Next we come to the kindred sophism drawn from “the necessity of taking life.” To kill, we are reminded, is unavoidable; for wild animals must be “kept down,” or the balance of Nature would be deranged. That, of course, is undeniable; but, unfortunately for the sportsman’s argument, it is a fact that the breed of foxes, rabbits, pheasants, and other victims of sport, is artificially kept up, not down, in order that there may be plenty of hunting and shooting for the idle classes to amuse themselves with. So far from securing the effective destruction of noxious animals, sport indirectly prevents it; more than that, it causes the killing to be done not only ineffectively, but in the most demoralising way, by making a pastime out of what, if done at all, should be done as a disagreeable duty. But here we must in justice mention a new and ingenious excuse for blood-sports which (to add to its zest) was put forward by a clergyman. It is necessary to take life, he argued, and what is necessary is a duty, and it is right, as far as possible, to make a pleasure of one’s duties, and therefore--but the conclusion is plain! Presumably the reverend gentleman, had he lived a century back, would have found the same pious justification for the practice of making up pleasure parties to see felons hanged. SPORT A BLESSING TO MEN. Speaking generally, we may class the remaining arguments under two heads: those which aim at showing that sport is of benefit to mankind, or at least not a symptom of cruelty in the sportsman; and those which actually discover it to be a blessing to the animals themselves.[26] In the former and more prosaic category must be placed the queer assertion that sport “adds to the food-supply” of the nation. We have all read how, after some aristocratic “shoot,” a number of pheasants or other palatable game were presented to the local hospital. Sport, it is seen, goes hand in hand with the charitable and the philanthropic--truly a touching picture! But the fact remains that the cost of the animals thus reared primarily for sport, and secondarily for the table, is far in excess of their market value as food, and this at once knocks the bottom out of the sportsman’s patriotic contention. Every stag that is stalked, every pheasant that is mown down in the battue, and every hare or rabbit that is knocked over in covert-shooting, has cost the country much more to produce than it is worth when butchered; and the game-preserver, far from being helpful to the community in this respect, is a positive encumbrance to it, as wasting labour in the production of what is not a food, but a luxury. Game is reared not for the benefit of the many, but at the cost of the many, to gratify the idle and cruel instincts of the few.