
FOUNDERS OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETY 

Dr. WILLIAM BRUETTE, Editor 
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THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL WILL BE TO 
studiously promote a healthful interest in outdoor 
recreation, and a refined taste for natural objects. 
August 14, 1873. 
od sad 
COMMON SENSE VS. SENTIMENTALISM 
IN RELATION TO SPORTS 
REAMERS are beginning to envision a new 
D golden age when firearms and fishing tackle 
will be known only as relics of barbarism, 
and when the perfected superman shall have abol- 
ished the struggle for existence, and all organisms 
from the microbe to mammal may be indefinitely 
sustained on a synthetic elixir of life. 
No doubt, by that time the superman can solve 
the problem of the congestion of living things that 
will then exist in a better way than that chosen by 
the Creator. 
Humanity has been crawfishing towards a 
higher state of civilization with amazing rapidity 
these thousands of years, but the goal of an ideal 
and consistent existence is a long, long way up the 
road yet. At the present time our strivings for an 
Utopian condition of society are filled with contra- 
dictions and inconsistencies. Perhaps this but 
emphasizes the fact that we are on our way. How- 
ever, it might be just as well to strive for con- 
sistency in our progress and move forward with 
understanding and with some degree of: recogni- 
tion of the stage we have reached in our long 
journey. 
The sensibilities of some persons seem periodic- 
ally to undergo a severe trial. At one season the 
anglers are found over the country lugging around 
their allegedly torturous paraphernalia; at another 
season the hunters roam the fields and hills with 
their guns, also allegedly torturous. And at such 
times there is always someone lamenting the 
cruelty of hunting and fishing. 
The animals of the wild places appeal to the 
sentiment of people. And it is right that they 
should. However, sentimentality is entirely a 
different matter. 
Many wax indignant over the killing of wild life 
by the hunter or fisherman, yet the processes of 
our slaughter houses and our own back-yard butch- 
erings do not trouble them in the least. When it 
comes time to kill Johnny’s pet rabbit for the Sun- 
532 
day dinner it is only a matter to be handled with 
diplomacy and with as much dispatch as possible. 
Of course, Johnny may think it cruel, and, strange 
as it may seem to those who pretend to see cruelty — 
in the shooting of a wild rabbit, the sportsman 
himself is likely to agree with Johnny. The true 
sportsman cannot help but feel that the animal is 
being betrayed; it has learned to trust its human 
friends, only to meet death at the hands that have 
caressed it. Yet those who condemn hunting and 
fishing condone this betrayal as being the God- 
given right of mankind. 
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While we may betray trusting domestic animals 
without protest, we cannot pursue the wild birds 
of the air or the beasts of the fields or the fish of 
the streams where the animals pursued have a 
chance to outwit or escape the pursuer without 
bringing down upon our heads a shower of pro- 
tests that the killing is cruel. The killing that is 
done by the hunter or fisherman is the most merci- 
ful of all, and the fairest of all. 
A sportsman may be cruel, but most sportsmen 
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are not, and certainly all deserving the name are 
not. 
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To the wild animal whose life is one long strug-_ 
gle against its enemies, and whose life almost with-— 
iu 
out exception comes to a violent end in the course — 
of nature, the pursuit by the hunter is but an inci- 
dent of its existence. 
animal maintains what freedom it possesses or can 
possess. The domestic animal has no freedom and 
finds its death not at the hands of an enemy who 
may be escaped but at the hands of a friend who ; 
cannot be escaped. 
In facing this danger the © 
Does it render a humane service to the deer to 
allow it to run unmolested by rifle ball only to fall 
a prey to the mountain lion—which also, under the 
plan of the hyper-idealist, would be permitted to 
multiply? If the deer could choose, would it accept 
death from fang and claw, an always present 
danger, in preference to death by the swifter and 
more merciful bullet during a few days in the 
year? 
do so for a long time to come. And man will con- 
tinue to eat meat. These facts will remain facts 
for many a generation. 
accordingly? 
Wild life always has existed under the law otf 
the survival of the fittest, and it will continue to. 
Why not admit it and act 
This is not a plea for the pensioning of domestic > 
animals, but rather for a sensible view of hunting 
and fishing, and for a realization that it is not 
cruelty to perpetuate hunting and fishing as sports. 
The sport is not in the killing—all sportsmen will 
agree to that. The killing is ‘incidental and serves 
exactly the same purpose as the killing of domestic 
animals—the providing of food. 
Hunting and fishing form the more humane 
the demands of mankind for animal food make the 
slaughter house and the backyard butcherings nec- 
essary. It is more sportsman-like and more hu-. 
mane to take the gun or fishing rod and go out 
into the open in pursuit of game than to take an 
ax or cudgel and go out to the poultry yard or 
rabbit hutches. 
More attention should be given to the propaga- 
tion of wild life and its conservation, if for no 
other reason than that for which domestic animals 
are propagated and maintained—the stocking of 
-method of obtaining meat for the table, although 
