"Why not? Would England be pleasant if the gray wolf still ran at large? We are now trying, as rapidly as possible, to make this world safe and habitable everywhere."
"And how about the hunting? Where's the big game?"
"Another relic of barbarism. There is very little big game left, and very little hunting."
I glared at her, speechless. Not that I was ever a hunter myself, or even wanted to be; but to have that splendid manly sport utterly prevented—it was outrageous! "I suppose this is more of the women's work," I said at length.
She cheerfully admitted it. "Yes, we did it. You see, hunting as a means of livelihood is even lower than private housework—far too wasteful and expensive to be allowed in a civilized world. When women left off using skins and feathers, that was a great blow to the industry. As to the sport, why, we had never greatly admired it, you know—the manly sport of killing things for fun—and with our new power we soon made it undesirable."
I groaned in spirit. "Do you mean to tell me that you have introduced legislation against hunting, and found means to enforce it?"
"We found means to enforce it without much legislation, John."
"As for instance?"
"As for instance, in rearing children who saw and heard the fullest condemnation of all such primitive cruelty. That is another place where the new story-books come in. Why on earth we should have fed our children on silly savagery a thousand years old, just because they liked it, is more than I can see. We were always interfering with their likes and dislikes in other ways. Why so considerate in this? We have a lot of splendid writers now—first-class ones—making a whole lot of new literature for children."
"Do leave out your story books. You were telling me how you redoubtable females coerced men into giving up hunting."