Part 19

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.” 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:

Quoted in Fry’s Magazine, June, 1911, in an admirable article entitled “Shabby Blood-Sports Worth Ending.”

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.”

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:

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.

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.”