STAG HUNTING
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—With reference to Major Lethbridge's letter in your issue of June 8th, wherein he taxes me with misquoting a sentence of his in his previous letter, may I say that it was far from my wish to misconstrue his meaning, to gain a point. I have too great a respect for playing a fair game. I think he must admit that in his statement, viz., "The natural end of every wild animal is to be hunted and killed by some other animal," and my quotation was : "Most animals end up by slaughtering one another," has the same direct meaning. I certainly omitted, repeating Major Lethbridge's latter part of sentence, as to the alternative end, being by hunger and thirst, when too old to search for food, but as, unfortunately, this is one of Nature's cruel laws, and can only be mitigated by humane legislation, in regulating the superfluous number of animals, and does not justify the cruelty of civilized man in hunting them with ferocious hounds to a torturing death just for the "sport of the thing."
Thanking you for your impartial dealing in this controversy. —I am, Sir, &c., MARGARET MARTIN.
59 Park Avenue, Mitcham, Surrey.
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