Ribblesdale Buckhounds, by the R.S.P.C.A. on November 11, 1912, for
cruelty to a doe, there was evidence that the unfortunate deer, turned
out in private to “blood” a new pack of hounds, was lame and wholly out
of condition; and, as _Truth_ remarked, “the mere fact that the animal,
although given a good start, only managed to get two or three hundred
yards away before being pulled down, ‘screaming like a child,’ was
quite sufficient to show that she was incapable of escape.” Take the
following:
“Mr. Marmaduke Wright, of Bolton Hall, a member of the Hunt,
said he saw Oddie (a hunt servant) the day before the hunt took
place. Oddie said they were going to let a lame deer out of the
pen to blood the young hounds, and witness said he would not go
out, as he did not care about hunting tame calves, much less a
lame one.”
The statement of John James Macauley, an eye-witness, was that the deer
“scarcely put her hind-leg on the ground.”
“She was followed by the hounds for a distance of about two
hundred yards.… When the doe could see she was overtaken, she
stopped, and he heard the poor little thing screaming like a
child.”
Lord Ribblesdale, called to speak as to the practice of blooding
hounds, condemned the method adopted by his colleague.
“If blooding had been the object, his opinion was that there
should have been a sudden, sharp, and decisive transaction
[_sic_], which would have made the hounds, whenever they saw a
deer, go at it. If they intended to blood hounds, the method
pursued by Mr. Ormrod was most foolish. It was not an uncommon
thing to blood hounds, and with regard to the question of
cruelty, if they argued from elemental principles, all sport
was cruel. He had hunted carted deer, and there had been no
cruelty.”
Asked whether, if a lame, emaciated, and weakened deer were released
from a pen, it would be an unreasonable thing to hunt it, Lord
Ribblesdale replied--
“With the ‘if,’ yes. This was a weak deer; therefore I should
have blooded hounds with it.”
The magistrates decided that “there was not enough evidence to
convict,” but the prosecution did great service in showing what
horrible practices are still carried on under the name of “sport.”
III
THE HUNTING OF GRAVID ANIMALS
Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the morality of
“blood-sports” in general, there is one recurring feature of such
sports which, whether regarded from the humanitarian’s or from the
sportsman’s point of view, is almost equally repulsive. We refer
to the hunting, in some cases accidental, in others deliberate, of
gravid animals. That such hunting--of the hare, of the otter, of the
hind--takes place, there is no question whatever, as is proved by the
following facts.
It is quite a common practice to continue the hunting of hares with
beagles until the middle, or even to the end of March, by which time
many of the doe hares are heavy with young. Owing to the remonstrances
addressed to the headmaster of Eton by the Humanitarian League, the
Eton hunting season has now been curtailed, but it is still prolonged
beyond the date which has been suggested by the better class of
sportsmen. The experience recorded in the _County Gentleman_ (1906) by
the writer of the following letter, Mr. John A. Doyle, of Pendarren,
Crickhowell, seems conclusive:
“The question you raise is one in which I feel a good deal
of interest. I have not only been for some years master of a
pack of harriers (foot), but I am also an Old Etonian, and
have always felt much interested in the doings of the school
beagles, and sympathy with them. Indeed, before I got your
letter I had thought of writing to the headmaster, with whom
I am--perhaps I should say was, a long time back--slightly
acquainted.
“My own practice has always been to have one meet the first
week in March, and then end the season. I was once or twice
tempted to go on later, and once killed a doe in kindle.
Since then I have kept to my rule. She gave us a sharp run of
twenty minutes or half an hour. This, I think, disposes of the
theory that a pregnant hare has no scent. Possibly she has
less than she would have normally. But _per contra_ she must
be handicapped by her condition. Then there is the risk of a
chop. And it cannot be good for an animal big with young to be
bustled and frightened.
