308 The Hunting Field With Horse and Hound 



"pretty pigs," and "darling little calves," that are purposely 

 brought into the world by the design of man only to 

 have their throats cut and give their lives up as a sacrifice 

 to man? 



There are hundreds of thousands of domestic animals in 

 every western state yearly thrown into pens with not one single 

 chance for their lives, not one single hope of escape, which 

 every sportsman gives to every animal of the chase. In fact 

 all animals of the chase are given nearly equal chances and if 

 taken are usually outwitted or outgeneralled at their own 

 game. 



What would our western critics advise if a delegation of 

 farmers adjoining his property should come to him as they 

 did to the Baron de Dorlodot and say that if he did not do 

 something to keep down the number of wild boars in this for- 

 est, they must bring the question to the courts, for they were 

 destroying their crops to an unusual extent? Would he say, 

 as the Baron de Dorlodot did, "Gentlemen, I am getting old, 

 I am now hunting the wild boar two days a week ; I will here- 

 after hunt him four days a week and if that does not do, I 

 will have to hunt him six days in the week." 



There are some effeminate men and some sentimental 

 women who would sooner tie a bit of perfumed ribbon about 

 a fox's neck or a fish's tail and let them go again, the one to 

 be caught in a steel trap, or to die of starvation or disease, the 

 other to be devoured by the larger fishes, than think of tak- 

 ing the life of the one by pursuit in the chase or the other by 

 the artful casting of the sportsman's fly. 



If the chase is such a degrading factor in the upbuilding 

 of national character, then must Merry England be one of the 

 most degraded countries in the world, for nowhere in the world 

 is the chase so universally indulged in by all classes, and espe- 

 cially by the most intelligent, courteous and refined people, 

 as in Great Britain. As previously stated there are in 



