THE PRINCE OF WALES AND PIGEON SHOOTING.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 554, 19 October 1871, Page 2

THE PRINCE OF WALES AND PIGEON SHOOTING.

Referring to the pigeon shooting at Hurlingham, the Saturday Review says : —" Not being, as we are happy to say, familiar with the sport, ourselves, and many of our readers being epually ignorant of its details, we must be content to epitomise the statements of the daily press. What happened on Friday, June 16th, appears to have been as follows: — The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh, with twenty companions, went to a field near London. Each distinguished personage presented himself in turn, aud took the trouble of raising a loaded gun to his shoulder. A string being pulled, a wretched pigeon walked out of a box. If the bird did not recognise the hostile intentions of the Prince, peer, or legislator, he was persuaded to fly by means of an indiarubber ball. The distingu shed personage fired, and slew, mauled, or missed him. If he succeeded in mangling the wretched pigeon enough to bring him to the grouud within a fence, he scored. If tho pigeon got away to die with a broken wing or legoracrushed beak, the distinguished personage did not score. This performance was repeated 220 times, and the twenty-two gallant sportsmen felt that they had done iheir duty to society. The most distinguished of nil appears to have missed steadily : but we may hope that lie is consoled by Iho statement of one of the papers that he hit his birds hard. Ten pigeons may, therefore, have had the honour of slowly dying during the week by his august hands. We quite share the satisfaction expressed by the reporter of the Daily News, that none of the ladies of the RoyA family were present; it is rather odd, however, that this modest satisfa tion should not j be a matter of course. Meanwhile we feel' anything but satisfaction that English gentlemen should be indulging in a sport which retains all the cruelty without auy of the redeeming qualities of more manly amusements, and which has a certain flavour of cockpits, gambling hells, and other haunts of fast young men about town, just as distinctly as genuine sports, whatever may be said against them, recall a breath of fresh country air, and glimpse of moors and forests and mountain torrents." The Saturday Review is crushed by a writer in the Australasian, who signs himself " Blue Rock." Alluding to the denunciation by ihe Loudon journal of pigeon shooting as brutal, the writer says: —"Any opinions on sporting matters expressed by such a publication as the S ■.'':•.•■•-■•■* •■// Reviar are beneath the notice of an^ re-tl Sj'srtsman. Permit me to express my o;.ini»n —aud I nm well qualified to ''he o;r- v' I h is that the paragraph alluded to -i'h falsehood and displays only gross i,;i«... .'. I should say that the writer did not k.. . : he muzzle from the butt of a gun, -. i net' ' - :tw :i ; i.eou except in a pie." Hi .1: •■".) 'j .cc.d.. to show that pigeons are very lively, c>joy the sport, and prefer being killed by shot to having their necks wrung.