FOOTNOTES:

[33] In like manner, Mr. W. H. Crofton, president of the Beagle Club, has admitted in The Times that the drag-hunt, “run with skill by one who understands the art,” can be made to yield “excellent exercise” for schoolboys.

V
CLAY-PIGEON VERSUS LIVE PIGEON

By the Rev. J. STRATTON

Pigeon-shooting is one of those practices which generous minds must regard with aversion. There is not a single element in it which cultivates any good quality in mankind.

The late Lord Randolph Churchill, in the House of Commons, 1883, alluding to Monte Carlo doings, gave an effective description of a pigeon-shooting scene:

“He had had the opportunity, he said, of watching the sight at Monte Carlo, though he had never had the satisfaction of killing a pigeon himself. The pigeon-shooting at Monte Carlo was conducted on the same principles as that at Hurlingham, and under similar rules. He saw the birds taken out of the basket, and before being put into the trap a man cut their tails with a large pair of scissors. That probably was not very cruel, because he only cut the quill, though at times he seemed to cut very close. But worse followed. After cutting the tail, he saw the man take the bird in one hand, and with the other tear a great bunch of feathers from the breast and stomach of every pigeon. On asking the man what he did that for, he replied that it was to stimulate the birds, in order that, maddened by excitement and pain, they might take a more eccentric leap in the air, and increase the chance of the pigeon gamblers.

“He saw another very curious thing, too. One of the pigeons was struck and fell to the ground; but when the dog went to pick it up, the wretched bird fluttered again in the air, and for an appreciable time it remained so fluttering, just a little higher than the dog could jump. While the bird’s fate was thus trembling in the balance, the betting was fast and furious, and when at last the pigeon tumbled into the dog’s jaws, he would never forget the shout of triumph and yell of execration that rose from the ring-men and gentlemen.”

Now, what honest-minded man can approve of such a performance as this? Yet the so-called sport is in much favour still, from aristocratic gatherings down to those promoted by low public-houses.

It is surely of the nature of anything claiming to be legitimate sport, that the quarry should be in its natural, wild condition, and should have a chance of saving its life from its would-be destroyer. What chance of this kind has a dazed pigeon, fluttering from a box in the presence of guns ready to fire the moment it appears? The whole thing is cowardly and contemptible, and should be suppressed by law. This fate it would have met in 1883 had the House of Lords done its duty as well as the House of Commons; for a Bill which aimed at its abolition was rejected in the former House after it had passed in the latter.

More lately, however, there has occurred an event which proves that the views we hold respecting pigeon-shooting are beginning to find acceptance with the public. As everybody is aware, the Hurlingham Club used to lend its patronage to this sport, but recently a change in its policy took place. A meeting of members was held, and the question was put to the vote, whether the shooting of pigeons from traps should be any longer permitted in the grounds. A two-thirds majority decided that it should be abolished. The minority endeavoured to get this settlement reversed by law, but they were unsuccessful.

It was instructive, as well as cheering, to observe the favour with which the Press as a whole received the judgment delivered by Mr. Justice Joyce on the case submitted to him.

As an example of newspaper utterances I may quote the comments of the Daily News of February 26, 1906:

“All those who believe that 1906 is better as regards blood-sports than 1868 will rejoice that Hurlingham is not to be bound fast to the older date, and its defective morality. Pigeon-shooting is emphatically not now—as Mr. Justice Joyce said it was considered in 1868—a manly sport, fit for gentlemen. It may seem a hard saying to those who, having acquired proficiency in the practice, have lost their sense of moral truth. The fashion at Hurlingham has slowly changed in deference to surrounding opinion. Pigeon-shooting has not only its negative side of unmanliness, but the positive side of cruelty, and we are glad that the Club is not so indissolubly built on this base sport but that a two-thirds majority may decide when the time has come to abolish it.”

Clay-Pigeon.

Supposing all shooting of birds from traps were prohibited by law, is there any kindred diversion which might take its place? Yes; there is the clay-pigeon shoot, which affords good practice in gunnery and amuses its patrons by enabling them to meet and settle contests for prizes and so forth. It ought to satisfy all who have not got into the vicious habit of thinking that sport is poor work unless it inflicts agony or death on animals.

The clay-pigeon, so-called, does not bear any resemblance to a living bird. It is like a small saucer, brown in colour, and brittle.

