BUTCHERY IN SPORT. 
11 
too, in this kind of ^ sport ; ' and in the destruction of the 
more fierce and rapacious animals, a great service is rendered 
to man. But it irks us much to read of the indiscriminate 
slaughter of meek and harmless creatures, that might be 
domesticated and rendered useful, or that, at least, were not 
injurious, and therefore might be allowed to roam their 
native wilds in unmolested enjoyment of the life which their 
Creator gave them. If their flesh, or their skins, or other 
portions of their frames, are required for the sustenance or 
clothing of man, or any other purpose of utility, slay them 
by all means ; they v*^ere given for our use ; but do not 
make ^ sport ' of their agony ; do not unnecessarily wound 
or destroy them. This is cruelty, which is contrary alike to 
the word of Divine revelation, and the natural feelings of 
the enlightened human heart. Against this we would lift 
up our voice, whether it is exercised in the wilds of Africa, 
or in the game preserves of England, whose crowded deni- 
zens are sometimes surrounded by a circle of flaming tubes, 
which shower death and destruction among them, until they 
, fliU by hundreds and thousands, bleeding and mutilated by 
the hands of sportsmen, (?) who are too idle or too eflemi- 
iiate even to secure their game, or load or carry their guns, 
these offices being performed by liveried menials. And 
this is ' sport ! ' Say rather Butchery ! for by this name 
only can we designate the * battue,' such as Mr. Knox tells 
us took place on a well-known manor of Norfolk some years 
since, when upwards of two thousand head of game were 
killed in the course of four days' shooting. Bah ! The 
Oakleigh Shooting Code says, that ^ it is the rarity and 
difficulty of attainment of a bird that renders the acquisition 
of it desirable to the true sportsman.' Therefore such idle 
and wholesale slaughterers stand condemned by their own 
recognised laws ; clearly, theT/ are not true sportsmen. 
Surely the manor above-mentioned must have been like 
the estate advertised for sale, in which there were 600 acres 
of cover, where the ^pheasants, partridges, hares, fowl, 
snipes, and woodcocks literally blacken the air,^ This 
would be a perfect paradise for a cockney sportsman, who 
could hardly fire with his eyes shut without hitting some- 
thing; such, for instance, as Jonathan Duggins, from whose 
