The Sun.
London, England, 1845-09-04 00:00:00

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,LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 184!.

The accounts from Gotha, given in another part of
tile paper, will be read with painful interest. To the
,nisnly sports which have long distinguished this country,
much as horse-racing, fox-hunting, grouse-shooting, and
'others of a similar character, only few persons raise
any serious objections ; but of that new importation, de-
tcribed, too, by a foreign word—the battue—
thero is throughout the country almost a uni-
'feria' abhorrence. The sportsman, if we may use
taie ier:n in reference to such an ignoble amusement,
roes no risk, undergoes no fatigue, and the devoted
victims have hardly the slightest chance of escape. It
regular butchering, and nothing else; and besides,
this so-wile I sportsman has not the excuse
sof ti o man who is compelled to work at the
wade for his daily bread. While animal food
forms part of human subsistence, some persons
!assist perf crm the operation of killing, but, in general,
it is done in the most expeditious manner, and with
Ac !ittle steering to the brute creation as possible.
Cae the same be said of the newly invented mode
of phs,, sant shooting, or of the scenes which took
place in jhe park or forest of Keinhardtsbrunn ? We
have giseon two accounts of it ; and we add
as rtird in a few words from a Contemporary:—" Within
too hours at the utmost, somewhere about fifty noble
law here dispatched—shot down within a fence into
which they had been previously driven by a whole
,legion of chasseurs and beaters—and from which
wretched creatures had not the slightest chance
of escape. It was a deer battue, and horrible as
ate similar proceedings in preserves at home, where
hundreds of pheasants and partridges die in
fotrnoon• to." make an -English holiday," there was
osomethieg still worse about this wholesale slaughter.
l'rAerves are not fenced in by nets and canvass. Phea-
sants can fly, and hare.: can run, and both have, at least,
some slender chance of escape, but in the deer battue the
:animals were doomed to death with almost as perfect
certainty as are sheep penned up in the pens of Smith-
-1441" Even this description does not come up to
the trath, for some of the wounded animals made
their escape, and did not meet with that mercy
which is found in our a battoirs. But we have no
swish, and indeed it is not necessary, to make
slue additional remark to paint the cruelty of this un-
manly sport. Let us hope that baitues have now
reached their crisis that this painful display
will induce the higher classes, for they alone
are guilty, to adopt other amusements; and that
:Englishmen and English women of illustrious birth
will set better examples to the lower classes, to whom
they are bound by their station and superior education
to become models of refinement and humanity.

Against the Earl of LINCOLN'S " Commons and
NVinte Lands Inclosure Bill," it may be remembered
I.hat we repeatedly protested, during its progress through
IParlismewy, as one of the most wanton and uncalled fur
uggressions on the few remaining rights of the poor,
which had, for some sessions past, been proposed to
the Legislature. We commented on the cruelty
of depriving them of those opportunities and
resorts for healthful relaxation, and the benefit
of pure air, which form almost the only un-
.alloyed enjoyments that a highly artificial condition of
society yet reserves to the children of labour and po-
verty. Our humble efforts in their cense, and similar
efforts on the part of some of our Contemporaries,'were
not successful. Upon the last occasion of our resuming
• the subject, when the Bill had reached the House
ef Lords, we pressed in particular the objection that
its immediate effect would be to create a dangerous in-
esease of Ministerial patronage, by authorising the ap-
pAntruent of two Chief Commissioners for carrying
its purposes into effect. Well knowing how extensively
!altered the clauses of Bills of this nature become in
.either House, in passing through Committee, we did not,
perl9.pa, scrutinise with sufficient rigidness the
wofitio„ of some of the clauses ; and among
at as to the appointments in question.
, eieithtf!e ,we appear to have arrived but at too cor-
/ %fl__)...feat -a a ~ion as to the actual results which have
C,ensued. patronage has been exercised, and in a
Wrier6 to, se, perhaps, one of the most remarkable
ectioneenng excitement which has been
z--0: vkiltilase u East Sussex for many years past—that is
fere*, iniho event of Mr. DARBY, Member for that di-