who will carefully free the fly from the web of the spider will cheerfully squash it a moment later should it alight upon his neck. The lady who will sit in the grouse butts all day admiring the skill with which one kills and mains grouse will shrink with horror from the invitation to watch one perform a similar service to a stag.
'The game preserver and bird lover hurl abuse at the egg collector, who in turn produces unassailable arguments to prove that not only does he do no Warm by removing an- entire chitch of eggs,-but actually increases the chance of a brood reaching maturity, by forcing the hen bird to lay at a later and more clement period of the year.
The spider, the shark, the peregrine, the weasel are held up in story and rhyme as living examples of cruelty and ferocity. Why ? Because they do instinctively what we do deliberately, i.e., kill and eat their prey. If, however, they attain a certain standard of beauty and size, as the eagle and the lion do, these epithets do not apply ; then the animals pass through con- demnation to approbation and blossom forth upon an admiring world not as mere murderers but as the king of beasts and of birds.
Picture to yourself the universal horror with which an animal would be regarded who deliberately fattened its prey before eating it. Consider the invective thrown upon the fox who in robbing the hen roost kills more than he can carry away, and then visualize for one moment the butts after a successful grouse drive. Yes, verily we demand from the animal kingdom a very much higher standard of kindliness than we expect from the human race, and verily we receive it. However, I stray from the realms of sport, where the demarcation line between fun and cruelty must be clearly drawn, into the realms of food production, where apparently every brutality may be indulged in.
Now, the Bill to which I have referred seeks to pro- hibit the chasing of captive deer and the coursing of captive rabbits. In the first instance the deer (I think either stag or hind indifferently) is brought to the meet in a cart, released with a suitable start, hunted until brought to bay ; when the hounds are called off the deer is replaced in the cart and taken home to a fine bean supper. For the life of me I cannot see the com- parative cruelty in that ; I cannot see much sport in it either, for that matter ; but that is neither here nor there. Rabbit coursing is a different matter. The rabbits are brought to a field in hampers, released in ones or twos with " a start so small as to make their chances of escape almost negligible," and chased by whippets, whilst betting takes place on the result. The words in inverted commas are the important ones, as apparently the crucial test whether sport is sport or merely " a disgusting spectacle " is twat the animal should be given a reasonable chance of escape.
In fox hunting, all forms of shooting, coursing, fishing, &c., the animal has a chance of escape, and in most cases a moderately good one. But to make that argument tenable one must credit the animal with an intelligence which it does not (as far as we know) possess—the faculty of reasoning. I am doubtful if the hare in the jaws of the whippet feels any the more comfortable because the spectators happen to know he had a reasonable chance of escape. Besides, what sane man can possibly contend that an act of brutality perpetrated upon three rabbits becomes any the less brutal when perpetrated upon only one out of the three, or, in other words, that cruelty divided by three becomes sport ? I confess I am also unable to see that it is any the more kind to drive birds to and fro across the butts all day, wounding and killing some each time, than it would be to eliminate them all (were it possible to do so) with one fell discharge. Less sport certainly, but also less cruel. It is truly remarkable how quickly custom blunts the perceptions. The delicately nurtured Spanish ladies are amazed if one expresses surprise at their presence during a bull fight. Yet every English " sportsman " pours contumely upon such a spectacle, not on the bull's account, but because of the maiming of the horses engaged—in which animal he is particularly interested, partly from his upbringing, partly because he finds it a useful medium through which to win or lose large sums of money quickly. The Spaniard might equally well reply, and with some reason, " What about the Grand National ? "—in which numbers of horses have been, just as badly maimed, and which, on account of the unfair size of the hedges and the fact that horses are entered which have no possible chance of getting round the course, partakes just as much of a gladiatorial show as a race. We must also remember that the Spaniard has no words to express the disgust he feels for our national pastime of boxing. He considers it of all sports the most elemental, degrading and brutish, and if one informed him that in this country women enjoyed watching paid gladiators endeavouring to pound each other into insensibility, he would openly thank God that in Spain women were still women.
