(To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—Is fox-hunting, as your
correspondent assumes, a cruel and degrading sport ? The fox, it is well known to the observer, has a far better and happier time where hunted than elsewhere. Indeed, his best and-only friend is the man who hunts. He always has a sporting chance—so good, in fact, that five out of six beat the hounds. If caught, he dies as he has lived, only more mercifully—and is spared the lingering and far more painful death at the hands of the trapper. The law against spring-traps being set in the open is not always respected. A few days ago a fox was seen - dragging one of these barbarous things in my field until stopped by a sheep dog. No one does more to prevent this cruelty than the man who hunts. Charles Kingsley hunted, Dean Hole hunted. Would these men have taken any part in a sport " degrading to the character of man ?
—I am, Sir, &c., H. P. BRYAN. Askerswell Rectory, Dorchester.
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