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
Accidents involved by hunting, 66
Adams, Maurice, on cost of sport, 45 _et seq._
Afforestation conflicts with game preservation, 53
Agriculture ruined by sport, 38
Athletic exercises compared with blood-sports, 129
Badgers as “vermin,” 88
“Bag,” a six weeks’, 104
Balance of Nature upset, 40
“Battue,” horrors of the, 83
“Battue-shooting,” 13
Beagles:
Eton, 18;
_Tom Brown_ on Rugby, 125;
forbidden by original statutes, 117;
not legalised until 1871, 117;
Dr. Warre’s attitude _re_, 116;
strength of the opposition to, 124
Big-game hunting:
Mr. Ernest Bell on, 101;
monotony of, 101, 102
“Blooding,” 155
Blood-sports:
not manly, 56, 112, 136;
at schools, 116
Buchanan, Robert, quoted, 69, 150
Buckhounds, abolition of Royal, 100, 130
Buddha, humane teachings of, 29
Burmese, the, and compassion, 29
Burns, Robert, on shooting, 93
Byron, Lord, on angling, 178
Callousness of fox-hunting, the, 95
Carlisle otter hounds, 30
Carpenter, Edward, on sport and agriculture, 34 _et seq._
Carted deer, 22
Civilised _versus_ savage life, 132
Clay-pigeons and live pigeons, 166
Colquhoun, John, on the poacher, 81
Compassion taught by Buddha, 29
Compensation, farmers and, 37
Cornfields damaged by mice and sparrows, 40
Coursing, 170
Cricket compared with hunting, 67
Cruel sports not public benefits, 60
Cruelties of stag-hunting, 10
Cruelty, definition of, 2
“Cub-hunting,” barbarities of, 9
Cultivated area of Great Britain, 53
Deer, carted, “accidents” to, 22
Deer-forests:
acreage of, 84;
effects of, 84
De Quincey’s satire, 142
Dixie, Lady Florence, quoted, 163
Dogs, gamekeepers’, 76
Drag-hunt _versus_ stag-hunt, 162
Drag-hunting a pleasurable sport, 99, 163
Durham, Lord, defends rabbit-coursing, 27
Economics of hunting, 60 _et seq._
Elephants, extermination of, 105
“Enclosure Act,” 71
Eton Beagles, 18;
eminent opponents of, 124;
hare-hunt, the, 116;
sports, brutality of, 117 _et seq._
Evolution and animal kinship, 33
Expenditure on hunting, 65
Explosive bullets, 113
Farmers and compensation, 37
Farmers injured by hunting, 64
_Field, The_, on tame-deer hunting, 24
Fishing, 174
“Food-supply” fallacy, the, 83
Fortescue, Hon. J., quoted, 109
Fox, the hunted, 6, 98
Foxes “made in Germany,” 35
Fox-hunting, 5 _et seq._;
excuses for, 8;
H. B. M. Watson on, 95;
illogical, 97, 98
“Foxology,” Dr. Lang’s, 135
“Game,” animals included as, 71
Gamekeepers:
brutality of, 79, 86;
Joseph Arch on, 75;
Justice Vaughan Williams and, 76;
increase of, 39;
Mr. Lloyd George on, 39
Game Laws:
facts about the, 69 _et seq._;
a legal anomaly, 70;
_raison d’être_ of, 71;
popular dislike of, 72
Grand Duke’s exploit, 103
Gravid animals, hunting of, 158
Greenwood, George, M.P., on cruelty of sport, 1 _et seq._
Grouse-moors and farmers, 38
Hare-hunting, 16;
Sir Thomas More on, 16
Hedgehogs as “vermin,” 88
Heron, destruction of the, 41, 90
Home Office, the, and Game Laws, 74
Hudson, W. H., quoted, 87 _et seq._
Hunt, Leigh, quoted, 133, 175
Hunter, the, as a “lover of animals,” 93
Hunting:
expensiveness of, 62;
a limited recreation, 66;
a rich man’s sport, 62
Instincts, “God-planted,” 132
