180 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
promise. At any rate, it is a case of choice between 
a brief luxurious imprisonment with guaranteed 
protection, and summary execution. 
I have used plain words about foxes, but there is 
continually cropping up ample evidence to prove 
that they are not to be allowed much longer to go 
their own sweet way. Yet I am certain that keepers 
collectively would be among the first to deplore 
the prospect of a cessation of hunting—not because 
of the occasional pieces of gold which they may 
receive from hunt funds, but because of their 
genuine love for the blood-tingling sport. There 
is a less worthy but weightier reason why the 
extinction of foxes would be deplored by keepers— 
the same reason, I believe, that is used by those 
who extol the benefits conferred on game interests, 
by hunting, in the same breath that they say foxes 
do practically no harm to game: that if it were not 
for the existence of foxes only half the present 
number of keepers would be required to preserve 
game. This is true, but it cuts two ways; for 
might not many more people find it so much easier 
and more profitable to preserve game without the 
assistance of foxes that they would do so to twice 
the present extent? 
One has heard often enough of the seven and a 
half millions said to be circulated each year by 
hunting. Of course, any institution which circulates 
money must be more or less of benefit to the 
