Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-03


| with blood and feathers.
For a moment the laugh stopped on her
lips, and then burst out merrtly again. She
must have remembered that she was not
a mere woman, but the queen, and that
| these slaughterers of tame animals were
| leaders of the most arstocratic society in
England, headed by her husband, Edward
VII himself.
If hunter in the United States walked
| into the yard Of farmer and shot his
| fiocks of geese. turkeys and barndoor fowl,
| that man would be arrested, and the near
est justice of the peace would fine him
heavily. He would be lucky to get Off with
that. Yet here in England a deed just as
much lacking in the element of genuine
sport would be acclaimed "a glorious
shoot" and the newspapers would print the
total of the bag
During the T.cent royal visit to Chats
worth the feature of the week was the
shooting. The Duke of Devonshire and his
show the king and the other guests a sup
ply of game that has not been surpassed
anywhere in recent years.
There were pheasants, pigeons, ducks
and hares. Pra ctically all were tame. The
game breeding farms of Sussex and Hamp-
shire last summer sold nearly all their
pheasant eggs and leverets to the Duke of
Devonshire. Barnd0or fowls Matched out
the eggs, anu uRtll ln6 SllOOC last ~teh
common old hens were the foster-mothers
of the royal game" The hares were fed
in. hutches and turned out as they grew to
size.
The shooting was practically the slaughter
of domestic birds and animals as tame as
the farmer would have In his yard in the
United States But 1t was, of course, on
magnificent scale. The farmer was the
millionaire duke, the yard an. expanse OF
woods and stubble fields of many thousands
of acres.
1t was my good fortune to witness one
of these battues gotten up for the enter
tainment of royalty. A crowd Of perhaps
hundred, with the omnipresent police
man in charge. watched the shooting from
the road. A hundred yards away inside
a stubble field sat the shooting party. In
front of them was the open field, on two
sides a brambly wood. Each shooter sat
on shooting stool-the usual one-pronged
affair. Each shooter had behind him
loader who carried second double-bar-
relied gun. Behind each loader was an
assistant with spare gu and extra
cartridges.
The king. wearing a shooting cape. sat
in the middle. The others in the party
included Prince Henry of Pless, who mar
ried one of the beautiful Cornwallis-West
girls; Earl De Grey, Lord Dalmeny. Lord
Rosebery's son and heir: the Duke of
bly, be the father-in-law of the American
ambassadors daughter Jean Reid Lord
Desborough, one of the promoters of the
Olympian games and the man who tried to
get appointed in Mr.. Bryce's place as am
bassador to Washington.
Two hundred beaters were in the woods
beating up the game into the open field. The
men wore grey smocks with red collars,
the Devonshire livery. They yelled and
beat the brush, shouted and threw things
at the game" 1t was real hard work to
get the pheasants to rise or the hares to
run. They were so thick that the beaters
literally pushed and drove them into the
open.
And then the slaughter began. A flock
of pigeons came first. The pigeons circled
over the wood and came toward the shoot
ers as If to nestle on their shoulders and
ask for food. Bang! went the guns and
the pigeons met their doom. Then came
droves of yellow-brown hares, which
stopped and gaZed innocently at the men
and then hoped along nibbling here and
there. A few white barndoor fowls scut-
tied from the wood and were allowed to
escape. Pheasants followed, but the assist
ant leaders and boys had to throw snow
balls at them before they would fly.
The slaughter was terrific. The shooters
could hardly pull the triggers fast enough.
The leaders had to work hard to keep pace
with them. Prince Henry of Pless used a
Winchester repeating shotgun, and had as
many as three dead birds in the air at the
same time. The king shot steadily and the
few he missed Earl De Gray, from behind
him. picked off. This appeared to be the
noble earl's duty, for he shot at nothing
except what the king missed.
1t was magnificent sight in its way-1ust
as the slaughter houses of Chicago may be
at the rush hour-but 1t certainly was not
sport.
And in the midst of it there came a whIrr
of a motor car, and the queen arrived. 1
have already told of her advent. Not long
ago she issued an edict to the women Of
England forbidding the wearing of osprey.
plumes or birds or parts of birds as hat
trimmings at court functions. For this she
was widely applauded: for did 1t not prove
to all and sundry that she has tender
heart. which scorned to yield to the dc
tates of fashion or vanity! And yet she
laughed merrily In the midst or hundreds
of dead, dying and piteously wounded birds
and animals tame in everything but name
1t was Alexandra who, when Princess OF
Wales. helped the late Baroness Burdett-
Coutts successfully to launch the Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals It
was Alexandra who. six years ago, heark-
ened to petitions which showed In on her
and refused to go to Hufllngham or Rane-
lagh until shooting at live pigeons was
stopped The clubs Immediately adopted
the clay pigeons. 1t was Alexandra who
ordered her confidential secretary, the Hon.
Charlotte Knollys, to write widely pub
lished letter to the Countess Spencer two
wears ago, in which her majesty deprecated
strongly the use of wild birds plumage in
women's hats
4
And yet-and yet. can still see her in
that brown stubble field at Chatsworth
ducking her head to avoid falling pleas
ants, stepping carefully to avoid the dying
feathered and furred creatures. blood spots
on her clothes. by her presence bestawing
her approval of the wholesale butchery
going on.
For six days 1t lasted, and the total bag
| became a record-breaker, eclipsing even
| that of the kings own private estate at
| Sandringham. which is 1888 pheasants
! 1866 cartridges. $50 hares. 61S5 rabbits, u
| woodcock, snipe, 81 teal, 271 wild ducks,
| ptpe0na and ssvariOtls