THE PROPOSED "STAG HUNT" AT WEMBLEY
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,=Wembley's repeated lapse into barbarism in its provision of amusement for the public makes those who set a value on educative influences very grave. Last year there was. Rodeo,. this, year there is to be a Stag Hunt. Of course, we are promised no cruelty (some people of veiled intelligence .thought even Rodeo not cruel !), but we are also promised thrills of an intense order. To eliminate all risk and all cruelty in a thing of this kind might be to eliminate most of the thrill. Even were it possible to do away with actual terror and pain, , always bearing in mind that in the animal as in the human kind suffering is mental as well as physical, the suggestion of the whole performance must, be one of cruelty and blood- thirst, and so is educatively unsound and such perform-Ian& unfit for public display. Far-reaching consequences in increased insensitiveness to the feelings of animals may be followed, logically enough, by a less fine regard for the claims of human beings not fortunately protected in life. Cannot an Xmperial Exhibition do better than to provide public amuse- ments that may well be called in question on grounds of general humanity ?
Few people, especially, young ones look on at such things untouched. This Stag Hunt will be an unedifying spectacle. .Why do we have Animal Welfare Week, R.S.P.C.A. pictures, and addresses on kindness to animals in our schools and elsewhere, the Times coming out with a fine leader on the advantages of an increasingly humane relationship of men to animals, if Wembley is to be allowed to counteract these -.highly moral influences by the introduction of actually and
suggestively cruel shows ? It would be greatly to the credit of the Wembley amusement authorities if they were to with- draw this objectionable Stag Hunting episode in the interests of public and animals alike.—I am, Sir, &c.,
30 Queen's Road, Bayswater, W. 2. ADA POOLE.
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