EDITOR'S TABLE. 



3 6 5 



ation to all the wantonness of torture ; 

 and not only that, but to tortures that 

 were sure to be inflicted, and were pro- 

 vided for by the limitations of the stat- 

 ute. Of the sufferings to which cer- 

 tain of the lower animals are subjected 

 by the favorite English pastime of hunt- 

 ing them with hounds, which is free- 

 ly permitted by law, we do not speak, 

 but will only refer to some facts regard- 

 ing the universal English sport of 

 " shooting." It is well known that the 

 British Parliament generally adjourns 

 about the time that the partridges and 

 grouse cease to be protected by the 

 game-laws of the country ; and no one 

 who knows anything of the strength 

 of British instincts for destructive field- 

 sports will consider the connection, in 

 this case, as altogether fortuitous. 

 Lords, Commoners, and everybody that 

 can afford it, then seize their guns, and 

 betake themselves to the fields and 

 mountains wherever there is anything 

 to be killed. It is the fashionable and 

 the national thing. Those who own 

 grounds range over them with their 

 guests in quest of beasts and birds, and 

 others hire the privilege of doing it for 

 longer or shorter times. The whole 

 matter is legally regulated. Licenses 

 are issued to keep guns, and licenses to 

 kill game. A few of all the multitudes 

 who enter upon the sport are good 

 shots, and kill a large portion of the 

 creatures fired at. But the most of 

 them are bad shots, and wound many 

 more than they kill. When hit, if not 

 captured, they escape with their bodies 

 penetrated with leaden pellets some 

 of them to die ; some to sutler miser- 

 ably ; and others to recover after expe- 

 riencing various degrees of pain. A 

 writer in Nature has gone into the sta- 

 tistics of shooting, with a view to esti- 

 mate the probable numbers of creat- 

 ures that thus suffer by wounding. He 

 adopts as his basis the number of those 

 who take out licenses, the duration of 

 the season, and the days given to sport, 

 and, by reckoning the number wounded 



per day that are not killed, he arrives 

 at a proximate conclusion regarding the 

 aggregate of animals that yearly suffer 

 from this cause. The number of li- 

 censes issued is taken from government 

 reports, which indicate, for example, 

 that in the year 1873-74 there were 

 132,036 holders of gun-licenses, and 

 65,846 holders of licenses to kill game. 

 Assuming that each sportsman wounds 

 three head of game per day, which are 

 not taken, he finds that the total num- 

 ber of animals upon which pain is thus 

 inflicted amounts to many millions an- 

 nually. We cannot go into the details 

 of his calculation, which is carefully 

 and fairly made out, but will quote the 

 concluding passage of his article : 



" If we may trust our figures, here are 

 the plain facts that acute pain of uncertain 

 duration was, iu the year ending March 31, 

 1874, inflicted upon over twenty-two million 

 animals, and in the following year upon 

 over twenty-three million and a half, in the 

 British Islands. We are not aware that we 

 possess any bias that would make us exag- 

 gerate our estimates to produce these results. 

 Our only object is to attempt as near an ap- 

 proximation to the truth as we can. The 

 figures stand for themselves, and if any one 

 thinks he can furnish fairer averages let him 

 give his data for them. We are, as it is, 

 willing to guard against any unconscious 

 exaggeration, and to knock off more than 

 ten per cent, of our grand totals, so as to 

 say roundly that only twenty millions have 

 suffered in each year. But we would invito 

 our readers to reflect on the proportion which 

 even that number bears to the number of 

 animals which during the same time have 

 been subjected to experiment by the physi- 

 ologists of this country. The latter have 

 been by many excellent persons held up to 

 obloquy as monsters of cruelty. If this 

 has been done justly, what must they think 

 of those who use the gun?" 



From the point of view here pre- 

 sented, the state of the case has been 

 pithily summed up by Mr. Lowe, in a 

 recent able article in the Contemporary 

 Review : 



" According to present British law, as re- 

 vised under the spur of the latest philan- 

 thropy, it appears that, while the man of 