“There is yet a worse danger. In some forward seasons there
may be leverets by the second week in March. The dam might be
killed, and the leverets left to die. I would almost sooner
never hunt again than run such a risk. Of course, one might
hunt through March for several seasons and none of these things
happen; but there must be a risk, and I do not myself think
that one is justified in running it.”
What is true of the Eton beagles is true of every hare-hunt throughout
the country. The sport ought to be brought to a close on the last day
of February, as, indeed, used to be the custom. “Coursing still goes on
among a few,” wrote the author of the “Sporting Almanack” for March,
1843, “but in our opinion the fair sportsman will _hold hard_ as soon
as March sets in.”[32] Much, then, of the hare-hunting of the present
time is _not_ fair.
Still worse is the case of otter-hunting, which is carried on from
springtime till autumn, with the result that females heavy with young
must occasionally be worried, though sportsmen plead that this is never
intentional. An instance that has often been quoted is recorded in the
Hon. Grantley F. Berkeley’s “Life and Recollections,” where the story
is told of a female otter disturbed by the hounds “in the act of making
a couch for her young.”
“At her we went for seven hours, with constant views, and
during that time, on a stump overhanging the river, she
miscarried and gave birth to two cubs, born only a few days
before their time. A hound found them, and when I took one in
my hand it was scarcely cold. She beat us for want of light,
and well she deserved to escape.”
Similar instances are recorded from time to time, as by a correspondent
of the _Morning Leader_, who told how in Devonshire, in 1891, a female
otter, after being worried for nearly four hours, had given birth to
two dead whelps.
But of all such malpractices the chasing of in-calf hinds is the most
deliberate and the worst. If it be true, as we are informed, that
tenant-farmers in the Devon and Somerset district complain bitterly of
the damage done by deer, what possible reason can be given against the
_shooting_ (when necessary) of the hinds, in place of the disgusting
and barbarous custom of hunting them? A few years ago the Rev. J.
Stratton, after personally investigating the matter, described some of
the inevitable results of hind-hunting till the end of March, instead
of stopping the “sport,” as ought to be done, at the beginning of
March at the latest, and gave specific cases in which, when the dead
hinds were “broken up” to feed the hounds, calves as large as hares
were seen to be taken from the bodies. Since that time there is reason
to believe that, owing in part to the Humanitarian League’s protests,
there is a growing local feeling against this especially cruel feature
of the sport, and it is hoped that those landowners and residents who
have humane scruples in the matter will use their influence to bring
about the discontinuance of this disgraceful practice. The whole system
of hunting these West Country deer is cruel enough--involving, as it
does, the death of many of them by leaping from the cliffs on to the
rocks, or being drowned in the sea, or being hung up on wire-fences
and mangled by the hounds. But the hunting of the hinds, at a time
when even savages might compassionate them, is one of the very worst
abominations for which even “sport” is responsible.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] Quoted in _Fry’s Magazine_, June, 1911, in an admirable article
entitled “Shabby Blood-Sports Worth Ending.”
IV
DRAG-HUNT _VERSUS_ STAG-HUNT
The fact is too often overlooked that a ready substitute for the savage
chase of animals may be found in the drag-hunt, a form of sport which
preserves all that is valuable in the way of exercise, while getting
rid of one thing only--the cruelty to the tortured stag or fox or hare.
As has been pointed out in the _Sheffield Daily Telegraph_, a paper
favourable to sport:
“There is little doubt that in time the drag-hunt will become
the popular hunting pastime. For years it has been supported by
the officers of the Guards, and, besides having the merit of
disarming criticism on the part of the Humanitarian League, it
can be enjoyed by thousands of sightseers, as it defines the
tract of country over which the drag leads the hounds.”
