Chapter IV: Preface: 1 (3)

In a tract entitled “Sport, A National Benefactor,” dedicated to the sportsmen of the nation, Mr. Henry R. Sargent gives elaborate statistics to prove that large sums of money are devoted to the maintenance of sport, while about £25,000,000 are annually spent upon it. Of this amount he estimates that wages absorb some £6,000,000. Rents of shootings and fishings, and the price of race-horses, come to £5,500,000, which sum, though “going principally to the upper classes, is recirculated in various ways,” while, “except the few pounds paid for dead horses, we have from hunting, shooting, and racing, over £6,000,000 a year paid for oats, meal, hay, straw, beans, and bran; and let it be understood that it is all British produce. No infernal foreign stuff is given to our hounds or horses, though we may eat it ourselves, and thus encourage Free Trade--that curse of our country.”

After we have thus been shown “what a gigantic medium sport is for the circulation of money--the vertebræ (_sic_) of our common weal,” we are not surprised that “to these facts and figures, which no sophistry can dispute and no method of statement darken,” Mr. Sargent should “draw the attention alike of sportsmen, prigs, prudes, and the public,” and should “invite the consideration of Radicals and Socialists” to the subject. For he continues gravely: “Let these political step-brethren ponder well before they strive to injure the classes who maintain our sports. Let them recognise the fact that as a universal benefactor in bringing to the poor the rich man’s money, a substitute for sport can never be found. These revolutionists should also assure themselves of the fact that never can they devise a system which will carry out the principles of Communism as practically and universally as that which has always been adopted by our resident landlords. Be it £5,000, £20,000, or £100,000 a year, which may be focussed in the one individual, he spends it all among the community. Yet these are the men who are marked for destruction by the Radical, the Socialist, and the Anarchist; and not the landlords alone, but all moneyed men, no matter of what class.”

It is small wonder, then, that the heart within him is grieved when he thinks of those bold bad men, the agitators, for they, he informs us tearfully, “as a rule, dislike the upper classes,” while those pre-eminently wicked men, the land agitators, to a man, “hate them with ferocity.” It was to gratify that hatred, as our author is assured, “and not so much to benefit either the land tenants or crofters, that agitation has been got up in Ireland and Scotland.”

“In Ireland hunting was attacked, as was openly avowed, to
drive the landlords out of the country, but happily hunting
is as strong there as ever, except in Waterford; and although
they be not so well off as formerly, we still have the
landlords. In Scotland the same game is being played by the
agitators. Although they strive to hide the motive under the
kilt of the crofter, they have no desire but to injure the
landlords through means of attacking the shooting. Hunting was
also assailed by other parties, in alleging that cruelty was
practised by hunting carted deer! An outcry is also raised
for the tourists, that in pursuit of their vocation they are,
forsooth, to be allowed to disturb the Highland forests, and so
scare away the wild red-deer, animals which the agitators know
well cannot abide the sight of a human being, much less the
slightest noise. What do agitators care for tourists, anyway?
Then comes this raid upon racing. Of a truth, therefore,
it is high time that all sportsmen, from the peer to the
pantry-boy, should coalesce and defend themselves in organised
phalanx against those who, with intolerance and impertinence,
gratuitously assail us.”

For just consider the money spent on racing, and the number of men employed. Some 8,000 young men, says Mr. Sargent, “are employed in the racing stables of the kingdom--a number equal to that of more than ten regiments of the line.”

“When we come to consider what has been spent upon the stables
at Newmarket, and other places … the amount becomes absolutely
appalling! The sum has to be counted in thousands--and it runs
into millions--all of which is spent in labour and material. As
do the other branches of sport which I have dealt with, racing
sends money flowing from the rich to the poor man’s pocket, but
at the same time nearly all classes derive monetary benefit
through this special branch of sport.”

One seems to have heard something of gambling at races, but our author tells us that “it is the misfortune of racing, and not its fault, that betting should be connected with it,” but he holds that “to stop gambling on the Turf, which has existed from time immemorial, is an impossibility: so no one need attempt to do so.” With the true democratic feeling engendered by the “principle of Communism” animating sport, he asserts that “no man abhors gambling more than I do, and I would, if I could, put a stop upon the shop-boys and humble classes indulging in the vice, but I would let the others do as they choose.” For the author is sure that “to interfere with any old-established institution which is working well is a most dangerous thing.” “God knows,” he exclaims in despair, “what would be the result, if these latter-day saints, who are now on the prowl, were to succeed in their attempt to interfere with racing, even if only so far as betting is concerned.”

GIVING EMPLOYMENT.

The pamphlet from which the foregoing extracts have been taken is not, as one might imagine, a huge joke, nor is it a sly attempt to pour ridicule upon sport. It was published by the Sporting League--on the executive committee of which we find the names of many noble lords and distinguished commoners--apparently with the serious intention of furthering the fifth of the League’s praiseworthy objects--“Generally to do whatever may from time to time seem advisable for counteracting the pernicious influence of ‘faddists.’” It seems that we can hardly reckon a sense of humour among the many “inestimable benefits” that sport bestows on its devotees, however much food for laughter the publications of the League may give to “faddists” and the public.

