A SPORTING CHANCE FOR THE FOX
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The ethics of sport, especially from the cruelty point of view, are difficult to discuss ; the more one argues, the more involved one seems to get. But your correspondent's' query in last .week's Spectator—" Could not the fox have been give a sporting chance ? "—can, I think, be answered with assurance. A chance, yes, but not a " sporting chance."
The hounds might have been taken away and the fox left in peaceful possession of his hard-earned shelter. I wish this chance had been given. But one has to remember that if hunting is to continue to exist under the increasing difficulties it has now to contend- with, masters must show sport ; if hounds are to be baulked of their quarry, not blooded after a gruelling fifteen-mile chase, they may not run so keenly on subsequent occasions. Farmers also insist on foxes being killed, otherwise they would be destroyed as vermin by other methods.
As to the " sporting chance," what would this have meant ?
The fox would have been drawn from his lair and given a
sporting start of a field or two ; draggled, stiff and spent, he would have trailed across the plough or grass, knowing instinctively that with the frenzied pack so close at heel the respite could only be a short one, his new career would soon be finished. A far more cruel fate than the one adopted.—
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