The attempts of some sporting writers to belittle the value of
the drag have been very infelicitous. If they personally prefer a
blood-sport to a bloodless pastime, let them say so--it is a matter on
which we will take their word--but when they assert that a drag-hunt
is not suitable for pedestrians, or for schoolboys, they only convict
themselves of knowing as little about the practical as about the moral
side of the controversy. The following statement was made by the late
Lady Florence Dixie, who spoke with unquestionable authority:--
“Drags can be fast run or slow run, according to the way they
are laid. My husband owned a pack of harriers and a pack of
beagles, and I was able to get him often to hunt them on
drags, and have often ridden with the harriers and run with
the beagles. When a very fast, non-hunting run was wanted with
the harriers, the drag was laid straight and continuously, and
hounds ran fast, and riding was like a steeplechase, without a
pause, except when any of us came a cropper! When a hunting run
was required, we laid a catchy drag, twisting here and there,
lifting the scent, and copying as near as possible the wily
ways of Reynard. With the beagles we imitated the hare, who
is a ringing, not straight-running animal, lifting the scent,
doubling back, and so on, and, in fact, we brought thus two
competitors into the sport--_i.e._, the drag-layer _versus_ the
huntsman, and pitted their wiles and their cunning against each
other. I may be accepted as an authority, as few have perhaps
ridden in harder-fought hunting runs of all kinds than I--fox,
stag, harrier, guanaco, ostrich, and suchlike--and I have had
considerable experience with beagles as well, on foot.”[33]
In face of this testimony, and of the fact recorded by Brinsley
Richards, in his “Seven Years at Eton,” that a drag was successfully
used at Eton half a century ago, it is absurd to pretend that it
could not be used there again; but if further proof be needed, it is,
fortunately, available in the following letter from Mr. A. G. Grenfell,
Headmaster of Mostyn House School, Parkgate, Cheshire. It will be seen
that the idea, very commonly held, that the drag-hunt is suitable only
for those following on horseback, and that it would too severely tax
the energies of boys running on foot, is absolutely erroneous.
“_December 16, 1903._
“On the subject of Beagle Drag-Hunting at Schools, I think you
will be pleased to know that we have owned and run a pack of
beagles at this school for the last ten years on the lines that
you suggest, and with the greatest success. The drag affords
any amount of healthy and interesting exercise without cruelty.
Ours is just an ordinary preparatory school, with ten masters
and ninety boys. Our hounds are twenty-three or twenty-four in
number. The sport of following them is very popular with all
of us, and it would be hard to devise an easier or better form
of school variant to the everlasting football. Not only does
drag-hunting keep boys from tiring of the regulation game, but
it is to the wind and endurance these runs give us that we owe
the fact that we seldom, if ever, lose a match against boys of
our own size and weight. The beauty of the drag-hunt is that
you can pick your course, you can choose your jumps, you can
regulate your checks and keep your field all together, and you
can insure the maximum of sport and exercise.”
Here, too, is the testimony of another headmaster of a preparatory
school, Mr. F. H. Gresson, of The Grange, Crowborough.
“_March 23, 1909._
“I can fully endorse all that Mr. Grenfell says with regard to
the pleasure and amusement to be derived from a drag-hunt. I
have kept a small pack of beagles and hunted a drag with them
for the last five years with very successful results. In my
opinion, it is a very suitable form of amusement for boys of
the preparatory school age, as you can regulate the distance
and the checks, and there is no fear of their getting overdone.
“As one who is very keen upon both fox-hunting and
hare-hunting, I cannot pretend to say that a drag compares
in any way with either. At the same time, however, I get a
great amount of enjoyment out of it myself, in addition to the
exercise, and I do not find it at all a dull sport.”
We do not, of course, _compare_ the drag-hunt with the stag-hunt,
the hare-hunt, or any other blood-sport, in the sense of saying that
it yields equal excitement; it lacks, no doubt, the thrill of the
life-and-death struggle that is going on in front of the hounds. But
for those who are aware that such excitement is cruel and morbid,
the drag-hunt may be made to provide an excellent _substitute_ for
blood-sport, with plenty of skill as well as plenty of exercise; and
sportsmen who refuse such substitute merely give proof that their
addiction to a barbarous practice is very strong.
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.