One of the ways in which the artificial shoot is carried on is this. A pit is formed, deep enough to allow a man to stand in it and remain unseen. In the pit is placed machinery which a person can employ for projecting a “pigeon” to a considerable distance, at a quick speed, and at any angle. The pigeon may be shot up in the air, or sent skimming along the ground, and fly to right or left. The shooter stands some yards behind the pit, gun in hand, waiting for the appearance of the object. And, not knowing what course the pigeon will take, he is kept on the qui vive. From the sporting point of view, this is so much to the good, as uncertainty is an element of enjoyment in the matter.

At shooting grounds such as those of Messrs. Holland and Holland, of New Bond Street, situated at Kensal Rise, there are many diversities attached to the recreation. Birds are thrown, in many cases, from high structures, or go flying over trees, and move in a mode similar to that of pheasants or driven grouse or partridges. Then, further, at this establishment, the figures of birds with outstretched wings appear for a few seconds on a whitened screen, and form interesting objects to fire at. Across this screen, again, metal representations of rabbits are made to run on an iron rod. From this it will be understood what a deal of variety may be introduced into this form of amusement.

What humanitarians desire to see is the substitution everywhere of this kind of shooting for that of firing at pigeons and starlings and other living birds liberated from traps.

I ought to say that at Messrs. Holland and Holland’s establishment live pigeons are kept for those who wish to fire at them, but I was pleased to learn that, for every living bird killed, a hundred clay birds are shot at.

VI
COURSING

Coursing, the practice of chasing a hare with two greyhounds, slipped simultaneously from the leash, is one of the most ancient of blood-sports; but the spirit of those who take part in it does not seem to have improved with time. It may be doubted whether modern patrons of the sport are as chivalrous as those referred to by the old writer Arrian, whose work on Coursing dates from the second century:

“For coursers, such at least as are true sportsmen, do not take out their dogs for the sake of catching a hare, but for the contest and sport of coursing, and are glad if the hare escape; if she fly to any thin brake for concealment, though they may see her trembling and in the utmost distress, they will call off their dogs.”

What is the attraction of coursing? The author of “The Encyclopædia of Rural Sports” (1852) is forced to admit that coursing has been found dull:

“We may be asked,” he says, “what pleasure there can be for people marshalled in a line, at certain distances from each other, monotonously to walk or ride at a foot pace over a ploughed field or across a wide heath on a bleak November day, the eye anxiously directed hither and thither to catch the clod or the sidelong furrow that half conceals poor puss, or to espy the tuft she has parted to make her form in.”

But even so stupid a pastime as this has its charms for many people, when to the zest of seeing a timid animal’s life at stake there is added the more modern excitement of betting on the prowess of the dogs.

Of the cruelty of coursing, as practised in the chief contests, from the Waterloo Cup down, there can be no question. “What more aggravated form of torture is to be found,” says Lady Florence Dixie, “than coursing with greyhounds—the awful terror of the hare depicting itself in the laid-back ears, convulsive doubles, and wild starting eyes which seem almost to burst from their sockets in the agony of tension which that piteous struggle for life entails?”

Open coursing is bad enough, on the score of inhumanity; but when the coursing is enclosed, or the hares are bagged ones turned out for the occasion, the case is still worse. The use of enclosed grounds dates from about 1876, and we learn from the volume on “Coursing” in the Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes (1892), that “many of the old school opposed it strongly, and with the best reason, for it utterly lacked the elements of real sport.” At the present time it is by a strict system of “preserving” hares rather than by keeping them in enclosures, that a sufficient supply is maintained for the great coursing matches. What an object-lesson in cruelty these meetings afford may be judged from the fact that at some of them, such as the competition for the Waterloo Cup, there is an attendance of several thousand spectators.

Here is an “Impression of the Waterloo Meeting,” by Mr. John Gulland, which appeared in the Morning Leader in 1911:

“Stretching away into the far country (if you use your eyes) may be seen two long, thin black lines, representing quite a little army of beaters. In a short while dozens of hares may be seen gaily sporting between these lines, in delightful ignorance of the terrible enemy which is lying in wait for them in front. It is the business of the beater to divert a good hare from his playful companions; and if you keep your eye well directed on the black lines, you will soon detect the white flutter of a handkerchief passing along the lines, and a brown shape leaping swiftly along the ground, nervously anxious to turn to one side or the other, but kept to an inexorable straight course by the living wall of beaters. A shout from the crowd, growing every moment more excited as the short drama is about to begin, proclaims the fact that the hare is in the battle-ground, and is about to meet his Waterloo. And, higher still, and louder than all, the raucous cry of the bookmaker, ‘Take 7 to 2,’ ‘Take 2 to 1,’ rises shrill in the air.

