86 SPOXTS AND ANECDOTES. 



and unless they ride a steeplechase, or hunt a drag, 

 having no foxhounds, the unfortunate stag is the only 

 animal that is capable of leading them a dance in 

 which they may show off their equestrian powers 

 and ride against one another. I maintain that there 

 cannot be the same excitement in taking a poor 

 unfortunate tired stag in a duckpond or in a black- 

 smith's or baker's shop, let the pace and distance have 

 been ever so good, as there would be in a much poorer 

 run and killing your fox. Added to this, there surely 

 must be some cruelty attached to the sport. I have 

 heard it said that a stag don't mind being hunted, and 

 that he rather enjoys it as a healthy exercise, as he 

 seldom comes to real grief in the field, and when he is 

 not required is taken the greatest care of and fed upon 

 hay and beans, and, in fact, the best of everything, 

 and treated like a hunter instead of a miserable half- 

 tamed animal doomed to be periodically hunted. The 

 question is, if a stag enjoys the sport he is compelled 

 to make for others, why does he run from his pursuers ? 

 The answer must be that he runs away through fright, 

 or what may be termed sheer funk. And surely this 

 may be called cruelty to animals, and as far as I can 

 see a most fitting subject for the Society for the 

 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is so much 



