To the same effect is the opinion of Sir H. H. Johnston, as expressed in an article in the _Nineteenth Century_ of September, 1913. “One is told that fox-hunting is a splendid school for riders, the making of our cavalry, etc. Rubbish! Very few of our great cavalry officers have been fox-hunters, or willing fox-hunters, and practically none of the troopers. A large proportion of our mounted soldiers are recruited from townsmen who never learned to ride until they entered the riding-school. The Boers were admittedly the cunningest, most enduring riders recent warfare has known, but they, like their cousins of the Wild West, would probably show themselves duffers in the hunting-field; at any rate, they never practised in this school of steeplechasing. The last thing I desire to do is to undervalue riding as an exercise, an accomplishment, a necessary art in warfare, a school for teaching suppleness, coolness, and courage. But the fox is not a necessary ingredient in the curriculum.” We conclude, then, that Sport, considered as a school for War, is doubly to be condemned, inasmuch as, while it breeds the aggressive and cruel spirit of militarism, it does _not_ furnish that practical military training which is essential to successful warfare. Sport may make a man a savage; it does not make him a soldier. FOOTNOTES: [31] Here, for example, is a suggestive heading of an article in a London paper (October 27, 1913) in reference to a meeting of the German Emperor and the Emperor Francis Joseph for the purpose of promoting peace: “PEACE EMPERORS MEET. THE KAISER SHOOTS 1,100 PHEASANTS WITH THE AUSTRIAN ARCHDUKE.” A strange way of inaugurating peace! II “BLOODING” THE BLOODING OF CHILDREN. Of all practices connected with “sport” none are more loathsome than those known as “blooding,” whether it be the “blooding” of children, which consists in a sort of gruesome parody of the rite of baptism, or the “blooding” of hounds--viz., the turning out of some decrepit animal to be pulled down by the pack, by way of stimulating their blood-lust. Here are a few examples: On January 4, 1910, the _Daily Mirror_ published an account of the “blooding” of the Marquis of Worcester, the ten-year-old son of the Duke of Beaufort. In a front-page illustration the child was shown with blood-bedaubed cheeks, holding up a dead hare for the hounds, while a number of ladies and gentlemen were smiling approval in the rear. Here, again, is an extract from the _Cheltenham Examiner_ of March 25, 1909, in reference to the “eviction” and butchery of a fox which had taken refuge in a drain.