Although this tract was published some years ago, its arguments have not deteriorated with age, since we find them essentially reproduced in an address delivered in November, 1908, at the Surveyors’ Institute, by the President, Mr. Howard Martin, and commented on with approval by _The Field_. Mr. Martin, like the author of the tract, seriously insists on the great benefits which agriculture and business derive from fox-hunting. He estimates that on the upkeep of hunters £3,500,000 a year are spent. Shooting also involves a large outlay for the feeding and rearing of birds, and attracts much cash to the pockets of residents in the country. And, further, the prosperity due to sport radiates in all directions. Not merely farmers and farm-hands, but local innkeepers, country fly-drivers, and village shopkeepers share in the stream of wealth which sport pours forth over the country. There are even tips for the inn-servants and the porters at the railway-stations! Indeed, Mr. Martin declared that he had taken great pains to get at reliable facts and figures on which to ground his arguments, and his conclusion was that not only did hunting and the preservation of foxes generally benefit agricultural districts, but that hunting and the exercise of shooting rights indirectly benefited the country at large “by checking rural depopulation.” _The Field_ is not unmindful of the rich physical and moral gains which the gamekeepers, beaters, and others ministering to sport, derive from a shooting-party. “They are all of them fond of sport; they like to see birds well killed, they enjoy the pick-up, they enjoy (a matter of no little moment) a good beaters’ lunch, they like a good glass of ale at the close of the day, and are better off in mind and pocket for a few hours which interrupt the routine of their ordinary life like a holiday.”

It is amusing to note how largely the anti-Budget protests of the distressed Dukes and other wealthy persons were based on the egregious fallacy that “giving employment” is conducive to the welfare of the community, without regard to the character of the employment given. Nothing, for instance, could be more absurd than the remarks made by Lord Londonderry on August 23, 1909, and solemnly reported in _The Times_:

“What was his position if he had to curtail his expenditure, as
he was told by his Radical friends that he must do? The great
interest in the property to him was the shooting and gardens,
which gave employment to a large number of men. Could it be
said that these two enjoyments were to him absolutely selfish?
He was able to send out large consignments of game as presents,
and was also able to benefit those out of employment in times
of depression. Therefore that amusement was not a selfish one.”

The fact that Lord Londonderry’s shooting gives employment to a large number of persons is in truth its greatest condemnation; for though the individuals employed may be glad of the work, the community loses by the waste of time, labour, and money involved in such a perfectly futile occupation as that of game-preserving, in which every pheasant killed has cost far more than its own food-value.

Here, again, is a delightful extract from a sporting paper, October 6, 1909:

“Rearing of pheasants is a very costly matter, and one
which I anticipate will be seriously curtailed in the near
future if this so-called ‘Working Man’s Budget’ is passed.
County gentlemen will be very hardly hit if this iniquitous
Bill becomes law, and they will consequently have to effect
economies in every direction. One of the very first will be
in reducing their shootings, or in giving up rearing birds
altogether. Pheasants which are hand-reared cost about 4s. each
to feed, from start to finish. Thus it is easy to understand
what sums of money find their way into farmers’ and tradesmen’s
pockets for the purchase of food alone, for hundreds of
thousands of pheasants all over the kingdom have to be fed
for months every year. The money which is expended one way
or another over shooting is quite enormous, for it must be
remembered that, in addition to the purchase of eggs and food,
there are wages, clothes, and fuel for keepers; there are also
endless expenses in connection with rearing. When the shooting
commences, there are beaters at 2s. 6d. and 3s. per day, with
meat, bread, cheese, and beer. And there is the expense of
hospitality to guests. Take it all in all, the old saying that
each pheasant shot costs, one way and another, a guinea, is not
far wrong.

“Now, who benefits from all this? The poor owner certainly does
not, for it is all pay, pay, pay with him, and if he does sell
his surplus birds, he will only get back 2s. to 2s. 6d. a bird.
But the public gets the benefit, for they can purchase these
costly-reared birds for the price of chickens. One day those
people, the farmers, tradesmen, working-classes, and labourers,
will wake up to what they have lost, when they find the country
house shut up, and shooting, as it used to be, a thing of the
past.”

No doubt all these crumbs of blessing fall from the rich man’s pocket on the happy gamekeepers, beaters, and others who are employed by a shooting-party. No doubt the country lads, servants, and porters rejoice in the tips they receive. Much money is spent on sport, and a great deal of it finds its way as wages and gratuities into the pockets of dependents, but to contend seriously that sport checks depopulation is ludicrous. It is an insult to our intelligence to argue that the country is more prosperous and supports a larger population when the land is portioned out in great estates, many of which are only farmed to the degree necessary to keep the game on the land; when the people are driven from the country-side into the town; when in Scotland whole counties have been cleared of inhabitants in order to form vast deer forests for the sport of a few rich men.

THE REALITY.