Japanese, prowess of the, 57
Johnston, Sir Harry:
on big-game killing, 114;
on gun-sportsmen, 93;
on wild life, 85
Justice ignored in Game Law administration, 74
Justices of the Peace as game-preservers, 73
Kropotkin’s, Prince, estimate on produce of soil, 53
Land, effect of Game Laws on, 72
Legislation affected by hunting, 67
“Live bait,” cruelty of using, 108
Lloyd, E. B., on destruction of wild life, 85 _et seq._
Londonderry’s, Lord, economic argument, 51
“Lost” animals, sufferings of, 110
“Lust, the blood,” 113
Lyte, Sir H. Maxwell, on Eton barbarities, 117, 126
Martin, Howard, on benefits of sport, 49
Meredith, George, quoted, 94
Mice and cornfields, 40
Modern sport not heroic, 58
Monck, W. H. S., on economics of hunting, 60 _et seq._
Moral defence of sport lacking, 7, 111
Natural _versus_ _un_natural history, 94
Nightingales, destruction of, 89
Nyasaland licences, 114
Otter hunt at Longtown, 30
Otter hunting, 18, 19, 160
Penal servitude for night poaching, 75
Penalties for trespass, 74
Pheasant shooting and vivisection, 1
Pheasants, artificially reared, 13, 36, 51, 94
Pigeon-shooting:
not true sport, 21;
Lord Randolph Churchill on, 166;
prohibited at Hurlingham, 22, 167
Poacher:
character of the, 80;
the, as gamekeeper, 81;
described, 81
Poachers, illegal sentences on, 74
Polo and hunting compared, 67
Preservation of game, 15
Professionalism spoiling sport, 59
Rabbit-coursing, 24
Rabbits, a nuisance to farmers, 39
Recreations:
best available to largest numbers, 62;
essentials of, 62-64
Remorse of the hunter, 106
Reserves for wild animals, 44
Ribblesdale, Lord, and stag-hunting, 145, 157
Roosevelt, T., quoted, 107
Rousseau, J. J., on compassion, 31, 32
Salt, Henry S., on _Sportsmen’s fallacies_, 130 _et seq._
Sargent, Henry R., defends sport, 45
Schopenhauer and the basis of morality, 31, 32
Select Committee of 1846, 80
Sentimentalism _versus_ humanitarianism, 96
Seton-Karr, H. W., 131
Seton-Karr’s, Sir H., fallacy, 137
Shooting, 11 _et seq._
Small holdings _versus_ sporting interests, 42
Sparrows and cornfields, 40
Spoiling other people’s pleasure, 179
Sport:
importance of ethical issues, 1;
as a fetish, 4;
cost of, 45-59;
confusion in the use of the term, 56
Sports:
morally unjustifiable if cruel, 2;
two kinds of, 3;
spurious, 20 _et seq._, 58;
and agriculture, Edward Carpenter on, 34 _et seq._
“Sportsman,” a popular appellation, 3
Sportsmen’s claims criticised, 139 _et seq._;
logic, 8;
fallacies, 130
Stag-hunting, cruelties of, 10
Steel traps, barbarity of, 82
Torture unnecessary, 96
Unmanliness of pheasant-shooting, 57
Unregistered gamekeepers, 80
Unsportsmanlike devices, 104
“Vermin” exterminated by game-preservers, 88
Vivisection and field sports compared, 1
Wallace, A. R., on gamekeepers, 76
War, sport as training for, 149
Warre, Dr., his defence of the Eton hare-hunt, 116, 123
Watson, H. B. Marriott, on fox-hunting, 95 _et seq._
Weasels as “vermin,” 88
Wild life, destruction of, 85 _et seq._
Women and hunting, 11, 19
Woodpecker destroyed by gamekeeper, 89
Wounded victims of sport, 14
Young, need of humane teaching for the, 18
THE END
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.