THEIR DEFENCE 5 



open and straying stock, for these gentry 

 do not bear the character of being over- 

 considerate of others, such time as they 

 are pursuing their nocturnal vocation. 



But, unfortunately at least in this 

 respect, it is the townsman who has the 

 predominant voice in the management of 

 affairs in this country ; he is being taught 

 to be severely critical of the pleasures of 

 the rich, and, among others, the man with 

 the dog and the gun is constantly held up 

 to him in an utterly false and untrue light. 



Alike on ethical and economic grounds 

 we would meet our detractors. While 

 we do not seek to defend the man who, 

 with means admitting of continued leisure, 

 devotes the best of his life and energies to 

 the pursuit of sport, we hold that he is in 

 a negligible minority in this country, and 

 that it is most unfair to take him as 

 typical of a class, for he is simply the 

 waster who is found in every walk of life, 

 and by no means the normal example. 

 Certainly in partridge-shooting it would 

 be safe to say that ninety out of every 