Of the 56,000,000 acres in Great Britain something less than 15,000,000 are actually cultivated, although there are 35,000,000 acres of cultivable land. Thirty years ago there were more than 2,000,000 agricultural labourers in Great Britain, but in 1907 they had decreased to 1,311,000. In the same year there were more than 17,000,000 acres of pasture. In “Fields, Factories, and Workshops,” Prince Kropotkin estimates that the soil of the United Kingdom would produce enough food for 24,000,000 people, instead of for only 17,000,000 as at present, if it were cultivated as thoroughly as it was only thirty-five years ago, while if it were cultivated as thoroughly as Belgium it would produce enough to feed 37,000,000.

Take, again, the question of Afforestation. The Report of the Royal Commission, issued on January 15, 1909, is a most important paper in many ways. Of special interest are the references made by the Commissioners to the responsibility of blood-sports for much of the bad condition of our woodlands.

“Considerations of sport have played an important part in
determining the method of management of our woods. Clean boles,
with high-pitched crowns, the exclusion of the sun’s rays,
and ground destitute of grass, weeds, and bushes, are not
conditions favourable to either ground or winged game. On the
contrary, trees that are semi-isolated, and with low-reaching
branches, and a wood that is full of bracken, brambles, and
similar undergrowth, present conditions much more attractive to
the sportsman, and it is these conditions that many landowners
have arranged to secure. Ground game, too, has been the cause
of immense destruction amongst the young trees, and thus it
has, in a measure, directly brought about that condition of
under-stocking which is so inimical to the growth of good
timber and to the successful results of forestry. Nor is it
possible in the presence of even a moderate head of ground
game to secure natural regeneration of woodlands, the young
seedling trees being nibbled over almost as soon as they appear
above ground. So intimate is the association in the United
Kingdom between sport and forestry that even on an estate
that is considered to possess some of the best-managed woods
in England, the sylvicultural details have to be accommodated
to the hunting and shooting, and trees must be taken down in
different places to make cover for foxes, and so on.”

If, then, the land of our country, instead of lying almost idle or in permanent pasture interspersed with parks and copses as cover for game, or left desolate as moor and deer forest, were covered with the small farms of prosperous peasants, like Belgium or Denmark, and the more rugged and uncultivable districts turned into national forests giving regular and healthy employment to large numbers of men, would not far better results be obtained, even from the purely economic point of view? _Now_ we have a few gamekeepers and beaters, a few grooms, jockeys, stablemen, and horse-dealers, and other dependents of the sportsmen, and a few farmers, breeding horses and growing fodder for them, while the labourers are turned out of their native village for want of work and house-room, and drift into the already overcrowded and hideous towns which daily absorb more and more of the country, or are even forced to leave their native land altogether and seek a livelihood in lands beyond the sea, free, as yet, from the blessings of sport; _then_ we should have some millions of free men earning an honest living in healthful surroundings, and producing a thousandfold more wealth for themselves than is distributed by the aristocrats and plutocrats, who, according to the protagonist of the Sporting League, so fully “carry out the principles of Communism.”

But it is surely needless to labour the point. The arguments of the economic defenders of sport are so grotesque that it is difficult to believe that a sensible man of business like Mr. Martin can really be in earnest in his advocacy of sport as a means of finding employment for the people.

But sports, and especially blood-sports, are not only defended on the ground that they give employment, circulate money, and confer other economic advantages on an ungrateful nation. As _The Field_ contends, there are “assets which cannot be calculated in shillings and pence,” and the author of our entertaining tract challenges those “who, with the bigotry characteristic of all faddists,” attack the chasing of hares and foxes, or the worship of the sacred bird, to “look at the matter straight and see what inestimable benefit sport is to the nation. Should we ever lose our love for sport,” he continues, “or be prevented indulging it, we shall assuredly lose our manliness, and very likely our wealth, and then what will become of the nation?”

The word “sport” is a very loose and indefinite word. It covers all kind of healthful and innocent exercises as well as hunting, shooting, and racing. No one doubts that an open-air life is a natural and healthy life; that running and riding, and swimming and sailing, and other outdoor exercises and games, are good both for mind and body; but the “moral and intellectual damages” of all blood-sports are a very serious set-off against any physical advantages they may have.

A staunch defender of sport was once dwelling--in debate--on the glories of a day with the hounds, and describing how a ride across country in the fresh frosty air swept the cobwebs from the brain of the jaded city man and sent the blood coursing healthily through his veins. He was met by the rejoinder that all these advantages could be got by a gallop over the downs, or, at any rate, by a “drag” hunt. “Ah, but that’s not all,” he cried, “one must have the zest of running down and killing an animal, and thus satisfying a natural instinct.” The reply that such an instinct was an echo of primeval savagery, and just one of those which hinder the upward progress of the race--one, also, more completely gratified by the butcher or the slaughter-man--only provoked the anger of the sportsman, and failed to shake his rooted belief in the blessings of sport.

“Ah, Sport is the pride of the nation!
It made Britons the men that they be;
It does good to the whole population,
And knows neither class nor degree.”

This doggerel, with which Mr. Sargent concludes his tract on sport, encourages the notion that blood-sports develop manliness, and that if Englishmen ceased to ride to hounds, to hunt the hare or otter, or shoot the pheasant and partridge, they would become effeminate. This superstition ought surely to have received its death-blow by the events of the Russo-Japanese war. When we hear of the rice-eating, gentle Japanese, who prefer taming wild creatures by kindness to shooting or mangling them, performing prodigies of valour apparently quite beyond the capacity of the fiercer nations of the West, it is surely time to revise our conceptions of what true courage is, and how it is nurtured.

