FOOTNOTES:
[10] “British Mammals,” 1903.
[11] I can speak from a fairly extensive acquaintance with keepers in various districts; and (to quote impartial opinion) a pheasant-shooting friend lately observed to me, while discussing the absurd destruction of kestrels: “The English gamekeeper is a fool: there’s nothing to be said for him.” And Mr. J. G. Millais, another sportsman, in his great work on “British Mammals,” remarks that “gamekeepers are often among the most unobservant of men” (vol. ii., 1905). Cf. also, e.g., Seebohm’s “British Birds” (Falconidæ, passim).
[12] W. H. Hudson, “The Land’s End,” 1908.
[13] See, e.g., Sir A. Pease, “The Badger,” 1896.
[14] Similarly, one of the reasons often given for otter-hunting is that otters eat trout and salmon, and so lessen the angler’s chance of killing more of them.
[15] “Adventures among Birds,” 1912.
[16] Ninth edition, 1907.
[17] “Adventures among Birds,” 1912.
[18] W. H. Hudson, “Birds and Man,” 1901.
[19] Here is one instance selected from many. “During a yachting cruise in the summer of 1902, the suite accompanying ‘very distinguished persons’ gleefully took advantage of their proximity to little frequented Scotch islands, to shoot and leave, to kill uselessly without excuse, quite a large number of the seals which still remain in Scottish waters” (Sir H. H. Johnston, op. cit.).
[20] Perhaps from similar causes to those which lead Sir Alfred Pease, in defending his hunting habits, to inform us, “I hunt, paradoxical as it seems, because I love the animals” (see “The Badger,” 1896).
THE CALLOUSNESS OF FOX-HUNTING[21]
By H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON
Undoubtedly we are a complacent and unimaginative nation, which defects probably explain and excuse certain indictments brought against us by foreigners.
Complacency and practicality may have raised us commercially and politically, but they do not breed the finer graces, and they are apt to misrepresent us. No one, for example, would say that the English or British race was callous or cruel in comparison with other races. On the contrary, its reputation for kind-heartedness stands higher than that of its compeers and rivals. Yet this same race is engaged to-day in the practice and pursuit of the most brutal sport conceivable.
Of bull-baiting, of cock-fighting, of various barbarous pastimes of our fathers we know nothing now save by hearsay; but it is safe to say that whereas bull-baiting and cock-mains have long been prohibited by law, the most cruel sport remains unpenalised and undiscouraged; nay, even protected by the law. I can only attribute the continued existence of fox-hunting to that lack of imagination to which I have referred.
It is necessary for one making a desperate protest of this kind against an inhuman sport to dissociate himself at the outset from sentimentalism and the sentimentalist. Death is inevitable. We must look facts in the face. The law of life is Death, and Nature has ordained that the strong should prey on the weak throughout her serried ranks of organic life. The sentimentalist will shriek in vain against the destruction of animal life, simply because he is shrieking against an ultimate law of Nature. Nature destroys ruthlessly, and so does man, who is part of Nature. But what civilisation may and must demand, what humanitarianism should and does demand, is that this inevitable accomplishment of death should happen with the least possible pain.
Death, in short, is necessary, but torture is not. And fox-hunting is framed to produce the maximum of torture to the quarry. A fox is “vermin,” they say; then in Heaven’s name let it be classed as vermin, and destroyed as such. But what happens is precisely the reverse of this. Foxes are carefully preserved in order that they may be hounded to a hapless, miserable death, the conception of which transcends any ordinary imagination. Gamekeepers and farmers, to whom foxes are a grave nuisance, are paid not to destroy them painlessly by gun or otherwise. Gamekeepers, indeed, receive so much for each fox found on their preserves.
The object, then, of the hunt is to keep foxes from being destroyed in the natural course of that warfare between item and item of human and feral life, and to preserve them for a more cruel fate. Let us see how cruel that is. The gamekeeper on land which is announced to be hunted on a certain day has carefully during the night earthed up a fox’s hole so that the beast cannot get back to it in the morning. At a certain hour pack and company arrive, and the master learns from the gamekeeper that he is likely to “find” in such and such a spinney. Thither all proceed, gay ladies and fresh-coloured men, and presently hounds give tongue and are in cry. They have “found.”
Immediately the field is in commotion. Gay ladies and fresh-faced men thunder off irregularly. The fun has begun; they are going to enjoy themselves. But what is the fun? To each of those amiable people it no doubt is involved in the music of the hounds, in the company, in the cross-country ride, in the excitements and hazards and humours of the run. To the master and his huntsmen it involves in addition the responsibility for keeping hounds in hand—a matter of considerable skill.
But what does it involve to the fox? This sleek, furry creature that steals chickens and ducks, and young pheasants and partridges, who is a nuisance to farmer and gamekeeper alike, but to preserve whom is made worth their while—this poor “vermin,” having no “earth” to hide in, is flying for his life before a pack of strong dogs, any one of which would be capable of answering for him.