Ii8 SHOOTING THE PHEASANT 



To all that I have said it may be urged that there 

 is no attack, at present upon field sports, and that I 

 may be beating the air in thus putting forth a defence. 

 But let us be warned in time. An organised attack 

 is being prepared and has already begun upon every 

 recreation and amusement which is beyond the reach 

 of the more struggling and less fortunate mass of 

 humanity. The cry is being used, despite the fact that 

 all these things are good for trade, and that poverty 

 would be deeper and more widespread in their ab- 

 sence, to foster the discontent that can so easily be 

 excited among those who are less prosperous than 

 their fellows. 



If steadily resisted by those whose knowledge 

 and experience of British sports enables them to state 

 the simple truth, this attack is doomed to failure in the 

 end, and it may once more be shown that those who 

 pretend to find a panacea for the hardships of the 

 many by curtailing the enjoyments of the few are as 

 ignorant as they are spiteful and unscrupulous. 



I was lately shooting on an estate where, from vicis- 

 situdes of ownership, the game preservation had been 

 sadly let down, in a part of the country where agricul- 

 tural distress has been specially acute, and where the 

 soil, though poor for crops, is admirably suited for timber 

 and game. The population was scanty and ill cared for ; 



