STRATFORD PIGEON SHOOTING MATCH.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 August 1916, Page 6

STRATFORD PIGEON SHOOTING MATCH.

To the Editor. Sir,—l should feel obliged if you would fiRKI room for the following extracts from Ralph Waldo Trive's ''Every Living Creature." Tlve first gives the words of Archdeacon Farrnr: "Not once or twice only at the seaside have I come across a. sad and disgraceful sight—a sight that haunts me still—a number of harmless sea-birds lying defaced and dead upon the sand, their white plumage Ted with blood, as they had been tossed there dead- or half-dead, their torture and massacre having furnished a day's amusement to heartless and senseless men. Amusement! I say execrable amusement! All killing for 'killing's sake is execrable amusement. Can you imagine the stupid callousness, the utter insensibility to mercy and beauty of the man v/lio Iccing these bright, beautiful creatures in their white immaculate wings flash in the sunlight over the blue waves, can go out in a boat with his hoys and teach them to become brutes in character in finding amusement, I say again, dehumanising amusement—by wantonly murdering these fair birds of God, or iruelly wounding them, and leting them fly away to wait and die in lonely places." The other extract relates to the celebrated Russian novelist, Turgenicff. He tell? a most touching incident from his own life which awakened in him sentiments that have colored all his writings witli a deep and tender feeling. When Turgenieff was a boy his father took him out l one day bird-shooting. As they tramped along a golden pheasant rose with a low whirr from the ground at his feet. With tfhe joy of a sportsman throbbing through his veins, the boy raised his gun and fired; the bird fell fluttering at his feet. Life was ebbing, but mother- was strong, and with a feeble flutter tllie mother bird reached the nest where her brood were huddled. Then with a look of pleading and reproach the little brown head slowly sank and only the dead body of the mother shielded her nestlings. Never did Turgenieff forget the feeling of cruelty and-guilt that came over him at that moment. "Father," he cried, "what have, t done ?" turning (lis horror-strick-en face to his father. The latter, not noticing his grief, said, "Well done, my son; that was well done for your first shot, You will soon be a fine sportsman." "Never, father, never again shall I destroy any living creature. If that is sport I will have none of it. ■ Life is more beautiful to me than death, and since I cannot give life I will not take it.' 1 Sportsmen like your correspondent, "One who is shooting next Wednesday" may laugh at such appeals to the heart, but k it not true that the nation which has plunged the world into tins awful war has cultivated the intellect to the neglect of the heart?—l am, etc.. COMPASSIONNew -Plymouth, August 26,