LIONS AT THREE A PENNY AND SALMON AT £1000 EACH

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 330, 23 January 1909, Page 3

LIONS AT THREE A PENNY AND SALMON AT £IOOO EACH

WHAT ARISTOCRATS PAY FOR SiPORT. ! (English paper). In the autumn of last year a sportsman rented a portion of a certain good salmon river for the fancy price of £IOOO, being limited to the killing if ninety fish. Exclusive of incidentals—hire of gillie, cost of tackle, etc.—this •would have worked out at £ll a fish had the sportsman caught the full number to which he was entitled. As a matter of fact, owing to unfavorable conditions of the water, he only landed one salmon.

' While this as a somewhat exceptional case, there are quite a number of instances on record of men paying £IOOO to £I9OO for fishing rights in certain waters and catching fish the total value of which did not amount to £3O.

GROUSE AT THIRTY SHILLINGS A BRACE.

: It reminds one of the fact that itsometimes costs the tenant of a "shoot" as much as thirty shillings a brace for grouse, the market value of which is five or six shillings. The average price of a grouse "shoot" may be put down at between £SOO and £GOO, although last autumn Captain Hiison rented ißraemore, Ross, for a period of three months for the enormous sum of £2700. And even these large rentals seldom result in profit for the owner, for the simple reason that the cost of the upkeep of the preserves breeding the game, employment of gamekeepers, etc. —works out at somthing like a guinea per pheasant.

■ A small "shoot" in the South of Scot- | land, which would yield about forty or fifty head of grouse, may be had for a rental of £3O or £4O. But a really good ''shoot"—say, a patch of 30,0(10 acres in the wildest part of the moors, wfhich would) bring in 500 brace—could not be had much under £4OO or £SOO for the season. : £3,050,000 FOR HUNTING. ' When one comes to stag and fox hunting, the figures are even more amazing. Only a short time ago a reliable authority announced that the cost of hunting in the United Kingdom amounted to £3,650,000 per annum, of which amount '£500,000 was spent in maintaining the stag and fox hounds, and the remaining '£3,150,000 in the upkeep of the hunters connected with the various packs. In some of the counties the hounds are out once a week on an average, but in the most fashionable counties this average is greatly exceeded, and the material benefits conferred directly and indirectly on the rural districts by hunting are considerable, and a valuable addition to the wages fund. The. man who wanted to buy a pack of good hounds would have to pay anything between 1000 guineas -and 30001 guineas; while the cost of hunting, say, I fifty couples of foxhounds three or four | times a week is estimated at £3OOO for j: the season. Then, again, to indulge I thoroughly iu hunting one needs at least four hunters for the season, at a cost . of anything from. £BO to £IOO each, j: apart from the cost of food and stabling. ; A GOOD £SO LICENSE. I In comparison, big-game hunting : seems for cheaper, and one gets more i excitement and sport for moriey. In j (British East Africa, for instance, the '

big. - game hunter's paradise, where -leopards arc as plentiful as tabby cats, j and lions three a penny," one may, for si £SO game license, kill two elephants, two rhinoceroses, two hippopotami, two eebrus, two cheetahs, two tapirs, two hartebcestes, ten antelope of certain species, in addition to a variety of other animals. Of course, there is the cost of getting out there, equipment, guides, etc. for two or three hundred pounds, however, one can have several months' shooting a nd pay all. expenses. . "Bound about Nairobi," says a certain gentleman who has been booming (British East Africa, "you can shoot big «ame from the windows of the Pullman Sirs on the Uganda railway, or from the steps of your hotel, which, by the way. is equipped with electric light, lifts, and | everything else that you could expect in ' the centre of civilisation." i Many mightv hunters have been at- • tracted to British East Africa. Lord i Delamere lives at Nairobi, Lord Cranworth has bought a homestead there, while Lord Hindlip makes the town hn , home. The Buke of Oonnaught has , shot big game in the neighborhood M Nairobi, while Lieut.-fleneral BadenPowell thinks there is no place like it for sport. TIME ELEPHANTS KOK .C2o. Tha Chartered Company, too, have ■been welcoming sportsmen and settlers to North-West Rhodesia and Central Africa, where one may shorit anything, from an elephant to a guinea-fowl, at a "ost of about £25 a week. In round •figures it would cost a party £IOO each for a month. One sportsman would naturally find the cost a little nior■*, but for £2OO a month a single individual would tie provided with eveijthing, including license and guide. The license itself, costing £25, allows , .you to shoot three elephants, the return fore from London to Mombasa, whence I rstarthas.to be made lyy lug-game , parties, ranging from &7" tp t.W.