[To the Editor of the SPECTATOP..] Sjn,—How does " Whipper-In
" account for the fact that among some of the strongest opponents of hunting are those who have lived in the heart of hunting counties and who have given up hunting and spoken on platforms in favour of its abolition ?
" 'Whipper-In " quotes from Robert Louis Stevenson, and the quotation is an apt illustration of attempting to bolster up an abhorrent practice with the words of a writer who is dead. Does " Whipper-In " seriously contend that Robert Louis Stevenson intended to uphold the cruelties attaching to hunting when he stated : " There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbours good " Those of us who disagree with the cruelty attaching to blood spirts do not as far as I know constitute a court of morals. The question whether hunting men or women have or have not been through a divorce court does not Concern them. ;either does it concern them whether they -do or do not pay their debts. Nor is it a matter of concern to them whether they arc Buddhists, Mohammedans, or professing Christians. The matter which does concern those who favour the abolition of blood sports is the unnecessary cruelty perpetrated upon the helpless animal creation. Perhaps " Whipper-In " would use the further quotation front Robert Louiti Stevenson's " My duty towards my neighbour is to make him happy .if I may," and from this he could infer,that, if the costermonger finds happiness in belabouring the head of his " moke " with a thick cudgel, it is no business of the policeman's to interfere with him. Or he might also argue that the law ought never to have been passed which interfered with the poor man's sport of rabbit coursing, because it made the poor man happy. There arc a good many things which, to some minds, give them " happiness," but which the law of the land prevents Ind punishes as crime.
Then Whipper-In " trots out the same old story that has been published ad nauseam that the cessation of hunting would mean the practical extermination of the animals hunted. We will take stag-hunting, which flourishes in the West country. We have been told that if the stag-hunting were abolished, the deer would be exterminated, and yet we read in the November 1st issue of the Western Morning News that " During the past season in the highlands of Scotland over four thousand stags were shot." It seems to take a long while to exterminate stags, even when they are shot humanely rather than hunted to death by dogs. It would, indeed, be interesting to know why it is not possible to provide a sufficiently large reservation in which the beautiful red deer could be preserved from either promiscuous massacre, or the undeniable cruelty attaching to stag-hunting.
Then again, " 'Whipper-In" makes the remarkable statement that it cannot be said that hunting causes these animals unnatural suffering. Does he seriously contend that the barbaric practices of bygone times should be perpetuated for ever ? There is a humane method of killing wild animals. The humane method which the poultry-keeper employs when he shoots a fox or the deer-stalker employs when he shoots a stag. There is also an inhumane and barbaric method which stag-hunters and fox-hunters employ when they hound an animal to death. " Whipper-In " may endeavour to pull the leg of the reader by contending that the stag-hunters and fox-hunters are the true friends of the animals they hunt. I believe the gentlemen who used to put ethers on the rack in the days of the Spanish Inquisition were also the true friends of their victims.
Concerning the economical side of the question, " Whipper- In " had better ask the organized poultry farmers of these Isles whether it would not be possible for them to produce the greater proportion of the requirements of this country in the way of poultry and eggs if fox-hunting were abolished. —I am, Sir, &e.,
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