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ENGLISH MANLY AND WOMANLY SPORT IN THE EAST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE: Two horses are said to have died after a hard day's run with Lord Middleton's fox-hounds, in the East Riding of Yorkshire; and the Norton magistrates have had before them the huntsman, whips, and second horseman of Lord Middleton's hunt, who have been charged by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals with having caused the horses' deaths.
Whilst we abhor the morose cant which interferes with sport in any shape, and which troubles itself on behalf of the rat and the pigeon, while passing without emotion the dying human outcast in the street, while we look upon fox-hunting as the finest of English manly and womanly sports, and believe that the accidents which will happen to riders and horses occasionally – as depicted on our front page – and hounds too, when a teetotaller rides over them – if ever he does ride – or they cross a railroad in some luckless ran, are not to be avoided ; yet we must admit that in this case there does appear to have been some small prima facie evidence of harsh and careless treatment of the noble animals that died. There are two views to take of cases of this kind, the sentimental maudlin view and the common-sense view. Do the healthy exercise and social fellowship of the hunting-field fully compensate for its |
occasional perils to man and horse? We think that they do, and that the majority of Englishmen will agree with us. We know what was the late Duke of Wellington's opinion of the sport. Nothing gives a man a better eye for country, nothing conduces more to encourage dase and pluck and daring than riding to hounds. Are we to become a nation of puling milk-sops, or are we to remain Englishmen of the right old stamp? Moreover, the hunting-field is a far better school for training and breeding horses than our two and three-year-old light-weight race-courses. We do not find that men become more humane as they accustom themselves to whine over a shot pigeon, or to pour forth a gushing rhapsody on the death of a rat killed in the most orthodox fashion by a well-bred terrier. On the contrary, we suspect the natures of such men, and doubt their sympathies on behalf of their fellow-men.
From what was heard by the Norton magistrates, it appears that on the 3rd of December last Lord Middleton's hounds had a first-rate run, a day's sport to be chronicled in Bell's life or the Field. The ground was heavy, and the pace unusually severe. Two horses finished a long way from home, and underwent subsequent exposure to cold, which produced a shock to the system, under which they collapsed. They met the bleak air on a place called the Wold.
There could be no intention to inflict injury, much less death, on these horses. We dare say that their riders would have been horrified at the idea of galloping them on a hard turnpike road.
The Bench decided that there was nothing “intentional” on the part of the accused men, and therefore that the charge would not stand.
If the Society would but use its valuable endeavours in the right groove, there is plenty to do in London on behalf of the poor omnibus and cab horses. Yet it is not their drivers who should be prosecuted, but those who are, or ought to be, answerable for the state of the streets.
It is a pity that human beings are not included in the Society's benevolent scope, otherwise the omnibus drivers might find their sufferings somewhat all eviated, as well as those of the poor animals they drive. What of the British soldier, forced to march in the dog-days under his pack and bearskin, and with his tight tunic and stock, till he occasionally falls down dead? What of the “white spot” on the hearts of guardsmen and linesmen recorded by the melancholy post-mortem examination?
In this case, what did the Society want? Does it want to put down hunting, or to regulate the pace, or to prescribe how far the fox is to run or be run after in a single day? A petty sort of nation we shall soon be! When a man's neighbour shall precribe whether or not he shall drink anything stronger than tea, and a Society shall successfully hunt down every old British sport and make the chase a crime; when a man shall not be able to keep a rat-killing terrier, or to shoot a pigeon from a trap, and true charity and forbearance shall be dead, and hypocrisy and mock philanthropy become rampant over the land, what then will be left to a true Englishman save to emigrate and leave this tight little island, become somewhat too tight for him to live in any longer, to the new Holy “Alliance” dispensation and the dominion of Exeter Hall?
From what was heard by the Norton magistrates, it appears that on the 3rd of December last Lord Middleton's hounds had a first-rate run, a day's sport to be chronicled in Bell's life or the Field. The ground was heavy, and the pace unusually severe. Two horses finished a long way from home, and underwent subsequent exposure to cold, which produced a shock to the system, under which they collapsed. They met the bleak air on a place called the Wold.
There could be no intention to inflict injury, much less death, on these horses. We dare say that their riders would have been horrified at the idea of galloping them on a hard turnpike road.
The Bench decided that there was nothing “intentional” on the part of the accused men, and therefore that the charge would not stand.
If the Society would but use its valuable endeavours in the right groove, there is plenty to do in London on behalf of the poor omnibus and cab horses. Yet it is not their drivers who should be prosecuted, but those who are, or ought to be, answerable for the state of the streets.
It is a pity that human beings are not included in the Society's benevolent scope, otherwise the omnibus drivers might find their sufferings somewhat all eviated, as well as those of the poor animals they drive. What of the British soldier, forced to march in the dog-days under his pack and bearskin, and with his tight tunic and stock, till he occasionally falls down dead? What of the “white spot” on the hearts of guardsmen and linesmen recorded by the melancholy post-mortem examination?
In this case, what did the Society want? Does it want to put down hunting, or to regulate the pace, or to prescribe how far the fox is to run or be run after in a single day? A petty sort of nation we shall soon be! When a man's neighbour shall precribe whether or not he shall drink anything stronger than tea, and a Society shall successfully hunt down every old British sport and make the chase a crime; when a man shall not be able to keep a rat-killing terrier, or to shoot a pigeon from a trap, and true charity and forbearance shall be dead, and hypocrisy and mock philanthropy become rampant over the land, what then will be left to a true Englishman save to emigrate and leave this tight little island, become somewhat too tight for him to live in any longer, to the new Holy “Alliance” dispensation and the dominion of Exeter Hall?