“The result is what might be expected. He can hardly run, and knows not where to run. Some come straight back into the mouths of the dogs, others make a feeble attempt to seek shelter in the distant hedge. But the result is always the same. In a few seconds the dogs are upon him. The first seizes him by the back or hind-quarters; the second, overtaking the first, and not to be balked of his share of the prey, grabs the victim by the head and shoulders. Then ensues a tug of war, during which the miserable rabbit is frequently more than half disembowelled before he is taken, still alive, or half alive, from the jaws of the dogs. Not one escapes; he is not given a chance. One that was put down a few yards in front of two very young dogs, who were evidently new to the business, might have got away, but when this was seen a large dog was at once sent after the fugitive. I am told that at North Country meetings when a puppy is entered a rabbit is frequently mutilated by having a leg broken or an eye put out; but I saw nothing of this at Worcester Park.
“I should mention that I was joined by a friend from New Malden, well known in the neighbourhood for humanitarian efforts, and that we were at once ‘spotted’ as alien interlopers, and looked at askance in consequence. Possibly the result was greater caution in the management of the proceedings. But we saw quite enough. Fifteen wretched creatures were done to death in forty-five minutes, and the ‘sport’ goes on all day and every Sunday. I counted the steps taken by the man who ran forward with each rabbit, and never did they exceed thirty-five. A really wild rabbit in his own familiar haunts might have some chance at that. But these poor cowering things, tortured to make a hooligans’ holiday! The mere monotony of it was sickening. And yet when a Bill is brought into Parliament to make such abominations illegal, a noble lord, one of the pillars of the Jockey Club, opposes it because it ‘would affect the poorer classes far more than themselves,’ and because it is ‘a piece of class legislation’ (Lord Durham in the House of Lords, The Times, March 4, 1902). Why not go back to cock-fighting and bull-baiting at once?”[5]
Such are the sports that make England great, that strengthen the muscles and sinews of a conquering Imperial race! Let us rejoice, then, that we have an Hereditary Chamber, where faddists and fanatics are unknown, to throw the ægis of its protection over the pleasures of rich and poor alike, and where the high-souled, high-bred scions of a time-honoured aristocracy magnanimously defend the cherished institutions of our forefathers against the attacks both of blatant democrats and sickly sentimentalists!
The Ethics of Sport.
It was said by a noble lord in the Upper House not long ago that “Physical courage and love of sport have been for centuries the distinguishing characteristics of the British race.” Is there any necessary relation between these two things? I take leave to doubt it—indeed, I entirely deny it—if by “sport” these “blood-sports” are intended. But let us set beside this wonderful pronouncement the statement of a cultivated and enlightened Englishman who was for many years resident in Burmah. In that charming book, “The Soul of a People,” Mr. H. Fielding writes as follows:
“It has been inculcated in us from childhood that it is a manly thing to be indifferent to pain—not to our own pain only, but to that of all others. To be sorry for a hunted hare, to compassionate the wounded deer, to shrink from torturing the brute creation, has been accounted by us a namby-pamby sentimentalism, not fit for man, fit only for a squeamish woman. To the Burman it is one of the highest of all virtues. He believes that all that is beautiful in life is founded on compassion, and kindness, and sympathy—that nothing of great value can exist without them.”
May not our much-vaunted Christianity learn something from this despised religion of the Buddha, first taught by Gautama on the banks of the Ganges some six hundred years before Christ? For what is it that Buddhism teaches us? It teaches as a first principle to do no harm to any living thing; it teaches mercy without limit, and compassion without stint. Of the Burmese Buddhists we read: “They learn how it is the noblest duty of man, who is strong, to be kind and loving to his weaker brothers, the animals.”