, 1886-07-16
PLEASURES OF THE AalsroceAcY.


T1GNoOhGo Ut Ute NnlO OOfNNO -
Let's Go Out and XIII Something
Devotion to Sport Not Eievating.
Onc-third of the soil of England is de-
voted to the pleasures of the aristocracy,
the principal of which is sport. The
story is old of the foreigner who staid at
a country house where every morning
the men of the party exclaimed: IT'S a
fine day, Let's go out and kill something"
The picture is not exaggerated. Many
Englishmen of fortune seem to suppose
they are sent into this world to hunt
foxes and shoot grouse and deer. This
is the purpose of their existence and the
occupation of their lives. Among the
aristocracy the man who does not shoot
is an anomaly, almost a monstrosity.
There must be something wrong about
him.
ALI the engagements of the upper
classes, political or social, in town oil
country, are made with reference to
sport. The fashionable season and the
parliamentary season are determined by
the game laws. Country house parties
in winter, and tours to the continent in
summer depend upon what is called
"close times" Courtships are carried
on, marriages postponed to suit the CON
venience of sportsmen. Great PoIiticai
revolutions are precipitated or deferred,
questions of peace or war are taken up
or let alone because ministers want to go
to Scotland, because grouse shooting be-
gins in August, and fox hunting is not
81 I'll. a,rn t~oCf artat IN
the history of a government is neglected
when,legislators are anxious to be off to
the moors, and the sessions of parlia-
ment can not be held till the frost is out
of the ground and the foxes begin to
breed.
Estates are purchased and houses built
because of the proximity of the covers;
properties are valuable for the same
reason. Scores of fortunes are lost
through the excessive love of sport.
Every circumstance and event of Eng
lish high life ~revolves around this point,
and the results are as visible as those of
religion. Sport enters into politics, it
color literature, it controls society. 1t
affects dress, manners, etiquette and en-
tertainments, the relations of master and
servant, man and wife, father and SON
the characteristics of whole classes in
the state. 1t is one of The principal
causes and results of aristocracy to-day.
More often, however, society is COM
bined with sport. At a great house the
party is usually large. The men sally
out each morning ito kill something"
and sometimes the ladies accompany
them. OF late years a few of these are
themselves. This is, of course,
when the game is driven to the guns; at
sue times the bags made are
hundreds of birds often falling to single
sportsman. The labor is less, and the
glory; but the boasting is prodigious.
The devotion to sport that character
lies the English aristocracy isnot elevat-
ing. 1t not only makes them indiffer-
ent to more serious occupations, taking
the hereditary Legislators from the affairs
of state to which they are supposed to
apply themselves, and often d%istracting
them from their own more important in
~terests, but the incessant practice is
brutalizing. To be forever planning and
inflicting death and pain even on ami
mails "A not be refining. The English
nature is coarse in itself, but sport rem
ders il still more so.
Like everything else in England this
pleasure is a matter of privilege. Game
is strictly preserved for the great. The
u~nprivileged may not carry a gum.
Every Englishman loves sport, the peas
ant as well as the peer, but poaching is a
o~ffense, and the poor man is
sent for two months, six months, or even
a year, to Jail for doing-Yhat givestthe
~FfnHn ms Rtenest satisfaction. Five
committals for poaching are
made every year in England alone
Adam Badeau's Letter.