“All this time a couple of greyhounds are held tight by a slipper in a box, open on two sides, in the middle of the field. As soon as the hare is beaten past the slipper’s box the greyhounds tug and strain at the leash, almost dragging the slipper with them. When the hare has had about fifty yards’ start the hounds are released, and off they dash together, looking at first like one. This is the most thrilling part of the game, and is watched in a few seconds of almost breathless silence. Pussy hasn’t, however, much chance against a greyhound, and is soon overtaken; but he still has a few arts at his command. For, just as the dog is about to hurl himself on pussy’s unoffending body, the little creature makes a deft turn aside, his pursuer flying harmlessly past. Then follow a series of turns, feints, dodges, and bounds. Puss may, indeed, lead his enemies a sorry dance for a little while, but it is an unequal contest. These greyhounds at Altcar are the best and fastest of their kind, and it is seldom that a hare escapes their teeth on Waterloo Cup day. In half a minute—at the outside two minutes—all is over.”

The writer states that he thinks he has never seen “so many bookmakers and bookmakers’ clerks per head of the population” as at the Waterloo coursing. “It was the merriest gambling I have seen for many a long day,” for coursing lends itself particularly well to betting.”

VII
THE GENTLE CRAFT

“It has been gravely said that a good angler must also be a good Christian. Without literalising the assertion, it may well be admitted that there is much in the contemplative character of his pursuit, and in the quiet scenes of beauty with which it brings him face to face, to soften and elevate as well as to humanise.”

Thus writes Mr. H. Cholmondeley-Pennell, a distinguished authority on angling. We fear, however, that an examination of the “gentle craft” will scarcely justify the assertion; for the fact cannot be gainsaid that to kill fish for mere amusement is to gratify one’s own pleasure at the cost of another being’s pain, and that, regarded from a moral standpoint, it will not materially affect the case to plead that the fisherman is “contemplative,” or that in the pursuit of his pastime he is brought into touch with the softening influences of nature. Unfortunately, as far as his sport (which is the only point in question) is concerned, there is no sign of this softening tendency on him. Contemplative he may be (in the intervals between “rises” or “bites”), but his contemplation has apparently not taken that introspective turn which would seem to be most needed. He may be gentle—in some relations of life; but in the matter of impaling live-bait and hooking fishes his gentleness is of a worse than dubious quality. One would have thought that a sense of humour would withhold fishermen from making these ludicrous claims to virtues in which, qua fishermen, they are very signally deficient. “There are unquestionably,” says Leigh Hunt, “many amiable men among sportsmen, who, as the phrase is, would not hurt a fly, that is to say, on a window; at the end of a string the case is altered.”

The stories told by anglers of the alleged “insensibility” of fish—how a hooked salmon that has just broken away will sometimes return to the bait—do not prove very much; for that fish are less intelligent and less sensitive than warm-blooded animals is no excuse for torturing them to the extent of their feeling. And it is evident, on the showing of the fishermen themselves, that the process of “playing” a large fish is a very cruel one, since it means gradually and mercilessly wearing down the strength of the victim during a desperate struggle prolonged sometimes for hours. Reading, for example, such a passage as the following, taken from Dr. Hamilton’s book on “Fly-Fishing,” one marvels at the mood which can find enjoyment in so barbarous a sport:

“I know of no greater excitement when, after casting the fly, a sudden swirl of the water tells you that a salmon has risen, and the tightening of your line that he is hooked. Then the mighty rush of a fresh-run fish; the rapid whirl (sweet music!) of the reel, as the line is carried out; the tremendous leaps and tugs and efforts as the fish tries to free himself. Good fisherman as you may be, the chances are against you. You at one end of the line doing all you can, and putting all your experience to the test, to keep and bring to bank the prize you covet. The fish at the other end, with all his knowledge of the rocks and bad places at the bottom of the river, doing all he can to circumvent you.… And then, after a slight pause, with skilful management the strain is put on. An anxious moment; he gives, but oh! how slowly, how reluctantly. The question is, who is to conquer. You feel your power as you wind up; you see his silver side; you know there will be yet one or two terrific struggles for life as he gets a glimpse of you and the gaff; then comes the final rush, the line paying out inch by inch. It is over! Another roll or two, and he is on the bank—and then the soothing pipe while you study his fine proportions.”

