It ill becomes Americans, with our own record behind us, to chide
other people for the senseless murder of wild things; and besides,
speaking personally, I have a reasonably open mind on the subject
of wild-game shooting. Myself, I shot a wild duck once. He was
not flying at the time. He was, as the stockword goes, setting.
I had no self-reproaches afterward however. As between that duck
and myself I regarded it as an even break--as fair for one as for
the other--because at the moment I myself was, as we say, setting
too. But if, in the interests of true sportsmanship, they must
have those annual massacres I certainly should admire to see what
execution a picked half dozen of American quail hunters, used to
snap-shooting in the cane jungles and brier patches of Georgia and
Arkansas, could accomplish among English pheasants, until such
time as their consciences mastered them and they desisted from
slaughter!
Be that as it may, pheasant shooting is the last word in the English
sporting calendar. It is a sport strictly for the gentry. Except
in the capacity of innocent bystanders the lower orders do not
share in it. It is much too good for them; besides, they could
not maintain the correct wardrobe for it. The classes derive one
substantial benefit from the institution however. The sporting
instinct of the landed Englishman has led to the enactment of laws
under which an ordinary person goes smack to jail if he is caught
sequestrating a clandestine pheasant bird; but it does not militate
against the landowner's peddling off his game after he has destroyed
it.
Pages:
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168