And any manliness which might be nurtured by sport is steadily being reduced to a minimum. The author of our ingenuous tract descants, indeed, on the hardships endured by fox-hunters, grouse-shooters, and deer-stalkers, but says nothing of the noble sportsmen who merely wait till the pheasants are driven past them, to slaughter them at their ease as fast as loaded guns can be handed them, or of those who find a manly pastime in shooting pigeons let loose from cages. Shall we form a high opinion of the manly virtues of the well-to-do cowards who chase tame stags, or of the low-class ruffians who let frightened and dazed rabbits out of bags for a hopeless run for life before savage dogs? The insensibility which delights in seeing a fox torn to pieces by hounds, or which feels no pain when that excessively sensitive and timorous creature, the hare, is seen dropping from exhaustion with a pack of harriers in full cry on its track, is not an element of true manliness, but a survival from a pre-human state. In the savage state the mighty hunter was a hero because he bravely risked his life for the defence of wife and child against strong and fierce beasts that might else have devoured them, or endured toil and hardship, and encountered danger in the search for food and clothing. But in England to-day hunting is an anachronism, which survives only because land-monopoly, and an unjust distribution of the national inheritance, have led our “splendid barbarians,” in the absence of the need for work, through the pressure of social distinctions, and the want of higher mental development, to seek release from boredom and fill up an aimless life by the indulgence and artificial stimulation of subhuman instincts.

Even those sports which, like cricket and football, take the form of health-giving games in the open air, and may really help to develop manliness, are to a large extent spoiled by the rise of professionalism and gambling. The great crowds which assemble to see other men engage in the hazardous game of football, and to exercise themselves merely in betting on the players, are being trained neither in manliness nor morals. We should indeed do all in our power to cultivate manliness, but it must be the quality which truly answers to the name; a fortitude capable of enduring hardships without whining, and a deliberate human courage which realises the danger, and consciously and resolutely faces it, not the mere brute fearlessness of animal excitement, insensibility, and stupidity.

It behoves all, therefore, who have the interest of humanity at heart, and are striving to help it on its upward way, to set themselves resolutely against blood-sports in any form, as a relic of savagery and an enemy to true manliness, and to endeavour to dissociate manly and health-giving sports from gambling, and to abolish the professional. To do all this effectively we must work for the abolition of the parasitic classes; we must strive to give all a share in the national inheritance, and such an education, mental, moral, and physical, as may fit them for the work of life, and for a wise and healthy use of the increased leisure in which all should share.

THE ECONOMICS OF HUNTING

BY W. H. S. MONCK

It is often maintained that hunting, whatever objections may be raised to it on grounds of humanity, is beneficial to the public. The reasoning by which it is sought to establish this thesis reminds one of that by which Dr. Mandeville endeavoured to prove that private vices were public benefits; but it is proposed in this article to examine the subject more fully. Cruel sports, generally speaking, are not, I believe, public benefits, even from the pecuniary point of view; but as the grounds for this assertion are not the same in all instances, they cannot all be dealt with in a single article. Nor do I propose in the present instance to deal with all sports that come under the head of hunting. I shall confine myself to hunting animals with hounds, the men and women who participate in the sport being usually mounted.

Labour generally may be referred economically to the two heads of productive and unproductive. It is productive if it produces more than the cost of the labourer’s maintenance (taking his past maintenance preparatory to his work into consideration), and unproductive if it produces less. And in general there is an objection to employing labour in a less productive manner than it might otherwise be employed. A great author or a great statesman might be able to earn more than his bread by breaking stones on a road, but everyone would regard forcibly employing him in this manner as a waste of labour. Horse-labour and even dog-labour may be similarly regarded; or, to put it otherwise, the labour of every horse and every dog represents a certain amount of human labour which must be regarded as usefully employed or as wasted, according to the work which the horse or dog does. If I set a horse to draw a big stone to the top of a hill and then down again, everyone would regard this amount of horse-labour as wasted; but it would be different if the same horse were employed in drawing stones to the site of a building where they were required. And in estimating the productiveness or unproductiveness of labour in any given case, we must have regard to the value of what it produces to society in general, and not merely to the amount which the labourer receives for producing it. One might earn £100 by walking a mile in the shortest period on record without producing anything of the slightest utility to mankind.

Human labour, however, in a country like this, is capable of producing more than is required to feed and clothe the population and to supply them with fire and shelter. There remains a surplus which may be devoted to mental improvement or to any innocent recreation. Recreation must be regarded as a good thing, and labour employed in producing recreation cannot be regarded as absolutely unproductive. It may, however, be unproductive in the wider sense in which I have used the term--viz., the value of the product does not suffice to pay for the maintenance of the labourers. I mean, of course, the value of the labour _to society_. Those who employ it, I presume, consider it worth what they expend on it--_to themselves_. But they might be of a different opinion if they had less money to expend.

