effect on the sportsman. because they bring him into contact with nature among the woods and streams. It is not to be doubted that the contact with nature must in itself be beneficial ; but could it not be obtained without the slaughter of birds and fish? and can those men be true and perfect lovers of nature who frequent her paths only that they may deal death and destruction among her harmless children? The dynamiters who cross the Atlantic to blow up an English town might on this principle justify the object of their journey by the assertion that the sea-voyage brought them in contact with the exalting and ennobling influences of the Atlantic.
But the crowning absurdity of the Sportsman's arguments, an absurdity which beats any of the fallacies to be found in Sydney Smith’s “Noodle’s Oration,” is the wonderful assertion that Sport lends to the character a special kind of gentleness and humanity! The true sportsman, like the true soldier, is never cruel. He is merciful, chivalrous, thoughtful, tender-hearted, sympathetic. These qualities are the result of the practice of Sport. They are not (as might at first have been imagined) acquired by butchers,
