CRUELTY IN SPORT.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—As you are still discussing this subject in your columns, may I submit a more general view of the question than I have seen ventilated? I have condensed to the utmost, and for the sake of brevity I have not differentiated between the various protected animals in stating a case that applies, mulatis mutandis, to them all. All game birds, deer, foxes, and, to a lesser degree, fish in these islands owe their life to sport. If they were not protected by sportsmen for the purposes of sport they would all very quickly become extinct, or at any rate live, in very small numbers, a far more anxious and harried life than they do at present. Thanks to this protection they are carefully.guarded from natural enemies and disease
all through their seasons of mating and early youth, and where possible and necessary their food supply is supplemented in time of scarcity. The price they pay for this is that for four months or so they are thinned down again to a suitable number for next season's breeding by a N;olent and in some cases a painful death ; a death, however, that contrasts favourably on the average with Nature's unaided methods.
Can it be disputed that, on balance, the amount of animal happiness is increased ? If that is granted, sport appears as the benefactor, not the oppressor, of the animals which it is accused of persecuting, and ground for complaint remains only against unnecessary cruelty ; and unnecessary cruelty no one resents more strongly than any sportsman worthy of the
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