FOX-HUNTING [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Srit;--In reply to
Mr. Lionel James, may I draw attention to four points overlooked by him :— (1) His claim, that foxes owe their continued existence to the sport, is in amusing conflict with that other claim, so -often made by fox-hunters, the gratitude of the farmer—that they are keeping down a troublesothe pest.
(2) When Mr. James bids us humanitarians attend to the cruelties of the slaughterhouse, he forgets that, when we do so, we are often told by flesh-eaters that it is the barbarities of sport which ought first to be denounced.
(3) If only vegetarians (I am one) had the right to condemn sport, then, by parity of reasoning, no single practice could 'be attacked except by persons who have cleared themselves of responsibility for all other equally cruel usages, and no humane progress -would ever. be possible. Here, again, Mr. James, forgets that every prac- tice must be judged on its own merits, or demerits ; not by the consistency or inconsistency of the persons who criticize it.
(4) Mr. James, who adjures us to be vegetarians, thinks that the boon of life compensates the fox for being hunted. Dean Inge, who agrees with us in condemning sport, thinks that the boon of life compensates the pig for being butchered. Both contentions are vitiated by the same fallacy—the idea that it is possible to compare existence with non-existence, and found an ethic thereon. Of non-existence we can predicate nothing ; and when we " bring a being into the world," as we vaguely express it, we cannot claim from him any gratitude, or drive a bargain with him (and a very shabby one), on that account. All reasoning based on such assumptions must necessarily be false, and will lead to grotesque concluiuoini.
am, Sir, &c., - HENRY S. SALT.
15 Sandgate Road, Brighton.
Previous page
