The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-10-08
TIE INNOCENT DEER
 AND ALSO THE HOG Why Do Nature-Lovers Love One and Despise the Other? SOME INCONSISTENCY Hunting Called a Healthful
 and Harmless
 Sport.
SOME INCONSISTENCY

~ No one who knows anything about the trade of making and selling books will misunderstood the motives of the nature writers who are protesting at every possible opportunity against the wicked practice of hunting game with a gun instead Of kodak, They know
 the power of printers ink. They need advertising, and they secure it. But the nature lovers, whose excitement
 over the crime of hunting is due to the
 efforts of the writers, are doomed to
 disappointment, and are somewhat de-
 serving of ridicule. They should know
 better than to take seriously the gem
 tiemen who champion the cause of the
 coyote and the timber wolf for the vul-
 gar purpose of raising scads, and who
 dehounce the savagery of the sports
 man because every line that is printed
 upon the subject of their views in- creases the probability of sales.
 The project of preserving game to the
 end that amateur photographers and
 makers of books shall have an oppor-
 tunity to study wild animals and birds
 will hardly appeal to any considerable
 number of lawmakers
 Of course hunting as a form of recre-
 ation for human beings would not be
 indorsed by a congress of wild animals, but was porkpacking as legitimate industry ever indorsed by hog? Did a
 right-thlnking hen ever look with fa- vor upon pastime of eating fried chicken a la Maryland? Was a steer ever known to regard the raising of cattle for the deliberate purpose of making boots of their hides, beef of their flesh, and glue of their hoofs. as just and humane?
 It is easy to exaggerate the cruelty of hunting and to picture the sports man as a savage, satlating his thirst
 for gore by shedding the blood of the
 innocents. But, getting down to brass
 Jacks, tke deer although somewhat ap-
 pealing to the eye, IS not whit more
 innocent than fat Berkshire hog wal
 lowing in a mud puddle and enjoying life with a zest never experienced by the tinid, nervous beast of the forest, accustomed from infancy to start at the snapping of twig and bound away at the sight Of an enemy, Again the hog is, in a way, rourished in the bosom of the family during his pig hood and shotehood He Is beguiled with sufficiency of corn as he ap- brooches hoghood. To prevent him from taking too much exercise and be- coming too slender he Is prt vided with pen and encouraged to lead seden- tary life, with full trough and a wallow as the limits of his world He is coddled into state of perfetc con- fldence in his owners Then he is ruth
 lessly sold In carload lots to strangers who butcher him upon a wholesale plan, or he is held down by a blood thirsty farm hand who sllts his throat from ear to ear and jabs a long knife into his heart, After that he becomes sausage, spareribs, bacon, hams, chit terlings and what not. Yet who has compassion for the hog? Where is the nature lover whose eyes grow humid when considering the melancholy fate of this innocent, gutleless animal? Who S1Lo up U uI5Illo dLlu WtSph ONcf IH6 cruelty to the bleating lamb that is in- cident to the production of lamb chops? Providence never provided partrfdges as targets for the camera alone. Had it been so ordained they would prob
 ably have been f1at-chested birds, with the flavor of the woodpecker Deer was inteded to be killed and eaten by man. kind, and not used only sillustrations | for fairy tales told hy Ernest Thomp- son Seton, to provide that distinguish ed gentleman with the wherewithai 1 to buy the flesh of the mercilessly mur- dered sheep and the cruelty assassinat- 1 cd chicken,
 Every State should have rigid game
 laws, and every game law should be 1 otced. There is still some game in America and plenty of cover for 1t. We
 should profit by the example of older
 countries and prevent the extermina-
 ton of our wild animals and game l tin, but, incidentally, to provide good
 shooting and to perpetuate one of the | most healthful and innocent outdoor sports. Louisville Courier-Journal.
 l
 l cfUnnT1C ArNEncu, a0r~,....,-