R.S.P.C.A. AND HUNTING
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—In your issue of the 18th inst. Mrs. Binstead wishes the R.S.P.C.A. to leave hunting alone. So do I. They cannot& however, alter their name to the R.S.P.C. Domestic Animals, as she suggests, so long as their Council persist in their anti- deerhunting crusade. They have backed a Bill now before Parliament to make deer hunting illegal. Were this passed the result would be to increase the suffering of the deer enor mously, as many people, including myself, are continually pointing out.
I will now answer Mr. J. M. Liddell, who claims that a firearm exists which will kill deer without fail up to 100 yards. I do not believe it. With any weapon the deer must be hit in a vital part, for I have seen a buck with a hind-leg broken high up cover a mile with hounds in view of him, and another with a foot torn clean off cover three miles with hounds close at him before they caught him. Were hunting made illegal hounds could not be used to follow up even wounded deer, and man alone would never catch a deer with a broken leg. Besides this, were hunting illegal deer would be shot with all sorts of guns, not only with the " Colonist's gun," and there would be no hounds to find the wounded and end their miseries. Even were Parliament to make it illegal to attempt to shoot deer with any weapon other than the " Colonist's Gun " such a law could never be enforced. Mr. Liddell says " there is no need for a gamekeeper to have a hunting mate." This may be true of the U.S.A., but here in the New Forest without beaters the keeper would seldom get a shot at a deer at decisive range at all. Let the deer continue to be hunted in woodland England and they will be saved much suffering.—I am, Sir,
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