page_title: Lady Florence Dixie
section_title: Blood sports
hierarchical_section_title: Lady Florence Dixie / Women and sports / Blood sports
caption_attribution_description: English: "The Last Double" Hunting Ostriches in Patagonia. The Ostrich is being chased by dogs and riders.
context_page_description: Lady Florence Caroline Dixie, was a Scottish writer, war correspondent, and feminist. Her account of travelling Across Patagonia, her children's books The Young Castaways and Aniwee; or, The Warrior Queen, and her feminist utopia Gloriana; or, The Revolution of 1900 all deal with feminist themes related to girls, women, and their positions in society.
context_section_description: During her early life and travels, Dixie was an enthusiastic sportswoman, an intrepid rider and shot. As the following reminiscence shows, part of the appeal of hunting in Leicestershire was the opportunity to compete on an equal footing with active male peers:
  'The merry blast of the huntsman's horn resounds, the view-halloa rings out cheerily on the bright crisp air of a fine hunting morning; the fox is "gone away," you have got a good start, and your friend has too. "Come on," he shouts, "let us see this run together!" Side by side you fly the first fence, take your horse in hand, and settle down to ride over the broad grass country. How distinctly you remember that run, how easily you recall each fence you flew together, each timber-rail you topped, and that untempting bottom you both got so luckily and safely over, and above all, the old farm-yard, where the gallant fox yielded up his life.' Lady Florence Dixie, 1880 
  Dixie's skills on horseback were sufficient to be mentioned in sporting magazines. The following account gives a vivid idea of the risks involved in a fox hunt:
  "From scent to view they kill him in the open in one hour and five minutes, after a good twelve miles’ run.  There were several very bad falls, and a great deal of grief, horses standing still in all directions.  Lady Florence Dixie, who had been going admirably, had a nasty fall into the Widmerpool road, her horse quite blown. Every one was delighted to see her ladyship out again soon after.  There were few who rode the run as hounds ran, and who saw the fox killed, but we believe Mr. Coupland, Captain Middleton, Lord Douglas, and Tom Firr accomplished it, much to their credit, as in the present state of the country it could not be an easy task." 
  In Patagonia, survival of the party as a whole depended on the equal participation of all those within it.  Dixie shared the responsibility and the dangers of necessary tasks such as hunting for food for the party.
  "Unconscious of anything but the exciting chase before me, I am suddenly disagreeably reminded that there is such a thing as caution, and necessity to look where you are going to, for, putting his foot in an unusually deep tuca-tuca hole, my little horse comes with a crash upon his head, and turns completely over on his back, burying me beneath him in a hopeless muddle." Lady Florence Dixie, 1880 
  However, she was also "haunted by a sad remorse" for the death of a beautiful golden deer of the Cordilleras, which was exceedingly tame and trusting. During the 1890s, Dixie's views on field sports changed dramatically, and in her book The Horrors of Sport (1891) she condemned blood sports as cruel. Dixie later became Vice-President of the London Vegetarian Association.
caption: Hunting ostriches in Patagonia
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