HUNTING THE CARTED DEER 215 



time to hunt with foxhounds. Even in the best 

 stocked countries there is frequently a long draw ; 

 fox-hunting, moreover, entails an early start, which 

 is not always possible for a business man who wants 

 to see his more important letters before he sets out 

 from home, who only has a limited time to spare for 

 his recreation, and who wants his gallop. Were it 

 not for the carted deer this good fellow would lose 

 his sport altogether, and for that reason, if for no 

 other, it behoves a man who has sport of a higher 

 class provided for him and whose lot lies in a happier 

 hunting ground, at any rate in his own opinion, to 

 do all he can to ensure that the hunting of the 

 carted deer shall remain amongst the rural sports 

 of merry England. 



The reason I have taken up this subject is that 

 the Archbishop Designate, together with other well- 

 meaning but — on this subject — ignorant persons, 

 have written to Lord Salisbury, expressing their 

 regret that the Royal Buckhounds should have 

 commenced another season. Probably they had 

 been actuated by the diatribes of the so-called 

 Humanitarian League, which has for the last few 

 years been unceasing in its efforts to vilify stag- 

 hunting, and some members of which have told 

 some pretty fairy tales in print about the sufferings 

 of the deer. A man has a perfect right to express 

 his opinion on well-ascertained facts, but he has no 

 right to put down an occasional injury which may 

 happen to a deer to premeditated and wanton 

 cruelty, and this is the line of argument which has 

 too often been used by those who oppose stag- 

 hunting, and, of course, incidentally all other field 

 sports. One of these opponents of sport some few 

 years ago spoke of all hunting men as " red-coated 