Under some conditions the sport consists in practically drowning the fish in its own element. “The most killing place,” says Dr. Hamilton, “when the hook is well fast, is in the lower jaw. The strain of the line prevents in a great measure the free current of water through the gills, and the fish becomes suffocated.”

To what extravagance the angling mania can run may be seen from certain forms of sea-fishing. The tarpon, an inhabitant of the Gulf of Mexico, is a great fish of the herring kind, weighing from 50 to 180 pounds, and measuring from 5 to 7 feet in length. It is not used as food by any but the negroes and “lower classes,” and its chief value, we are told, is for “sporting” purposes. In The Queen of December 7, 1895, an account was given of “an angling feat” performed by a lady who caught a monster of this kind. “The lady’s grip,” we were told, “was firm,” and defeated the endeavours of the fish “to shake the cruel hook from its throat.” In this, and in all angling records, it will be observed that the cruelty is purely wanton—the killing being done not because it is necessary or useful, but because the sportsman enjoys it.

Again, one of the most nauseous features of the “gentle craft” is the use of “live bait”—that is, of worms, maggots, flies, grasshoppers, frogs, and small fish. Here is one of the directions given by Mr. Cholmondeley-Pennell:

“In using the lob-worm-tail only, the worm must be broken about the middle, longer or shorter according to circumstances, and the hook inserted at the point of the breakage, the worm being then run up the hook until the shank is somewhat more than covered and only the end of the tail remains at liberty.”

It is pointed out by Mr. Alexander Mackie in “The Art of Worm Fishing,” that a “particularly beautiful” blue-nosed lob will account for as many as four trout, if cut in two parts and used successively, and that no worm of this class should be thrown away when only “slightly shattered.”

The impaling of a worm or maggot is disgusting enough; but when live fish are used as bait the cruelty is still worse. It will be observed that it is the angler’s object to prolong the misery of the living bait to the utmost extent. Thus Mr. Cholmondeley-Pennell, with reference to pike fishing:

“With regard to live-baits, a good deal must of course depend upon the state of the water. Should it be very bright and clear, a gudgeon, which is also a very tough fish, will generally be found the best, and in extreme cases even a minnow used with a small float and a single gimp hook passed through its upper lip or back.… Probably the best live-bait of all for thick or clouded water is a medium-sized dace, as its scales are peculiarly brilliant, and the fish itself by no means easily killed. In case of waters in which the pike are over-fed, I should recommend my readers to try them with live gold-fish.… If gold-fish are not forthcoming, small carp form a very killing and long-lived bait. The bait should not be left too long in one place, but be kept gently moving. It should also be held as little as possible out of water, on to which, when cast, its fall should be as light as possible, to avoid injury and premature decease.”

A very cruel way of taking freshwater fish is by night-lines. The victims are often left for hours with large hooks in their mouths; and when at last taken from the water are exhausted or dead. This perhaps is a poacher’s method rather than a sportsman’s; but it is to be observed that as a rule the despised poaching methods—such as the netting, wiring, or “tickling” of fish—are far less barbarous than those which are honoured as “sportsmanlike.”

It is clear, then, that the title of “the gentle craft” is an absurd misnomer when applied to angling, and that, if humaneness had been reckoned among the virtues, we should not have seen the canonisation of Izaak Walton, the patron saint of fishermen. For as Byron says of him:

“The quaint old cruel coxcomb in his gullet

Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.”

“It would have taught him humanity at least,” adds the poet in a footnote. “They may talk about the beauties of nature, but the angler merely thinks of his dish of fish; he has no leisure to take his eyes from off the streams, and a single ‘bite’ is worth to him more than all the scenery around. The whale, the shark, and the tunny fishery have somewhat of noble and perilous in them; even net-fishing, trawling, etc., are more humane and useful. But angling!”

