THE UNPOPULAR HUNT.
It is, I think, beyond question that hunting—of stag, of fox, and of hare, and even of otter—is a sport approaching a social crisis. Three notable examples of local and very practical opposition to the hunt have occurred within the last few weeks. The staghounds have been clean forbidden some farm lands in the South-West. Foxes have been shot down to the vanishing point in one district of the Eastern Counties ; in other places packs of beagles and harriers have got into trouble by hunting over land where they were not expected or wanted. In a good many places barbed wire is put up intentionally, and without red notice boards of warning. The opposition is not chiefly humanitarian, though it is supported by humanitarians. It comes from farmers and landowners who do not care for the expense of repairing fences. It comes also from men who prefer shooting to hunting, and it comes from poultry keepers. Certainly a total disappearance of the sacrosanctity of the fox has to be recorded from most shires, except perhaps Leicestershire and Rutland. * * * *
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