LIVE HARE COURSING.

Evening Star, Issue 23684, 18 September 1940, Page 6

LIVE HARE COURSING.

Ik the lively little drama following a recent coursing meeting at Dunedin at which an unusual number of hares were killed another act was concluded yesterday with the decision of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals that it would be useless to stage a further act in a court of justice. Legal advice by which the society was guided was to the effect that for a prosecution for cruelty against the club concerned to succeed it would be essential to prove unnecessary and wanton cruelty, and that could not be done. Wanton cruelty it would be an absurdity to impute against the promoters of this “ holiday.” hut it was an unlucky day for the club. Something went wrong with the arrangements somewhere —just'when or where continues to be wrapped in a good deal of uncertainty—making it a still more unlucky day for the hares. Certainly at an Oamaru meeting held afterwards only three hares were killed in ninety-three courses, which, since the argument began, is the best piece of evidence that has been adduced for the sport of hare coursing. What the others may have suffered is only imaginable, but at Oamaru the hares plainly had what is called a “ sporting chance,” and at Dunedin, through some miscarriage, an extremely exceptionable number were killed. A “ sporting chance ” for the animal is the first condition of all blood sport?; it is what reconciles them to the ordinary—not super-sensitive—human conscience. Application of the principle can never be entirely satisfactory, because there is no way by which the likely victim can be consulted as to his opinion of a sporting chance. From one viewpoint it seems fantastic that the death of fifteen bares should have caused so much perturbation at a time when men are killing one another by thousands, but the war was not sought by those who are resisting aggression. The Dunedin society is requesting the support of other societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals to get the Government to abolish hare coursing, and it would he easy to conclude that there are hundreds of better sports. It is a good trait, not a foolish one in the national character, which increasingly approves the sentiment: ’Twouid ring the bells of heaven, The wildest peal for years, If Parson lost his senses And people came to theirs, And he and they together Knelt down with angry prayers For tamed and shabby tigers, And dancing dogs ana bears, And wretched, blind pit, ponies, And little hunted hares.