VIII
SPOILING OTHER PEOPLE’S PLEASURE

It is a grave charge that is brought against us humanitarians, of “spoiling other people’s pleasure.” We are reproachfully bidden to look at “sport,” for instance, and to ponder all the manifold enjoyment which it provides for its votaries—the pleasure of the riders, the pleasure of the horses, the pleasure of the hounds, the pleasure (some assert) even of the fox himself—or, if not exactly pleasure, at least a praiseworthy acquiescence in the rôle assigned him as the purveyor of amusement for others; for has he not, like Faust, purchased the happiness of a lifetime at the cost of this brief hour of pain? And all this sum of pleasure the humanitarian would deliberately destroy! No wonder that speculation is rife among sportsmen as to any intelligible reason for such malice. Are humanitarians insane? Or is it a dog-in-the-manger instinct that prompts them to wreck a pleasure in which they themselves—poor joyless creatures that they are—can have no part?

We shall be expected, perhaps, in answer to these accusations, to plead some austere and weighty reasons, such as the danger of an excess of pleasure, the need of self-sacrifice, the duty of altruism, and the like. We shall do nothing of the kind. On the contrary, we shall point out that humanitarians seek not to diminish but to increase the pleasures of which life is capable; for it is precisely because we, too, love pleasure, and regard it, when rightly understood, as the sum and purport of existence, that we deplore the absurd travesty of it which at present passes muster among the thoughtless. Our complaint against the sportsman and his like is not that they enjoy themselves, but that they prevent other persons from doing so, through their very rudimentary and barbarous notions of what enjoyment means.

Consider, for instance, the exquisite pleasure, surely one of the greatest joys in life, of seeing perfect confidence and fearlessness in the beings around one—the intrepidity which is the special charm of children, when well-treated, and which is characteristic of animals also, in the rare cases when they have nothing to fear from man. We know with what child-like trust and guilelessness the primitive inhabitants of the West Indies greeted their Spanish discoverers, and how the wild animals in newly-found lands have often shown the same unguarded friendliness to man, until they knew better—or worse. The pleasure of the humanitarian consists in preserving and cherishing to the uttermost this friendly relationship; the pleasure of the sportsman consists in rending and shattering it, in making a hell out of a heaven, and is sowing distrust and terror where there might be confidence and love. Chacun à son goût. It is useless to dispute about tastes. But that the sportsman should proceed to denounce the humanitarian as being “a spoiler of pleasure” is a stroke of unintended humour from a very humourless source.

The part which the sportsman plays in the animal world—that world which might be a source of much genuine pleasure to us—may be easily pictured if we look at one of the London parks where the bird-life is protected. There we see a truce reigning between human and non-human, with a vast amount of obvious human enjoyment as the result. Imagine what would happen if a man were to run with a gun or some other weapon among the unsuspecting animals, and pride himself on the dexterity with which he reduced them from beautiful living creatures to limp and ugly carcases. He would be arrested as a lunatic, you say, by the park-keepers. True; yet that is exactly the way in which the sportsman is continually running amuck in this larger park of ours, the world, where unfortunately there are as yet no park-keepers to restrain him.

Nor is it only the sportsman, but everyone addicted to cruel practices of any sort, who makes the world a poorer and less happy place to live in. Centuries of persecution have, in fact, left so little real happiness in life that men have been fain to content themselves with these wretched beggarly amusements, which, from bull- and bear-baiting to stag-hunting, have disgraced our national “sports” from time immemorial, yet have always been defended on the ludicrous ground that their abolition would diminish the “pleasures” of the people.

Who, then, is the mar-joy? Surely not the humanitarian, whose desire it is that there should be far greater and wider means of enjoyment than at present, and who, far from discouraging the sports of the people, would establish in every part of the land facilities for manly and wholesome sports, such as cricket, football, rowing, swimming, running, and all kinds of athletic and gymnastic exercises. To humanitarians, pleasure—real pleasure—is the one precious thing; and it is just because there is so little real pleasure in the present conditions of life that we desire to see those conditions changed and ameliorated. Why else should we “agitate,” sit in committees, write letters to newspapers, and organise public meetings to expound our principles? Certainly, not because we enjoy such occupation in itself, for a more thankless task could scarcely be imagined; but because life is at present so narrowed and saddened by brutalitarian stupidity that to try to alter it, even in the smallest measure, is to us a necessary condition of any enjoyment at all.

INDEX

THE END

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.