DEB ATE ABLE LAND 87 



ing/ these gentlemen have jnniped into the error of general- 

 ising from exceptions, and they have tried to establish the 

 exception as the rule. 



Every now and again a deer meets with an accident, and 

 has to he destroyed. Every now and again a deer may be 

 killed by the homids. I admit this in the freest and fullest 

 way, and I will make the opposition a present of my own 

 experience of these occurrences. In three years, on the 

 whole fairly open seasons, I remember losing four deer ; 

 or let us say five, for I am not speaking by book, but to 

 the best of my recollection. Certainly five covers it. Two 

 of these are cases which I have seen instanced from time 

 to time with great richness of circumstantial detail in the 

 newspapers, and upon which the agitation still largely rests 

 its case. These deer came by their death through being 

 hunted, but I may here remark that not one of these four 

 or five deer was killed or even touched by the hounds. 



Let us, however, for a moment assume that they had 

 been so killed or so hurt, is it fair to take these exceptional 

 cases, and present them to the large public who have no 

 possible means of arriving at any real opinions one way or 

 the other as the regular incidents and accompaniments of 

 stag-hunting '? 



I should protest against this tyranny of isolated texts, 

 if I attached any argumentative value to the method, but 

 I attach no such value. Indeed, the weakness of their case 

 lies in the method adopted. Kailway accidents are very 

 terrible things. AVhy do we not, therefore, do away with 

 fast trains ? AVhy do not people give up railway travelling ? 

 Because accidents of this kind are exceptional ; because they 

 stand out in startling, and yet in a sense most reassuring, 

 relief, as exceptions. Granted that there is no analogy 



' The first petition (1892) was very largely signed by the hands in 

 Huntley & Palmer's Biscuit Works at Reading. 



