catching. As to the cruelty, he thought there could be
no doubt. When he heard that bishops and ladies delighted themselves
in hauling an unfortunate animal about by the gills for more than an
hour at a stretch, he was inclined to regret the past piety of the
Church and the past tenderness of the sex. When he spoke in this way
the cruelty of fox-hunting was of course thrown in his teeth. Did
not the poor hunted quadrupeds, when followed hither and thither by
a pack of fox-hounds, endure torments as sharp and as prolonged as
those inflicted on the fish? In answer to this Lord Hampstead was
eloquent and argumentative. As far as we could judge from Nature the
condition of the two animals during the process was very different.
The salmon with the hook in its throat was in a position certainly
not intended by Nature. The fox, using all its gifts to avoid an
enemy, was employed exactly as Nature had enjoined. It would be as
just to compare a human being impaled alive on a stake with another
overburdened with his world's task. The overburdened man might
stumble and fall, and so perish. Things would have been hard to
him. But not, therefore, could you compare his sufferings with the
excruciating agonies of the poor wretch who had been left to linger
and starve with an iron rod through his vitals. This argument was
thought to be crafty rather than cunning by those who were fond of
fishing. But he had another on which, when he had blown off the
steam of his eloquence by his sensational description of a salmon
impaled by a bishop, he could depend with greater confidence. He
would grant,--for the moment, though he was by no means sure of the
fact,--but for the moment he would grant that the fox did not enjoy
the hunt. Let it be acknowledged--for the sake of the argument--that
he was tortured by the hounds rather than elated by the triumphant
success of his own manoeuvres. Lord Hampstead "ventured to
say,"--this he would put forward in the rationalistic tone with which
he was wont to prove the absurdity of hereditary honours,--"that in
the infliction of all pain the question as to cruelty or no cruelty
was one of relative value." Was it "tanti?" Who can doubt that for
a certain maximum of good a certain minimum of suffering may be
inflicted without slur to humanity? In hunting, one fox was made to
finish his triumphant career, perhaps prematurely, for the advantage
of two hundred sportsmen. "Ah, but only for their amusement!" would