Turning then to our recreations, I think I may lay down in the first instance that the best recreations are those in which the largest number of persons can participate. And it is more especially desirable that the working-classes should participate in them, for the man who spends most of his available time at hard labour stands in much greater need of recreation than the man or woman who has little or nothing to do--whose ordinary life, perhaps, includes more recreation (or, at least, idleness) than labour. But working men cannot afford to keep or to hire horses, and seldom possess any skill in horsemanship; and if one of them did happen to obtain a mount and was able to ride successfully, his presence at a hunt would be resented as an intrusion. Hunts are recreations for the wealthy classes only, and this mainly results from their expensiveness. The poor could not join in a hunt without paying more than they could afford to pay. But money always represents labour, and an expensive recreation means a recreation on which a large amount of labour has been expended without any useful result except this recreation.

In these last remarks I have anticipated the next condition of a good recreation--viz., that the expenditure of labour on it should be small. The more labour we can spare from recreation for works of more abiding utility, the better. But hunting is very expensive, and the promoters are not philanthropic enough to expend the additional sum which might enable a greater number of persons to participate in it. The hounds consume a large amount of food which could be used to better purpose if they were out of the way. A number of persons are employed in looking after the hounds whose labour has no productive result except in contributing remotely to the pleasures of the chase. Kennels have to be erected for keeping them, and horses and machines are required for moving them. Great numbers of horses used in hunting do no other useful work whatever, and these are often high-class and high-priced horses. Then there are huntsmen, whippers-in, etc., to say nothing of the food supplied to the horses, and of the persons employed to look after the foxes or other animals intended for the chase. Fox-coverts often occupy land that would otherwise be valuable, and the preservation of deer and hares prevents land from being put to the best agricultural uses. That hunting always reduces, and very materially reduces, the proceeds of labour available for the use of the public cannot, I think, be seriously disputed; and in many cases labour is diverted from these productive uses to the production of recreation for others, in which the labourer himself does not participate. A similar remark is often applicable to grooms.

Another condition of a good recreation is that it should do no harm to others. But can this be said of hunting? As regards fox-hunting in particular, the fox is a mischievous animal, and would have been exterminated like the wolf long ago if he had not been preserved for the pleasure of hunting him. He kills young lambs, fowl, and anything of the kind that comes in his way; and woe to the farmer who revenges himself by killing the depredator! Even the hare and the deer are far from innocuous. But the hunt does more mischief than the animals that are hunted. The hunters break down the farmer’s fences and frighten his cattle and sheep, often causing the loss of his calves or lambs, and injure his crops, while he has no redress because the landlord has reserved the right of hunting over the land.

THE RECREATION OF THE FEW.

We are told that hunting necessitates a large expenditure of money in the district. Every expensive amusement must do that. But if the most expensive amusement was the most valuable to society, it would follow that the way to benefit society was to increase the amount of unproductive labour. But even with productive labour our great object is to obtain the desired product with as little labour--as little expense--as possible. The more cheaply we can produce the necessaries and conveniences of life, the better it will be for the people. This will hardly be disputed. Why, then, should we apply a contrary rule to recreations, and lay down that the more expensive they are, the more beneficial they will prove to society? Granted that a hunt produces a large expenditure of money in the district, that some deserving shopkeepers and tradesmen make a profit thereby, and some honest labourers are employed at better wages than they would receive if the money in question were not expended--what then? What would become of the money thus expended if there were no hunt? It is almost certain that it would be expended in a manner more advantageous to the community. Even if the owner of the money wished to invest it rather than to spend it, he would probably do so by employing it in the working of a railway, or a mine, or some other work of public utility. If he simply lodged it in a bank it would enable the bank to lend more money to its customers to be employed by them for useful purposes; and if he kept it in his house in bank-notes the results would be pretty much the same as if he had lodged it in the bank. It might not, of course, be expended in the district, but we should look to the interests of the kingdom rather than those of the district. But save in the few cases in which persons come from a distance to enjoy the pleasures of hunting in a particular district, I believe the money would usually be expended in the same district, and with greater advantage to the inhabitants, if there were no hunt. The comparison should not be made between the district with this expenditure and the same district without it, but between the district with this expenditure and the same district with the same sum expended in a different manner. Would the same sum, if otherwise expended, be likely to prove less beneficial to the district? I think not.

Hunting is, therefore, objectionable as a recreation on many distinct grounds. It affords recreation to only a small number of persons, these being the very persons who are least in need of recreation. It involves the expenditure of a large amount of labour (direct or indirect) as compared with the amount of recreation produced; and, passing over the sufferings of the hunted animal altogether, it involves no small amount of injury and accidents both to men and animals. But, in the wider view of the modern economist, it is also objectionable as cultivating a callousness of feeling and disregard of suffering which is in the last degree undesirable--and especially as cultivating this feeling among the class from which our legislators are largely drawn. They become inured to regard with indifference not only the sufferings of the hunted animal, but those of other animals and even people which they witness. If there were less hunting and shooting among the class from which the majority of the legislature is drawn, the humanitarian cause would receive a fairer hearing in Parliament, as would also be the case if flogging were abolished at the public schools, where the members of this class are for the most part educated. But what are we to think of education at a school like Eton, where flogging is supplemented by a pack of beagles? I would rather “teach the young idea how to shoot” than how to hunt, or how to flog. How often do we hear the argument--stated in somewhat more circuitous terms--“I hunt, and therefore hunting must be right. I was flogged, and therefore flogging must be right!”

