“If blooding had been the object, his opinion was that there should have been a sudden, sharp, and decisive transaction [_sic_], which would have made the hounds, whenever they saw a deer, go at it. If they intended to blood hounds, the method pursued by Mr. Ormrod was most foolish. It was not an uncommon thing to blood hounds, and with regard to the question of cruelty, if they argued from elemental principles, all sport was cruel. He had hunted carted deer, and there had been no cruelty.” Asked whether, if a lame, emaciated, and weakened deer were released from a pen, it would be an unreasonable thing to hunt it, Lord Ribblesdale replied-- “With the ‘if,’ yes. This was a weak deer; therefore I should have blooded hounds with it.” The magistrates decided that “there was not enough evidence to convict,” but the prosecution did great service in showing what horrible practices are still carried on under the name of “sport.” III THE HUNTING OF GRAVID ANIMALS Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the morality of “blood-sports” in general, there is one recurring feature of such sports which, whether regarded from the humanitarian’s or from the sportsman’s point of view, is almost equally repulsive. We refer to the hunting, in some cases accidental, in others deliberate, of gravid animals. That such hunting--of the hare, of the otter, of the hind--takes place, there is no question whatever, as is proved by the following facts. It is quite a common practice to continue the hunting of hares with beagles until the middle, or even to the end of March, by which time many of the doe hares are heavy with young. Owing to the remonstrances addressed to the headmaster of Eton by the Humanitarian League, the Eton hunting season has now been curtailed, but it is still prolonged beyond the date which has been suggested by the better class of sportsmen. The experience recorded in the _County Gentleman_ (1906) by the writer of the following letter, Mr. John A. Doyle, of Pendarren, Crickhowell, seems conclusive: “The question you raise is one in which I feel a good deal of interest. I have not only been for some years master of a pack of harriers (foot), but I am also an Old Etonian, and have always felt much interested in the doings of the school beagles, and sympathy with them. Indeed, before I got your letter I had thought of writing to the headmaster, with whom I am--perhaps I should say was, a long time back--slightly acquainted.