The Marquis de Chamhray's Hounds 307 



although the people of the United States may not have reached 

 a perfect understanding of the ethics of true sportsmanship, 

 they have advanced so far beyond the spirit of the chase as to 

 cause pride and gratitude to every citizen among us." 



While the act of taking the life of game is in itself no edify- 

 ing sight and is part of the chase very few of the followers ever 

 witness or ever take part in, the writer is supremely thankful 

 that he has not "advanced so far beyond the spirit of the chase" 

 as to have lost the manly courage necessary to pursue it or to 

 have advanced so far by our so called "higher civilisation," as 

 to have his mind filled with effeminate ideas and ways of think- 

 ing. Sentimental sentiment is something very pretty to con- 

 template but in this case as usual it goes without logic or 

 reason. 



Here is a person living in a western state, where stock-rais- 

 ing is the principal industry, holding up his hands in holy 

 horror at the death of a stag taken in the chase, and thankful 

 that he is in "advanced" America where such things are not 

 considered sportsmanlike. At the same time in his own state 

 there runs every day of the year a river of blood from the 

 throats of innocent domestic animals at the thought of which 

 he never turns a hair. How can such persons filled with 

 "choking pity" for the death of a stag, bring themselves to eat 

 the meat of domestic animals slaughtered, not in mercy to 

 those who are left behind, as are the stags and wild boars in the 

 forests of France, where they are too numerous for their own 

 good, but to be devoured? How can such critics of the chase 

 ever eat lamb that has had its frolicking days of innocent play 

 in company with a mother brought suddenly to an end by an 

 unfeehng barbarous butcher? How can one "choking with 

 sentiment" for the hunted, bear to visit a stock farm or lend 

 his presence to an Agricultural Fair where he must mingle with 

 farmers and butchers whose business on the one hand is to 

 rear, on the other to butcher, thousands of "innocent lambs," 



