132 



SPORT. 



away you are certain only to wound them. The 

 " monster " described earlier, when I asked him why 

 he shot at a hare eighty or lOO yards off, 

 seeing there was no possibility of killing it, replied : 

 " Oh, I don't know that. A chance pellet might 

 enter the eye and so penetrate the brain and cause 

 death " (this was his ghastly idea of humour) ; 

 " besides, I wanted to try these new guns ! " 

 Avoid, humane reader, any such cold-blooded ex- 

 periments, and when there is much doubt, give the 

 poor animal the benefit of it, and forbear to press 

 the torture-dealing trigger. 



And you, critics on shooting and censors of 

 country gentlemen's habits, try to be charitable, nor, 

 because you cannot understand it, think a sport 

 common and unclean, and condemn " a class with 

 which you are totally unacquainted. We all have 

 our faults, and the battue giver and frequenter 

 have no claim to infallibility, being human like 

 yourselves. But, as a rule, they will be found, if 

 a Royal Commission was appointed to examine 



