BADGER-BAITING 



277 



use of its limbs. It is only wounded and injured animals 

 that he can catch. 



It is difficult to understand how any person who is not lost 

 to every sense of humanity and shame can take delight in the 

 cowardly and brutal amusement of badger-baiting — instead of 

 amusement, I should have said, the disgusting exhibition of a 

 peaceable and harmless animal worried by fierce and powerful 

 dogs. The poor badger, too, has probably been kept for a 

 length of time in a confined and close hutch, thereby losing 

 half his energy and strength ; while the dogs, trained to the 

 work and in full vigour of wind and limb, attack him in the 

 most tender and vulnerable parts. Truly, I always feel a wish 

 to make the badger and his keeper change places for a few 

 rounds. Not that I would pay the former so bad a complinient 

 as to suppose that he would take delight in tormenting even so 

 great a brute as his gaoler must be. 



GROUP OF HIGHLAND DOGS. FROM SIR E. LANDSEER, R.A. 



