The Daily News. SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1911. "SPORTSMEN."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 306, 20 May 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1911. "SPORTSMEN."

Just now every "sportsman" who can pull a trigger is doing so. The air is full of feathers, and the average "sportsman" does not care what sort of feathers. He is out to slay. For a country where it is a crime to (log a schoolboy and an insult to ask him to defend it, New Zealand still retains enough of the savage instinct to go on with. There i 9 no country on earth where vandalism is so common, or where such abjectly feeble methods are used to quell it. Permitted vandalism has already changed the climate of many parts of New Zealand, is destroying the fertility of the soil, and making huge tracts of land drier and less productive. In a haphazard way wo are trying to repair a little at a time the irreparable damage done by the : slaughter of timber on hill and flat. The passion for destruction begins in commercialism and ends in sport. Wc glorify the shootists who go forth to slay everything that wears fur or feathers by publishing photos of them surrounded by their huge "bags." We invite the fatted tourists to our rivers, so that they may pull tons of trout from the water and allow them to rot on the ground. We say nothing to the Huns who invade what forest is left, to slay, without the slightest instinct of real sport, our incomparable bush pigeons, and our fast diminishing and wholly beautiful native birds of all descriptions. We glory in destructions and write paragraphs in the papers showing what fine shots we are. We how down and worship the stupid prowess of a man who bowls over the largest number of tame pigeons at a match. We call him a "champion." We who harass a schoolmaster for using the rod to a refractory boy allow the boy to sally forth with a pea-riile to irritate the animal creation, and to occasionally send a mate to tile cemetery. Wo have given up desecrating Maori graves, but this cheerful industry may revive again. We have lately seen that on the Wanganui River there are so many deer shooting parties that they are in danger of shooting one another. In a country where every kind of edible is sold at the highest prices, we allow venison to rot, fish to decay, and "sport'' to flourish exceedingly. In a land that has been covered with the finest timber over the earth grew, we pay famine prices for lirewood. Our incurable passion for destruction and waste is never checked. Wc revel in smoke and blackened stumps, useless feathers, rotting hides, and gorgeous stag-heads. We tell our people that they must wear decent clothes, and go to church, and refrain from seeing a certain kind of pictures, but. we do not insist on the cessation of wanton slaying. destructive enterprise, and wasteful "sport." We welcome the bored person from Europe who puts in the whole of • a useless existence in the destruction of life. The idea of suggesting to a Vere do Vere that he should use his "bag" for food would invite his haughty con'ejnpt. We even provide slaughter sanctuaries for blucMood gunners, and love to alter the face of the country so that it shall look as little like New Zealand as possible. Vere do A T ore returns to the Homeland mentioning that New Zealand is a fine country for "spawt." There is less 1 real sport in New Zealand than in any othcr countrv, because the ethics are

not understood, and the prevailing idea is to slay as much in as little time as possible. Vere de Vere is "chawmed" with such and such a New Zealand town. "Is is so English, you know." The truth is there is a huge body of people in New Zealand to whom the incomparable beauties of their own country do not appeal in the least degree. A native tree is an abomination to be burnt, a nitiv? pigeon is something to use up a cartridge on, a native river is a place for the dumping of poisonous miaing debris. There are no half measures. The passion of the average go-ahead person is to take "everything in a face." If there are one hundred pukekos in a swamp kill the lot! Should there be a colony of pigeons , in the bush camp, fire until there aren't any. If there is a law in regard to shooting certain game, disobey it—there are so many laws that the breach of a couple of thousand won't matter, and there is only a hundred to one chance that the proper authorities will have the pluck to enforce it. The whole nation would shudder if some abandoned persons revived cock-fighting or "bull-baiting," but kindly spectacles and bemuffled picture editors glory in gory "bags" and get excited in the explanatory and complimentary matter underneath. If a strong person with the courage of his opinions told us that it was infinitely more barbarous to sky a huge and unnecessary "bag" than it is to allow two roosters to kill each other in fair fight, we should be offended. It would, however, be gospel truth. We are no advocates of "namby pamby," but we do emphatically protest against the idiotic custom that has become a national sin of slaying everything that can be slain and of wasting everything that incapable of destruction. The influence of unhallowed "sport" is seen in the extraordinary number of cases of cruelty to domestic animals in New Zealand. It is uncommon to find a New Zealand toy who has any respect or feeling for a horse or other domestic animal. It is not necessary to go outside New Plymouth to observe the truth of this. In every city of New Zealand where there are branches of the S.P.C.A. the cases of cruelty to animals are out of all proportion to the population. Horses in most towns are regarded in very much the same category as marlines of iron and wood, and magistrates an cveTy hand inflict absurd fines for patent, flagrant, wicked cruelty. Because :>f the national lack of feeling the work jf such societies does not extend outside i few towns, it is almost impossible to obtain witnesses in cases of cruelty, and the general public believes it is silly to raakc a fuss about a mere horse, a stupid :ow, or a tortured dog. Nobody stops i boy on a New Plymouth road who galops a worn-out seventeen-year-old horse 'or miles; no one sees girth galls, collar ioros, navicular disease, or takes any lotice of tho highly respectable people ,vho believe that illness and disease are lurahle with a sapling or that loads can >e better drawn by the aid of a whip. ,Ye are absolutely convinced that the jcneral callous indifference to the suferings of animals is the result of the illeged "sporting" instinct, the huge icedless %ags," the general passion for leatruction, and the lack of the ethics hat make sport in some countries bearible. In the meantime, because the ountry would much rather make laws ban observe them, nothing will be done o prevent the Huns and Vandals from freaking their barbaric spite on all naure.