122 SPORT IN EUROPE 



the division of property renders hunting more and more difficult, 



for the law prohibits the presence of dogs on the 



Decay of property of anyone, if the proprietor chooses to 

 French . . ,. . , 



Hunting- forbid right of way. Some privileged districts, where 



the old order prevails (to the profit of the people 



in the neighbourhood), still maintain their hunting establishments, 



but it is easy to foresee the time when French hunting will survive 



only as a memory of the happy past, when France was great and 



powerful and had no need to struggle with low passions and venomous 



hatreds, stirred up by envy, and when those of various sects had 



not, in their insane desire to rise to the top of the social structure, 



developed into one of the forces threatening to disorganise our 



country. 



II.— SHOOTING 



Without stopping to consider such kinds of sport as falconry, of 

 which there is now but one small establishment in France, or coursing, 

 which is illegal, I must now pass on to a sad subject. If it may 

 rightly be said that hunting continues to hold its own as the chief 

 feature of French sport, shooting is very far from being in the same 

 position. The depletion of our land, once so full of game, is all 

 but completed. It is quite enough to see the quantities of foreign 

 game that finds its way into France from Germany, England, Austria, 

 and Russia beino- distributed over the whole land in order to form 

 some idea of the present-day game production of France itself. 

 Millions of francs, as statistics have shown, are yearly paid away 

 for the purchase of game, living or dead, from our neighbours, and 