We have only to break down the barriers between the different classes somewhat farther, in order to put an end to all such class-amusements as hunting undoubtedly is. In cricket, for example, we see gentlemen and professionals playing side by side and vying with each other as to who will do the best service for his county, while thousands of spectators of all ranks assemble to watch the play. But in games conducted on horseback the public can rarely participate. When, like polo, they are conducted in a confined space, the public can look on, but they cannot keep the hunt in view for any considerable time.

In dealing with sports and their cost, there is a principle which we must never lose sight of: Sports do not produce money or wealth. Their function is merely to distribute money or wealth when otherwise produced. Is the mode of distribution which we are considering a good one? It is certain that those who decided on expending their money in this manner were not actuated solely or chiefly by considerations of public utility; and considering how difficult it often is to determine what mode of expending a given sum will on the whole prove most beneficial to the public, the chance of our hitting on an almost perfect distribution, when we are looking at the whole subject from a totally different standpoint, seems rather remote. This undesigned coincidence may have taken place, but it is one which, in the circumstances, requires to be strictly proved. I assume that the majority of sportsmen are not fools or bad people. How would such men and women as they are have spent this money if the hunting-field had been closed against them? And would this new mode of spending it be better or worse for the public than the present one?

FACTS ABOUT THE GAME LAWS

BY J. CONNELL

“The Game Laws are the tribute paid by the over-worked and
over-taxed people of England to the Lords of the Bread--to
the predatory classes who have appropriated the land and
depopulated the hills and valleys, to increase their own
selfish pleasures. The destruction of the Game Laws is as
inevitable in the long-run as was the destruction of Slavery,
the repeal of the Corn Laws, the overthrow of an alien
Church in the sister isle; but the fight will be a stiff one
between the freemen of this country and our savage or only
semi-civilised aristocracy and plutocracy.”--ROBERT BUCHANAN.

By the common law of England and Scotland, following that of Rome, wild animals in a state of nature are common to all mankind. A legal writer says: “By the very nature of the case wild animals cannot be made the subject of that absolute kind of ownership which is generally signified by the term _property_. The substantial basis of the law of property is physical possession, the actual power of dealing with things as we see fit, and we can have no such power over animals in a state of nature.”

It is, for instance, impossible to confine pheasants, partridges, grouse, etc., to a particular estate, and, taking fences as they are, the same may be said of the great majority of hares and deer in this country. Moreover, the individuals of each species are so much alike that it is impossible for anyone to identify them as his property. All legal writers without exception acknowledge that living wild creatures are not property. Nevertheless, the Game Laws were placed on the Statute Book to establish a proprietary right in those animals, and, as Mr. Barclay, Sheriff of Perthshire, once told a House of Commons Committee, they “put game, which was not property, in a higher scale than property.” They did this by means of a system of licences for killing and selling game, and by making trespass, which, in itself, is only a civil offence, a criminal offence of great magnitude.

At an early stage it was discovered that a free right of hunting was incompatible with the preservation of game in sufficient numbers to afford enough sport to the monarch and the nobles, and accordingly a series of laws known as the Forest Laws were enacted, by means of which certain districts were reserved for purposes of sport to the sovereign. The increase of population soon rendered protection necessary for areas outside the Royal Forests if the supply of game was to be kept up, and the result was a series of enactments known as the Game Laws. It will thus be seen that the right of taking wild animals, which originally belonged to the whole people, was filched from them by a selfish and privileged class, who, we need hardly add, stole the common lands, by means of “Enclosure Acts,” in much the same manner. It is strange but true that, except in Ireland, and in the north of Scotland, the people have come to acquiesce more readily in the robbery of the land than in the robbery of the game.

The Act which is considered the first or oldest of the Game Laws became law in the thirteenth year of Richard II., and it is interesting to observe the reasons for placing it on the Statute Book which the legislators of the time advanced. Said they:

“It is the practice of divers artificers, labourers, servants,
and grooms to keep greyhounds and other dogs, and on the
holidays when good Christian people be at church, hearing
Divine service, they go hunting in parks, warrens, etc., of
lords and others, to the very great destruction of the game.”

We know hundreds of districts, from Kent to Caithness, of which the same might be written to-day, thus showing that the Game Laws have utterly failed to obtain a moral sway over the people.

The term “game” includes hares, pheasants, partridges, grouse, black-game, ptarmigan, and bustards. In addition to these there are a number of animals to which one or other of the game statutes extends protection. These are rabbits, deer, roe, woodcock, snipe, quail, landrails, and wild duck. Although there is no property in wild animals, it has been settled by the Courts that the right to pursue or take game is a private privilege. In England this privilege belongs to the occupier of the soil, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, and in Scotland to the owner. In the former country agreements reserving the game to the owner are almost universal. The occupier or the owner of the soil has the right to claim any game killed on his land; but such is the curious state of the law that the poacher who takes away what he kills is not guilty of theft.