The Englishman's answer to an attack upon boxing is invariably the same. The men, he says, are free agents ; they need not box unless they like ; they study their own inclinations in the matter and are well paid for it. But are they free agents ? Do they follow their own inclinations ? From a close association with the sport over a number of years (I refer to professional boxing only), I know that the prize money in nine cases out of ten is merely a bribe to persuade men to take part in a nerve-racking and often terribly painful contest for the gratification of a sensation-loving audience. The men at the top of the tree are as grossly overpaid as the second- and third-raters are underpaid. It is no argument to say that boxers need not box unless they choose. I would guarantee to get a hundred men in London to-morrow who would fight to the death with daggers for one-twentieth part of the sum that Carpentier received as the loser's end of the purse. Yet I would not regard them as free agents, but rather as victims of circumstances forced to an unpleasant task by bribery. No; the Spaniard's view is a perfectly tenable one.
Fishing has for so long been regarded as " the gentle art " in which even women and children do right to test their skill that I am almost afraid of risking my reputation for sanity by stating quite baldly that I consider it to be of all sports the most cruel. To all those who have studied wild animals it is well known that the fear of being held, of being unable to escape, and the sense of captivity far transcend any actual physical hurt. Watch the cat, the fox, or the otter in the trap. Does he feel pain ? No, because all the physical pain is superseded by a wild, unreasoning fear. Cast your mind back, then, to the poor salmon and think of the agonies of the damned through which he must pass during his ten minutes' or an hour's struggle for life before the kindly gaff puts an end to his terrors. And yet fishermen will assure one that the fish feels no pain because he is cold-blooded ! Verily, the cruelty perpetrated upon him by the civilized world is quite sufficient to have made his blood run cold.
It is almost impossible to develop an argument in favour of shooting over butts. One may act as humanely as possible in endeavouring to kill dead and avoid wounding, but there will still be many wounded birds which may live for days before death mercifully releases them. Is that less cruel than rabbit-coursing, where, the animal has at least the advantage of a swift if certain death ?
No ; cruelty in sport is so much a matter of opinion, so largely conjecture, that I maintain that it is impossible from a human point of view to discriminate between the different grades of cruelty ; and although we may legislate on the subject, all laws must of necessity be biased, grossly unfair, and very ridiculous. From the human point of view the test of sport is the effect it has upon its devotees, and here we are upon firmer ground, for in my experience the keenest sportsmen, the best shots, the most successful fishermen, are the kindliest and most humane of men. Why it is so I am totally unable to say, but I think few will deny the fact.
We arrive, then, at the conclusion that our sports which allow the animals a fair chance of escape do tend to produce a general love of and kindness to animals, for undoubtedly in Britain our kindness to animals far exceeds that of other countries. Whether it was any the less marked in the days when " disgusting spectacles " such as bull-baiting, cock-fighting, &c., were allowed, is a point upon which I have no information. I must qualify even this praise, however,- by adding that our love of animals appears to act adversely • upon our love of children. We are the only country in the world who own a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, because, as the Chinaman aptly remarked, we are the only country which needs it.
I suppose that in an article of this kind I should close by drawing a conclusion, pointing a moral, or offering some helpful constructive ideas ; but, as I have previously said, I find it quite impossible to give an unbiased opinion. I know that all sport is fundamentally cruel. Am I therefore in favour of its total suppression ? Cer- tainly not. I would willingly eliminate rabbit-coursing, deer-chasing, and bull-fighting, because I do not happen to be in the least interested in any one of them. But fishing, shooting, boxing ; are they to go also ? Perish the thought !
Then where have my criticisms led us ; what are my conclusions, and what my proposals ? I can only reply in the words of the charwoman when asked for her character—" Ah, there you 'ave me." I trust that when the Bill comes again- before the House every MT. will vote in favour of its passing. At the same time let them retain a mental view of the maimed grouse, the wounded stag, the rabbit lying for days in a gin trap. Let them not forget the agonies of the hooked salmon and the harpooned whale, and lastly let them ponder upon the cruelties of the most modern method of hen farming, let them visualize the unfortunate crab, bubbling, as he crawls for hours on the fishmonger's slab, the lobster quickening his passage round and round the pot as the water in which he is to be boiled gradually gets warmer, let them think of the origin of foie _gray, and then let them vote for the Bill. At the same time I trust they will feel as I would under similar circumstances— pharisaical, sanctimonious and utterly untrue to them-
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