Mrs. Wimbush's Reason

Last week U. S. animal-lovers learned that a Mrs. E. Wimbush, of Teniscombe House, Bagborough, England, had succeeded to the hitherto strictly masculine mastership of the famed Quantock Stag-hounds. Staghuntress Wimbush's reason for accepting the job: "I chiefly want this for the sake of the deer themselves. . . . If deer were not hunted they would be shot by poachers. This would be very cruel." Past Master Sir Dennis Fortescue Boles expressed the conviction that foxes "must also be preserved." The editor of the august Manchester Guardian was reminded by Mrs. Wim-bush's affection for deer of Poet John Philip Kemble's famed query: Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, But--why did you kick me downstairs? Continued the Guardian bitterly: "It is obvious that, to the lady concerned, she is not dissembling her love but displaying it. ... It seems a very queer way of dis- playing affection. If this is what happens when deer are 'fairly treated,' to what horrid fates are they exposed when the nobility and gentry are not ready to rally round and see that they get a square deal? The answer, according to this new master of staghounds, is that they get shot--sud-denly, swiftly, and barbarously--instead of that somewhat protracted form of euthanasia which consists in being hounded to death, hunted into the sea, or stabbed with a knife in a state of utter exhaustion."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.