The Game Laws are held in abhorrence by the majority of people, chiefly for two reasons: first, on account of their injurious economic effects, and, second, because of the harsh punishments which they inflict for trivial offences. By their action large tracts of land have been rendered almost totally unproductive, cultivation has been abandoned and immense numbers of labourers thrown out of employment; the crops of farmers near preserves, although often on a different estate, have been injured or even destroyed; ill-feeling has been engendered between the authors and the victims of game preserving, and not infrequently the landless, workless labourer has been driven to break the law in order to procure food, thus landing himself in violence, or even murder. In addition to all this, the irrepressible sporting appetite of the people, sustained by a consciousness of having moral right on its side, leads to a reckless love of breaking laws which are unjust, unfair, and injurious. No believer in democratic government, no lover of order, can uphold statutes which demoralise those who live under them.[9]

ADMINISTRATION OF THE GAME LAWS.

But bad as are the Game Laws in essence, the manner in which they are administered makes them far worse and more hateful. It is notorious that a large number of Justices of the Peace are game preservers. The people who break the Game Laws almost all belong to one class, the people who sit in judgment on them almost all belong to another and hostile class. The effect of this arrangement is made very clear by the following questions and answers:--

When Mr. J. S. Nowlson was asked by a Select Committee of the
House of Commons, “Do game preservers ever act as magistrates
in cases of offences against the Game Laws?” he replied, “Yes,
but not in their own cases. For instance, if A has got a case B
will take it, and if B has got a case A will take it.” Again,
“In case a man was brought up for an offence against the Game
Laws, and there was a certain amount of evidence given, do you
think he would stand a greater chance of conviction than if it
were an offence against some other law?” Reply: “We do consider
so.”

Everybody acquainted with agricultural labourers is aware that a strong feeling prevails among them that justice is not to be expected in cases of offence against the Game Laws. A House of Commons Committee reported that “very few of the Game Law convictions are regular in point of form, and they would have to be set aside had they gone before the Judges.” It was a common occurrence for justices to sentence poachers to longer terms of imprisonment than the law allowed. For this and other reasons the Home Office has liberated a vastly greater proportion of offenders against the Game Laws than of any other class of offenders. An impartial observer might be excused for thinking that the penalties for poaching are high enough to satisfy the most exacting. For instance, the penalty for trespass in pursuit of game in the daytime is a fine of two pounds with imprisonment in default, and if the offence be committed by a party of five or more the penalty is five pounds each with imprisonment in default. In the case of night poaching, the penalty for a first offence is three months’ imprisonment with hard labour, and at the expiration of that period the offender is compelled to find sureties for his good behaviour for a year, or undergo a further imprisonment for six months with hard labour. For a second offence the penalty is six months’ imprisonment with hard labour, and at the end of that time the offender must find sureties for his good behaviour for two years or undergo a further twelve months’ imprisonment with hard labour. For a third offence the penalty is seven years’ penal servitude. But this is not all. If a party of three or more enter land at night for the purpose of taking game or rabbits, and if any of the party be armed with gun, crossbow, firearms, bludgeons, _or any offensive weapon_, each and everyone of such persons shall be liable to penal servitude for fourteen years.

Yet there are persons who think that those laws are not severe enough. A witness, for instance, before that Select Committee cheerfully proposed that poaching be made felony all round. It is needless to say that the harshness, or rather barbarity, of the punishment in store for them renders poachers but little inclined to yield themselves up when they find themselves confronted by gamekeepers. This accounts for much of the bloodshed of which we read in connection with poaching. It also accounts for much of the sympathy which is felt for poachers by all classes of the population except game preservers and their agents.

THE GAMEKEEPER.

Among the many unsatisfactory products of the Game Laws not the least objectionable is the gamekeeper. Mr. Joseph Arch once said: “Keepers are generally taken from the louting men one sees idling about.” The knowledge that their masters sit on the Bench of Justice, and that their evidence will be believed in preference to that of trespassers, frequently emboldens them to acts of the worst brutality. Some years ago, in charging a Grand Jury at the Nottingham Assizes on certain indictments for malicious wounding and murder, arising out of poaching affrays, Mr. Justice Vaughan Williams commented on the way in which these private police of individuals go out armed to the teeth, accompanied by savage dogs, _and without any code of instructions to regulate their proceedings_. Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, referring to arrests, etc., said: “I believe myself that in three cases out of four, the gamekeepers act illegally.” Whatever the men may have been originally, it is certain that their method of living demoralises the great majority of keepers. They are often selected at first because of their brutality. A humane man would be useless in such a post. Head-keepers, who are generally well paid, as a rule act honestly by their employers, but it is a fact known to the writer that the more poorly paid ones not only take game for their own use, but frequently sell it in order to provide themselves with drink. In almost every district in which game is preserved it is well known to the working people that the keepers will purchase, on behalf of their masters, eggs which they know to have been stolen.

