BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 65 



does this torturing consist ? Most persons sit down 

 very composedly, and some with a good deal of 

 avidity, to table when they see a hare on a dish in- 

 stead of " her form," and if told it is a hunted hare, 

 as she is reckoned more tender than a shot one, I 

 have never, to my recollection, seen any one refuse a 

 slice of the back, for that reason. It is clear, therefore, 

 or at least more than probable, that as hares have 

 been killed, killed they still will be, so long as there 

 exist persons to eat them ; the only matter in hand 

 is the mode of killing, for those persons who call 

 hunting torturing them, and I have often heard it thus 

 defined. I will suppose a case : 



A traveller falls in with a horde of Indians, is held 

 prisoner, but is told that if, after afair start is given him, 

 he can escape his pursuers,by speed, endurance of long 

 running, or any artifice he can use, he may do so ; or he 

 may, as an alternative, take the risk, at a fair distance, 

 of being shot at by a good marksman ; the latter he 

 knows to be nearly certain death. Could it be called 

 torturing, the giving him an equal chance of escape, or 

 being overtaken? Now, though never a regular hare- 



F 



