FOOTNOTES:
[2] One of the strongest objections to fox-hunting consists in this, that each season must necessarily be preceded (so at least we are told) by the barbarities of “cub-hunting.” The slaughter of these poor little cubs is cruel and pitiful work. Sometimes, too, a vixen falls a victim to the hounds while her cubs are still dependent on her for their food. No doubt an early ride on a fine September or October morning is a pleasant thing, and the “sportsman” need not know much about what goes on in the coverts, or trouble himself to think about it! But the fact remains that this is a miserable and cruel form of “sport.” And what shall we say of the practice of “digging out” a wretched fox when, perhaps after a long run, he has sought refuge by “going to ground”? Can anything be conceived more callous or more cowardly? Yet educated, and, presumably, thinking men, and women too—Heaven save the mark!—stand by and enjoy the fun! Such is the debasing effect of “sport” upon the human mind and character!
[3] In the Westminster Gazette of August 15, 1908, a woman wrote on “The Enchantments of the New Forest,” and this is what she says: “Anyone with a drop of sport-love in them, given a nag of some kind, will not be a day in the forest before he finds himself chasing some animal, alive or dead.” The sentiment is surely even more deplorable than the grammar.
[4] It must in fairness be added that the article from which the above extract is made was subsequently repudiated by the editor as being “quite opposed to the line which The Field has always taken.” It seems that “by an oversight the article was inserted during the absence of the departmental editor.” I quote it, nevertheless, as showing that over twenty years ago the truth as to this matter had dawned upon the mind of at least one of the leader-writers of a great sporting paper.
[5] Moreover, there is a sport which, as the Rev. J. Stratton has pointed out, might well supersede rabbit-coursing—viz., whippet-racing. “It cannot be pleaded,” he says, “that if we were to stop the coursing of captured rabbits we should be unduly depriving workmen of recreation, for ‘whippets’ could be employed just as well in races as in chasing rabbits. Of the first of these sports I can speak as an eye-witness. In whippet-racing a course is formed, which is kept free for the dogs by ropes on either side. At one end, men have in hand the whippets that are about to compete, and here stands the starter, holding his pistol. ‘Runners-up’ now come on to the course, carrying in their hands a towel or scarf, and starting from the front of the dogs, and frantically waving the article they hold, and whistling, and calling to the animals, they begin to run towards the far end of the course, where the winning-line is marked out and the judge has taken up his post. When the right moment has arrived, the pistol is fired, and the whippets are liberated, and commence to travel the course with the speed of the wind, the ‘runners-up’ always getting well beyond the winning-point before the dogs overtake them, in order that the latter may pass it at their utmost pace. It is altogether a remarkable sight, and had I never seen the thing, I could not have believed that the little dogs would enter into the contest with the ardour they do.”
[6] My quotations are from Mr. A. B. Bullock’s translation of “The Basis of Morality,” see pp. 170, 208, 218.
SPORT AND AGRICULTURE
By EDWARD CARPENTER
It has frequently been pointed out that the enthusiasm for “sport” is the relic of a very primitive instinct in man. In that sense it is quite natural. In early days the sheer necessity of pursuing and killing animals for food, or of hunting down and destroying beasts of prey, must have become very deeply ingrained; and the satisfaction of that need became an instinctive pleasure, so much so that oftentimes nowadays the pleasure remains, though the need has long disappeared.
In the village where I live there is a countryman of a very primitive type, who goes almost mad with excitement when the hunt is out. Though over forty years of age, he has been known more than once to leave his horses with the plough in the field and career wildly after the hounds for two or three hours on end, careless of what might happen to his deserted team. At the public-house afterwards in the evening he recounts in a shrill voice every detail of the “find” or the “kill.” “Talk about your oratorios and concerts,” he shouts, “there’s no music, I say, like the ’ounds!” On one occasion when the hunt was baffled by the fox getting into a narrow cleft in some rocks, and with the fall of evening the hounds had to be drawn off, this man positively remained on the spot, watching, all night; and when the huntsmen returned in the morning with a terrier, he followed the terrier as far as ever he could—head and shoulders—into the hole, helped the dog to clutch the fox, and all three—dog, fox, and man—suddenly freed, rolled together down the steep cliff-side into a stream below! Such is the force of the old instinct, and the story helps one to realise the strange conditions of sheer necessity under which primitive man lived, though in the light of actual life and the present day it is ludicrous enough, even if not revolting in its ferocity.
So far from there being any necessity in this case to rid the country-side from a beast of prey, it is quite probable that the fox in question had been imported from Germany—as a certain number undoubtedly are—simply in order to provide a country squire’s holiday! A French lady, herself very fond of riding, told me lately that in her native Burgundy foxes are still very numerous, and have to be hunted down in consequence of the damage they do; but when I informed her that our foxes are largely “made in Germany,” and brought over in order to do artificial damage and so be artificially hunted, she laughed almost hysterically—as surely she was entitled to do.
There is this futile artificiality about almost all our “sport.” It is one thing to sit all night in the lower branches of a spreading tree just outside some little Indian village, in order to get a chance of shooting the dangerous man-eating tiger as he comes forth from the jungle, and quite another to pot tame pheasants at the corner of a wood, or half-tame grouse as they fly over the “battery” in which you (and a gamekeeper) are safely ensconced. The pheasants have been reared under a barnyard hen and fed by hand till they are as tame as fowls, and the grouse can only be persuaded to fly to the guns by a quarter-mile-long line of “drivers,” who with much shouting and waving of flags compel them to rise from the heather. The gamekeeper gets his guinea tip, and you in return get the credit of a large bag secured by his kind assistance! The force of humbug could no further go. The truth is, all this modern “sport” is a simple playing at hunting and shooting.
And if it were merely playing, though it might be somewhat laughable, there would be no need to protest. But, unfortunately, there are two serious considerations involved, which are by no means “play” to those concerned. One (which has been touched on elsewhere) is the needless cruelty to the animals; the other is the serious ruin of our agriculture and detriment to our farm populations.
The damage done by fox-hunting to fences and crops is obvious enough to everyone. But there are other complications. In a hunting district the tenants far and wide are invited to find homes for the puppies which are being reared for the replenishment of the pack. It is an ungrateful task. The puppy is a pest on the farm; it is in everybody’s way, and it has its muzzle eternally in the milk-buckets. Its board and lodging are not paid for; but—oh, gracious compensation!—the farmers who “walk puppies” are given a dinner at the end of the puppy-rearing season, and get their chance of a prize for the best exhibited. Partly in consideration of these favours, but more because they do not want to offend the gentry in general or their own landlords in particular, the tenants put up with these obnoxious additions to their households. Furthermore, as foxes must on no account be killed by private hands, even though they are constantly raiding the farmyards, the owners of the hunt offer compensation for fowls killed or wounded, as they also, of course, do for fences and crops damaged.
But what a situation for any self-respecting farmer! To see a tribe of “gentlemen and ladies” tearing over his land and making havoc of his new-sown wheat, to find half a dozen fowls some morning with their heads bitten off, to have his wife at her work tumbling over an intruding puppy—and then to have to go, cap in hand, to ask for compensation for all these things! What an unworthy position for him to be in, and how galling to think that his life-work and the very dignity of his profession are so lightly regarded, or that the loss of them can be counted as easily atoned for by a few shillings.