Letters to the Editor
" IN DEFENCE OF HUNTING" [We have only been able to publish a selection from the letters which have teached us on the subject of hunting. To our surprise none of our correspondents has dealt with the practice of digging out a fox which has gone to ground. The majority of the letters we have received are from readers who are opposed to fox-hunting. Without entering upon a discussion of its ethics, we feel that most sportsmen must surely deplore the digging out of a fox that has gone to ground, a practice which is sometimes justified on the ground of the alleged necessity Of giving hounds their quarry, but which many folloivers of hounds regard Is " an abominable and unsportsmanlike proceeding."—ED. Spectator.] . [To the Editor of the SPECTATOH.] SIR,—As " Whipper-In " seems to be under the impression that all opposition to hunting comes from those who know nothing about it, and from those who live in towns, perhaps you will permit me to comment upon his statements from the standpoint of a country-dweller in a hunting county.
I was born among horses and dogs, and reared in the belief that fox-hunting was the most glorious of pursuits ; while the doings of the York and Ainsty and Bramham Moor packs were familar to my childhood. I hope this autobiographical detail may qualify me to maintain that I know whereof I write, and that, so knowing, it is my profound conviction that hunting is a cruel sport, the survival of a primitive instinct, but unworthy of developed humanity, and, therefore, destined gradually to disappear, as have other and grosser forms of cruelty in the course of evolVing civilization.
Such a conviction implies no condemnation of individuals. Those charming and cultured English gentlemen, George Wyndham and Alfred Lyttelton, and many others, might be added by " Whipper-In " to his roll of those who have done much to dignify, if not to justify, the pursuit of one wretched little animal by a troop of horsemen (and women) and a pack of hounds—to say nothing, in these days, of motorists and cyclists—but nothing alters the naked facts, or can dignify the weighting of the scales against the hunted by universal earth-stopping and all too frequent digging-out.
Like all defenders of hunting, " Whipper-In " is sure that deer and foxes are better off being artificially preserved expressly to be chased than they would be under any other conditions.. It is, of course, a convenient assumption for those who wish to hunt them, and doubtless the same estimable sentiments prevailed in the minds of Peel and the other Parliamentarians who bitterly opposed interference with " the sport of En ish gentlemen " when bear-baiting was made illegal. Still more remotely, the slaves " butchered to make a Roman holiday " were doubtless credited by kindly Senators with being better off than if they had never been Iwo: We luo4 of AIS• Uke a diffewat view to-day, and indubitably our descendants will generally recognize that to pursue to the extremity of endurance, and finally tear in pieces, any sentient creature merely for amusement is a degrada- tion to the human soul, as soon as ever the truth is recognized.
There is no degradation to the savage—to the primitive man—he hunts like the carnivora, for food, but the organized slaughter, the whole business of killing for sport, will not bear ethical analysis. All that is enjoyable and justifiable— good horsemanship, fine hound work, fresh air and exercise, comradeship and friendly rivalry—can be secured by the followers of a well-organized drag-hunt, and at less financial cost, since there needs no compensation fund.
' That brings me to " Whipper-In's " final contention, as to the agricultural community's concern in this matter being the only one to count, and his view that agricultural opinion is wholly on his side. He is gravely mistaken. Grunibling, not loud bid deep, is to 'be heard all over the countryside.
Inadequate 'compensation fen' destroyed poultry, broken feaces, distinted stock, gates left open, arable land ridden over when it -should not be, all these things leave a nasty taste, and the inggestion, recently made in an evening paPer, that if rich men can pay their thousands for rent of grouse moors and -deer forests they inightespecially in these tithes' of distressed farming—not unreasonably be expected
to pay so much per acre for the privilege of hunting over agricultural land, will not perhaps fall on deaf ears. The N.F.U. is showing a critical mood towards its quondam friend. the Conservative Party, and political pressure may work changes which purely humanitarian considerations might
not yet approach.—I am. Sir, &c., E. WARD. Aston Burnell, Salop.
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