SUGGESTIONS TO SPORTSMEN. 271 
CHAPTER X. 
SUGGESTIONS TO SPORTSMEN. 
Tue word “sport” has been more abused, ill-treated, 
and misapplied than any other in our language; of a 
high, pure, and noble signification, it has been 
debased to unworthy objects; of a restricted and 
refined significance, it has been extended to a mass 
of improper matters; from its natural elegant appro- 
priateness, it has been degraded to vulgar and dis- 
honest associations. 
The miserable wretch who lives on the most con- 
temptible passion in human nature, and with practised 
skill cheats those who would cheat him—winning by 
the unfair rules of games, so-called, of chance—or, with 
less conscience, converting that chance into a certain- 
ty, calls himseif'a sporting man. The individual who, 
having trained a horse up to the finest condition of 
activity and endurance, drives or rides him under. 
lash and spur round a course to win a sum of money, 
although he may call himself a sportsman, is really 
a business man. The daring backwoodsman of the 
Far West, who follows the fleet elk or timid deer, and 
who attacks the formidable buffalo or grizzly bear, 
is less a sportsman than a mighty hunter; the man 
who shoots with a view of selling his game is a 
market-gunner; and he who kills that he may eat is 
a pot-hunter. 
