FRIENDS AND ENEMIES OF HUNTING 39 



Wales, Queensland, and New Zealand, and had many 

 opportunities of discussing the question of wire- 

 fencing with them. They could not understand why 

 English farmers erected barbed wire. Briefly their 

 argument was — "We do not depend upon the carcases 

 of our beasts ; we depend upon their hides ! " Now 

 the instinct of any animal, human or otherwise, when 

 pricked is to press against the prick, with the result 

 that the hide is blemished, and is thrown aside by the 

 tanner as soiled goods, and paid for at the same rate as 

 if it were " shoddy." Why cannot the English farmer 

 understand that he possesses a commercial friend in 

 the tanner ? 



But when large land-owners, holding influential 

 positions in their respective counties, permit barbed 

 wire to be erected upon their estates, we cannot 

 blame the small farmer if he imitates the example of 

 the pseudo-sportsmen, whom he has been taught to 

 believe are the paramount lords of the soil. When, 

 however, these pseudo-sporting land-owners play the 

 7vle of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and say to Masters 

 of Hounds, " Ye take too much upon you ! " — for the 

 rest of the moral I must refer my readers to the 

 sixteenth chapter of the Book of Numbers. 



