The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-03-03 00:00:00

SPORT AND CRUELTY.

Mr. Atiderson'e bill to el tend to animals kept in
confinement the existing Lew against cruelty to animals,
has, the Saturday Review says, apparently it very much
higher chance of becoming law than it has ever had
until now. The recent action of the Princess of Wales
has made dislike to pigeon-shooting fashionable. Her
Royal Highness cannot be suspected of any want of
sympathy with sport or sportsmen; and when she de.
elines to be a visitor at Hurlingham, and encourages
other ladies to make a similar refusal, it must be because
there is an obvious line to be drawn between pigeon.
shooting and sport. The line in question coincides very
accurately with the distinction drawn in Mr. Antler'
son's bill. Sport is the slaughter of wild animals ; the
slaughter of tame animals is not sport. At pre-
sent the law draws an arbitary distinction between
domestic and other animals kept in confinement. It
is unlawful to set a dog on a cat; but nothing, how-
ever revolting, that can be done to an animal kept
in confinement, biit not domesticated, would bring
any penalty on the offender. Yet when once an ani-
mal has been caught it loses most of the charac-
teriitics which deprive the slaughter of *ild ahirnals
of the brutality which is associated with the ill-usage
of domestei animals. Caged animals are completely
at our mercy. They have scarcely any means
of escape, and they are often quite unfitted by their
mode of life in confinement for the purpose to which
they are turned. Few things, for example, can be
more unlike the hunt ot the wild deer than the hunt
of a tame one. In the one cane, to evade his natural
enemies is one of the conditions of a stag's life. All
his faculties are trained by constant practice to this
one end. He knows every inch of the ground over
which he is hunted, and how to make the best of all
its natural features. The tame deer that is uncarted
for the amusement of a number of ladies and gentle-
men who have come down by train from London is
suddenly put to work for which it is altogether un-
fitted. It has neither the endurance nor the cunning
which are called forth by the conditions of wild life;
and we reasonably infer that it suffers more when the
demands natural to a wild life dr 3 stiddenly made
on it. In the censures which have lately been passed
upon the practice of hunting an uncarted deer an
attempt has sometimes been made to extend the con-
demnation to fox-hunting. To make the parallel
complete, it would be necessary that foxes should be
regularly kept in confinement, and then taken to the
meet and let loose before the bounds. So long as the
fox remairts a really wild animal foxhunting will not
baopen to the charge of cruelty, tinlese all sport. is
open to it. We do not pretend that this iistinctlon
is open to no criticism. For example, the cruelty of
shoot ng a pigeon is in itself no greater than the
cruelty of shooting a pheasant or a partridge. Death
is very commonly instantaneous in both cases; and
if the pigeon gets away wounded, the nobler bird may
do the same. It is the mental attitude of the sports-
man in the twd edses that makes the difference.
There is something cold-blooded in the notion of
catching and keeping a live animal in order that yen
may use it to test the accuracy of you aim, when a
glass ball would serve the purpose equally well.
Sport, again, is traditionally associated with some
endurance on the part of the sportsman, and the
physical and mental vigour which he gains in this
way is the best of all reasons for. the continuance of
the practice. A community in which young, wealthy,
and idle men were cut off from this way of spending
their time would certainly suffer by the other
methods to which they would resort in order to get
rid of their supeifluous animal vigour. Pigeon-shoot-
ing cannot be defended on this ground. A man has
neither to ride after hounds nor to walk in pursuit of
the birds. It is true,no,doubt, that the present ten-
dency is to reduce some other form of shooting
to the same uninteresting level, and the slaughter
of pheasants sometimes comes too near in its inci-
dents to the slaughter of barndoor fowls. But,
though this tendency is to be regretted, it remains
only a tendency, whereas in pigeon-shooting all
pretence of endurance is laid wide, and the birds
are brought to the sportsman instead of the sports.
man going after the birds. It is a further and very
serious objection to this bastard form of sport that it
is becoming more and more associated with m iney.
That is not in itself a point which the law can touch.
A man might back himself to kill so many partridges
in so many hours, just as well as to kill so many
pigeons. Bat it is unioubtedly a mark of a lower
kind of sport when it lends itself to be used habitu-
ally in this way, and as regards pigeon-shooting this
is strictly true. But for this it would not have made
,he tour of Europe as it has now done. . . .