The Irish standard., 1905-05-13
TEDDY AND THE BEARS.

TEDDY AND THE BEARS.
A great many people are, no doubt,
pleased that President Roosevelt is
through with his hunt. His popularity
with the people will undoubtedly save
him from criticism where others would
be severely criticised. We have had
a surfeit of hunting. Perhaps even
the Anglo-Saxons have had enough
slaughter to satisfy them for while,
but it takes a good deal in that direc-
ton to satisfy them. They like to des-
stroy. When they are not destroying
inferior races in so-called attempts to
civilize and christianize, they are en-
gagged, SO far as they can become en-
gagged, in the wanton destruction of
the wild animals. Did this side of the
Anglo-Saxon character ever engage
your attention, dear reader? 1t is a
curious fact that to the Anglo-Saxon
mind outdoor life is almost unthink-
able unless coupled with the slaughter
of some dumb animals. The English
and the Americans are infatuated
with the love of killing. Before the
Anglo-Saxon came to the Western
continent it was occupied by the In
dian race in large number. This
race lived exclusively by the hunt, yet
it remained for the Anglo-Saxon to
strip our Western plains of the mil
lions of buffalo and our Northern
woods of the deer, moose and ante
lope. Even the savage Indian killed
only when he needed something to
eat. The Anglo-Saxon kills for the
mere pleasure of killing. In every
country in the world where the Anglo.
Saxon has gone the game either has
been annihilated or has been driven
to the mcst inaccessible portion of the
mountains. To such an extent has
this wanton slaughter of harmless
wild animals gone that the American
has found it necessary to protect
himself from being led into tempta-
tion by passing laws for the preserva-
tion of the wild animals, and even
then our so-called good citizen re-
CARDS these game laws as made for
his neighbor and not for himself. So
strong is the desire to kill that our
good American citizen will HE himself
away in forbidden time to kill some
wild animal that he fears his neighbor
may first secure. OF all the animals
on the earth that kill man is the only
one that slaughters for the mere love
of killing, and of all men in the world,
civilized or savage, the Anglo-Saxon
has the most inordinate desire to kill.
1t is indeed a mean and curious van
ity that leads man to show his super
iority over the wild beast by killing.
There was some glory for the old
Spanish Matador who met fierce and
enraged animals in what may be
called a hand-to-hand combat without
weapons, but it is shameful and
cowardly practice that the modern
nimrod engages in when he stands at
two and three hundred yards with a
repeating rifle with soft nosed ex
plosive bullets and destroys the dumb
animal before it is aware of his pres
ence. In England and Ireland the
Anglo-Saxon is driving millions of
people away from their native heaths
in order that my lord may have large
preserves in which game may be
herded and driven in a sure and
beaten way before him so that he may
slaughter without exertion and with
out danger.
This slaughter mania of our presi-
dent is not indicative of his best quail
tiles and were it anyone else than
Theodore Roosevelt the people would
have long ago been disgusted. Life in
the open air is invigorating and
healthful to mind and body, but it is
not necessary that out-of-door life be
complicated with the killing of the
creatures who live there day in and
day out. We would sooner hunt with
such men as John Burroughs and
Seton Thompson than with all the
killers that annually HE themselves
to the forest and the plains. There is
more skill in taking one of Seton
.Thompson's pictures of the wild ami
mai in it's native abode than in killing
2 thousand $! such :t'.. animals: '1il There is
more healthful exercise to mind and
body in the study Of nature and ami.
NAL life as II is practiced .by,, John
EurroHehs I + than Pn there + r Il; s. 4 Al TIE
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