In August, 1900, a show of gamekeepers’ dogs was held at the Royal Aquarium, London. We quote from a London paper:

“I would rather have one of these dogs with me in a night
row than three men,” said Mr. W. Burton to a representative
yesterday. He was gazing fondly at five ferocious-looking
bull mastiffs in the Westminster Aquarium, where a show of
gamekeepers’ dogs is being held. “If they were unmuzzled,” he
added, “one alone could tear a strong man to pieces in five
minutes. At Thorneywood Kennels, Nottingham, I have trained
these dogs to help the gamekeeper in catching night poachers,
and although they are kept muzzled a man has no chance with
them. If he attempts to run away he is knocked down instantly
and kept a prisoner until the keeper arrives. They are the
same breed of dogs that were used for bull-baiting in the last
century.”

With long imprisonment, or even penal servitude staring him in the face, and the prospect of immediate violence from man, or dog, or both, it is not to be wondered at that the poacher often turns out “a rough handful.” All will remember Kingsley’s lines:

“There’s blood on your new foreign shrubs, squire,
There’s blood on your pointer’s feet;
There’s blood on the game you sell, squire,
And there’s blood on the game you eat.”

It is probably not too much to say that hundreds of encounters between poachers and gamekeepers occur every winter in this country. Except in cases where life is lost, the London papers do not report them, and even then they do not always do so. Local papers, published in districts where game is preserved, are the sheets to search for such records.

It may be mentioned here that in the neighbourhood of London gamekeepers are much less aggressive and brutal than in remote districts. Near London they seldom attempt to arrest poachers. Acting under orders, presumably, they content themselves with following poachers and identifying them if possible, for the purpose of summoning them afterwards. Moreover, the punishment meted out to poachers in the neighbourhood of the Metropolis is much lighter, as a rule, than in the provinces. This is believed on all hands to be due to the criticism and denunciation of harsh sentences by _Reynolds’s Newspaper_ and other Radical organs. Such is the effect of this criticism that some years ago, after the occurrence of some bloody affrays, orders were given on some estates near Croydon, that in future poachers were to be simply ordered off the land, and were not even to be summoned unless they resorted to violence. These orders were afterwards withdrawn, but the fact that they were given shows that game-preservers are fearful of losing their privileges if public attention is directed to them.

In reading reports of poaching affrays it is well to remember that it is almost invariably the gamekeeper’s side of the case that is presented to the public. If the poacher escapes, he of course is never heard from. Even if he be caught he is seldom believed, and his description of the encounter seldom reported. There are exceptions to every rule, but it is the sincere belief of the present writer that, when they find themselves confronted by keepers, the vast majority of poachers would go away quietly if allowed. The abolition of the power of arrest would, therefore, be a long step in the direction of peace. The poacher, whether he poach for food or for sport, never believes that he is guilty of a moral crime. For this reason, the gamekeeper will never command the respect which is almost invariably accorded the policeman, even by the most hardened criminals. Policemen, as a rule, are humane in their treatment of prisoners, and chiefly because they do not suffer from any sense of personal wrong. With gamekeepers the case is widely different. From the depredations of the poacher they suffer, or think they may suffer, in repute or convenience, or even in pocket. In the circumstances it is little wonder that they frequently act brutally. As there are exceptions to all rules, there are, of course, exceptional magistrates who occasionally let light in on the dark ways of game-preserving. The following paragraph, culled from the _Airdrie Advertiser_ of March 5, 1898, reveals a case in point:

“CHARGE AGAINST GAMEKEEPERS.--On Thursday, before Sheriff
Mair, at Airdrie, Robert Connor M’Guire, steelworker, 14,
Watt Street, Mossend, pleaded guilty to a charge of daylight
poaching. He was fined 31s., including expenses. Accused
complained to the Sheriff that he had been assaulted by
the two gamekeepers, and that he still bore marks of their
violence upon his arms, which he was desirous of showing. The
gamekeepers were called in and appeared to treat the accusation
lightly, one of them remarking that ‘it was immaterial to him.’
The Sheriff sent for the Inspector of Police, whom he directed
to take the gamekeepers into custody and M’Guire to make the
charge of assault against them.”

We may here mention that all appointments of gamekeepers are invalid unless registered with the Clerk of the Peace. Very many of them are not so registered, and, therefore, their arrests, and attempted arrests, of poachers are illegal. The truth is that on many preserves nearly all the young labourers are keepers’ assistants. Many of them are desirous of getting appointed as keepers so as to escape from hard work, and these are often anxious to distinguish themselves by brutal conduct towards not only poachers, but the most harmless trespassers.

THE POACHER.

And what sort of man is he against whom all this machinery of law and authority and brutality is directed? We refer to the poacher. There is probably no better-abused individual on earth; but abuse is not argument, and still less is it evidence. If the reader will turn to the report of the Select Committee of 1846, he will see that after carefully sifting the evidence the conclusions arrived at were: (1) That the poacher was generally far superior to the average agricultural labourer in intelligence and activity; (2) that the great majority of poachers would break no law other than the Game Laws; (3) that the poacher was not regarded as a criminal, either by himself or the people amongst whom he lived; and (4) that this opinion was shared even by the game-preserver, who not infrequently offered him employment as gamekeeper. The reader may not be aware that many poachers become keepers. The well-known writer, “Stonehenge,” remarks on this: