The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-09-17
AN INHUMAN ENGLISH SPORT
WHAT FERNANDEZ FRANKS ABOUT
 STAG HUNTING.

STAG h UNILNu.
 Comparable Only With Practices of the
 study-The Country About Bath and
 Porlock-Dream of Oliver King.
 The Ship Hotel, Porlock, Aug. "A, 1897,
 To the Editor of the Journal and Courier:
 How many New Haveners know where Porlock is? How many care to know? How many, If they knew, would be wiser men? Still Porlock is a nice little town about half way between Lynton and Nimehead. When people leave Lynton they take coach for the nearest railroad station. By the by, you must not say railroad" in Eng land if you wish to pass as a native. Always say railway" From Lynton you may coach west to Ilfracombe; southwest to Barnstable or east to Nimehead If you have already coached from llfracombe to Lynton you Will probably coach east to Minehead. And if you coach to Whitehead you may stop at Porlock for luncheon. Don't say lunch,' or you will be recognized at once as no Englishman. You may even stop over day at Porlock; hardly rom choice, so from mishap. From Lynton you go down one of the steepest hills 1n all England to Lynmouth. Then you go up a hill that seems inter- minable till you are up on top of the downs, fifteen hundred feet above the sea level. Here to the south stretches the so-called Exmoor, the home of the red deer. who offers venison and fame to the noble English huntsman. You continue on the hill-tops ten miles, till the hills begin to break away. Then by tremendously long, steep and twist Ing road, down which no scorcher would dare to scorch, you, with wheels doubly 'shoed," descend to Porlock and once more to the seas level
 Yesterday about noon there drove into Porlock cart in which was huge hound hurt in the hunt of the day before. Also in the cart was the head of the murdered stag. The chap who drove the cart seemed to be queer jack of all trades. He was very talka- tive; told how the hound was hurt; ex- actly how the stag was killed; who cut his throat; how he proposed preparing and mounting his skull, to whom it was to be presented, exactly how he pro- posed treating the hound. etc., etc.
 To chase an innocent stag all the day long with hounds; finally to cut him off rom his last retreat, to drive him down to the sea; and when he has swum out to where the hounds can fol- low him no further and turns a plead ing look to the land, begging that the sport may be called off for the day and he be allowed to return to his distract ed hinds; then to row out in a boat to him, wondering what it means, to throw a rope over his horns, to pull his defenceless head alongside and to cut his throat while thousands of specta- tors, hurrying to be in at the death, crowd the shore and shout applause at the consummation of the crime, is a spectacle so dastardly cruel, so igno- m1niously brutal, so degradingly sav- age so unqualfiedly blood-t thirsty, that 1t can only be classified with the perfor- mances of the Spanish inquisition and with the n1artyrdom of the early Chris tlans in the Roman arena Yet this is English sport. If the next day you ven- ture to express to man or woman the fa1ntest disapprobation, you will be ad- dressed as a craven-hearted milk sop and advised to get out of the country
 There can be no denying the magnifi- cence of the thrilling spectacle when the hounds are in full cry, the stag bounding in front of them and the huntsmen hurrying behind Bounding is the exact word to describe the stags motions. He bounds as bounds swift ly-thrown ball. A wall high enough to stop every hunter in the field does not stop him an instant. If he had sense to run in g. straight line he would leave his cruel persuers out of sight in fifteen minutes. But the poor, distracted beast thinks of the family he has de- serted and instinctively circles back to the point of starting. Here is where the internal ingenuity of the biped comes into play. The biped calculates and awaits his turning. It is mistake to suppose that all the huntsmen wear red coats. few do. The majority don't Everybody can join the hunt. Only few subscribe to support the kennel When the place of the meet has been announced every vehicle with in a radius of fifteen miles is put into requisition. Those who cannot afford to be driven will go on foot. Villages are deserted. Only those stay behind who cannot actually and physically get away. A clever driver who under stands the country and the stag's hab- it's will by cutting about by lines give you dozen views of the hunt, and will consider you a monster of ingratitude if you force him to drive you away from a sight of the death. A singular psycho- logical study Is it that an entire people should go hunting mad to such an ex- tent that the revolting cruelty of the termination of the sport does not affect them. It shows the tremendous strength of custom, and should teach the Anglo-Saxon not to judge with se- verity the bull-fighting Spaniard nor the bear-baiting Russian. If the stag get away, as he sometimes does, the people slink back to their homes like de- feated troops and mourn their misfor tune. The farmers whose crops are damaged by the deer, and who there fore would have good excuse for shoot ing, are restrained by public opinion. Moreover, every farmer knows that his lordly hunting landlord would instantly