Vivisection. 
1876.] 
323 
Man, in the fourth place, inflicts death and pain, bodily or 
mental, as a mere pastime. So common is this that, even 
amongst a people so ostentatiously virtuous as ourselves, 
more perhaps than among nations who make less boast of 
moral pre-eminence, “amusement,” or its synonym “sport,” 
is supposed to involve almost of necessity the taking of life. 
It is perfectly true that many of the pastimes of former 
ages which turned solely upon man’s love of inflicting or of 
witnessing pain have been abolished. Gladiatorial shows, 
combats of wild beasts, bull and bear baiting, and pugilistic 
encounters are no longer tolerated ; but cock-fighting seems 
to be experiencing a revival, the offenders, when detected, 
meeting with but very trifling punishment. The distinction, 
moreover, between what is punished as cruelty and what is 
tolerated — or rather applauded — as “ sport ” is at times very 
evanescent. Thus to course hares or rabbits in an enclosed 
place is “ baiting,” and as such subjects all concerned in it 
to the correction of the law. To do the very same thing in 
an open traCt of country is “ sport,” and involves neither 
legal nor social penalties. Yet the only difference is that 
in the former instance the animals pursued have some small 
chance of escape. But that their terror is less when fleeing, 
or their sufferings smaller when caught, no one can maintain. 
It is, indeed, contended on behalf of the chase, as prac- 
tised in England, — i.e., where an animal is hunted not in 
order to get rid of a nuisance or a danger, nor for the sake 
of obtaining its flesh or other valuable portions for use — 
that the real objeCt is not so much amusement as health 
and the cultivation of certain manly virtues which a free 
nation cannot afford to let die out. We are willing to 
accept this plea in the utmost reasonable extent. Still we 
may ask whether health might not be as well secured by 
botanical, geological, artistic, or antiquarian rambles in 
moorland and forest as in shooting or fishing expeditions ? 
The question might further be put— -whether the manly virtues 
referred to may not be quite as advantageously cultivated 
in the destruction of beasts really dangerous to man, and 
which are still to be found in plenty, if not in the home 
kingdoms at least in other provinces of the empire ? But 
whilst we freely admit that courage, endurance, hardihood, 
are required in and developed by fox-hunting, deer-stalking, 
grouse-shooting, and the like, can this be said in favour of 
the prosaic massacres of sparrows, pigeons, and half-tame 
pheasants ? Were we not aware that inconsistency is one 
of the most striking attributes of human nature we should 
declare that the nation which can tolerate Hurlingham, and 
2 H 2, 
