KILLING FOR SPORT
This volume is published by
Messrs. G. Bell & Sons
for the Humanitarian League.
KILLING FOR SPORT
ESSAYS BY VARIOUS WRITERS
WITH A PREFACE BY
BERNARD SHAW
Edited by HENRY S. SALT
LONDON
G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
YORK HOUSE, PORTUGAL STREET
1915
NOTE
During the past twenty-five years, chiefly owingto the action of the Humanitarian League ingiving continuity to what had previously beenonly an occasional protest, the subject of certaincruel pastimes, called by the name of “sports,”has attracted a large share of public attention.The position of the League as regards the wholequestion of “sport”—i.e., the diversions andamusements of the people—is this, that whileheartily approving all such fair and manlyrecreations as cricket, rowing, football, cycling,the drag-hunt, etc., it would place in an altogetherdifferent category what may be called “blood-sports”—i.e.,those amusements which involvethe death or torture of sentient beings.
But as it is recognised that humane reform canonly come by instalment, and that legislationcannot outrun a ripe public opinion, the Leaguehas asked for legislative action only in the case ofthe worst and most demoralising forms of “blood-sports”—viz.,those which make use of a tame[vi]or captured animal, and not one that is reallywild and free. For the same reason the Leaguepressed, and pressed successfully, for the abolitionof the Royal Buckhounds, not because that particularhunt was in itself more cruel than others,but because it stood as the recognised and State-supportedtype of a very degraded pastime.“Your efforts have gained their reward,” wroteGeorge Meredith to the League on the occasion ofthe Buckhounds’ fall, “and it will encourage youto pursue them in all fields where the good causeof Sport, or any good cause, has to be cleansed ofblood and cruelty. So you make steps in ourcivilisation.”
But these steps in civilisation have not beeneasily made. It is not as widely known as itought to be that since the prohibition of bull andbear baiting, more than half a century ago, therehas been practically no further mitigation of thoseso-called sports which in this country absorb agreat part of the thoughts and energies of thewealthier classes. The Acts of 1849 and 1854,which prohibited the ill-usage of domestic animals,gave no protection to animals feræ naturæ, exceptfrom being “fought,” or baited; and the Crueltyto Wild Animals in Captivity Act, of 1900, appliesonly to those animals that are actually in confinement,or are released in a maimed condition to be[vii]hunted or shot. Thus, while humane feeling hassteadily progressed, legislative action has obstinatelystood still; and while we shake our heads atthe cruel sports of our great-grandfathers, we areourselves powerless to stop present brutalitieswhich are as intolerable to humane thinkers nowas were bull and bear baiting then.
In a civilised community, where the services ofthe hunter are no longer required, blood-sports aresimply an anachronism, a relic of savagery whichtime will gradually remove; and the appealagainst them is not to the i