[To THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Mr. Massingham deserves, and
I lizpe will receive, the most generous sympathy with his appeals on behalf of the Plumage Bill. That such an effort as he is called upon to make should be necessary affords at the same time a singular illustration of the lack of human progress. True sentiment appears to be decadent, and so zealous and capable a meliorist as your correspondent is even compelled to adduce a utili- tarian in preference to an ethical argument for his case. It is a strange issue. For centuries, since the time when Sir Thomas More condemned certain field-sports as improperly causing the infliction of, pain on the animal creation, whole- some enlightened opinion has cultivated a greater sensitiveness towards the lower animals. And yet suggestions from this source do not seem to have percolated into some modern minds. One thinks more cheerfully of the cynical eighteenth century when it is remembered that it produced the delightful humanitarianism of Goldsmith. The harsh naturalistic creeds of the present day beggar imagination. And what is the indes- cribable every-day practice? That noblest of animals the horse is almost universally abused. Three cases of the horrible straits of a hunted stag have occurred within the past few weeks. One stag was, according to the newspapers, pursued through an English village by a howling pack of hounds; another in its deadly terror fell into a reservoir; a third, also terror-stricken, entered a house for refuge. What pos- sible enjoyment can be got by sane people out- of sport like this? The times, as far as the recognized humbler creation is concerned, are certainly evil. Only with the graces of Christianity still at least acknowledged and an influential journal like the Spectator strongly flourishing may one hope that there is yet a brighter .day for the down-trodden dumb creature, and that Dean Inge does not with correctness read the future when he declares that humanity is starkly retro- grading to a state of barbarism.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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