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CRUELTY TO AN2MAL.F"
STUDY IN SOCIOi.OGl? a13
million and 8 half wounded animals suffer egonies for the
diversion of our sporting classes. Strange eay, this
en0-o- infliction of needless pain is seldom thought omel.
Trne sport is held to bo a wholesome manly exercise. Pigsonshooting
is cruel, although the animals die speedily and
certsinlp. Rabbit-shooting is not cruel, apparently booam
the poor mounded animals which escape dio a lingering death
out of sight.
It may be said that the sportsman does nothing more than
the hWB of nature suthorise. He procures food by the most
direct process, and kills animals in n rapid painloss way. But
this does not ut all hold good of all sporting. From my own
observation I can affirm t'hat many sportsmen acquire n tasto
for the simple wanton destruction of life apart from all
ulterior purposes. Provided an aRiZd will only mnko II good
moring target they want to slloot, it. They will do this at sea,
in wood^;, and inacccssiblc places where tllcro is no possibility
of recovering the auiulals, or of putting tllc~n out of pain if
badly v-oundcd. In h'ormny and Australia I havo frequently
seen tho sporting instinct of the English develop itself in
freedom, and I can only concludo that If sport " is synonymous
with the love of tho clever destruction of living things.
We should not speak of sportsmen ns if they were all
exactly alike, and I have no doubt that many of them would
hate to leave nu animal in pain when they could help it; but
not so in every cam. I haps had narratod to me the proceedings
of a highly aristocratic party, engaged in the fashionable
amusement of bathe-shooting. A wounded bird fell
near to o. group of country POOPlO, who were looking on at
their superiors. The poor bird lay writhing in agony on the
ground, and a bystander almost< instinctively stepped forward
to put it out of pain. He received such a rating from some
of the aristocrakic party for his impertinence as he has not
forgotten to the present day, nor is likely to forget.
It does not seem possible to acquit women, espm&l]y
women of distinction and fashion, of indirect participation in
most eXten5iYe mtB of cwelty. I do not h~ so much weight
a8 some do upon their attendance at pigeon-ehmting