CRUELTY IN SPORT.
[TO the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—In an article on this subject published in your issue of the 29th ult., the writer discourses upon " the agonies of the damned " through which a salmon must pass " during his ten minutes or an hour's struggle for life before the kindly gaff puts an end to his terrors." I do not believe a word of it. Experience teaches me that the salmon under such circumstances does not pass through any agonies, damned or otherwise.
One evening, fishing for a trout in a small stream up which salmon run in the autumn, I hooked a salmon, and had a desperate fight with him for thirty minutes ; I am satisfied that the only agonies experienced on that occasion were on my side, and for this reason. He got off. The following evening I proceeded to the same pool better equipped, and almost immediately, and in exactly the same place, rose and hooked the same fish, and after twenty minutes, landed him. You will accept my assurance that it was the same fish. It could not, in all the circumstances, have been any other.
In the same season, I hooked a trout, and lost him, after ten minutes, with the fly and half the cast. Forty minutes later I hooked the same fish and recovered my cast. I content myself with the submission of these facts.—I am,
Sir, &c., R. T. WATKIN WILLIAMS. The Flyfishers Club.
A correspondent writes that " C." in his article on " Cruelty in Sport," in the Spectator of March 29th, " does not seem to appreciate the real objections to the hunting of carted deer, namely, the existence of spiked fences, barbed wire, and other obstacles, which, especially in the Home Counties, are the cause of many deplorable accidents to the hunted stag.' " Our correspondent also directs our attention to a pamphlet by Sir George Greenwood, which is published on behalf of the Animal Defence Society, 85 Bond Street, W., and is now in its third edition. The pamphlet deals with blood sports generally in a moderate and reasonable way.
Previous page
