CHAPTER V 



HUNTING 



NO one will cavil at the suggestion that 

 hunting and all that that term implies 

 has had a vast inlluence in moulding 

 the character of the British race, and in keeping 

 alive the hereditary instincts of our ancestors, 

 however remote, who had to hunt in order to live. 



It is interesting to comment on the love of 

 sport that is innate in most British-born people. 

 It is specially to be observed in the upper classes, 

 probably because they are more or less associated 

 with a country life and have maintained a purer 

 strain of heredity from the feudal lords and landed 

 gentry of the past. It is this strain or breed of 

 the population that is an influential factor in 

 sustaining the physical and moral stability of the 

 British race. People bred for a few generations 

 under the conditions incidental to lar<re commun- 

 ities and towns inevitably deteriorate. One of 

 the best means of promoting health physically 

 and morally is to encourage sport by every 

 possible means. Yet there are many people 

 who would put down hunting as cruel, racing as 

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