Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 161, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1913 — ETON SPORT BRUTAL [ARTICLE]

ETON SPORT BRUTAL

Cruelty in Weekly Run of Hounds and Horses. Canon Defends the Practice, Declaring That He Thinks It Good and Keeps Crusading Spirit From Undesirable Activities. London. —Almost under the walls of Eton college a scene was enacted recently, which, for sheer brutality, it would be bard to beat. A hard pressed hare which the boys of the college had been hunting with a pack of hounds (for beagles), maintained at tbe college for thiß purpose, twice swam the river with the pack close behind and a half hundred boys yelling like fiends on the banks, and was in the-act of Bwimming it a third time when it was pulled under and killed amid the enthusiastic cheers of the young Etonians who, of course, are mostly the sons of noblemen and other aristocrats, and form the nucleus of the ruling class of tbe future In this country. This termination -to the regular weekly run of the Eton beagles was a little more brutal than usual, but not much more. The Eton beagles, which are supported by subscriptions, nearly always succeeded in killing, as the phrase goes, when the carcass of the slaughtered hare is whirled triumphantly round the head of the chief boy whip and torn to pieces by tbe yelping pack, amid whoops of triumph from a gloating field. A similar triumph of the Eton beagles, it may be remembered, was recalled by that noble sports than, Lord Rossmore, in his recent book of reminiscences in these words: “One of the prettiest things 1 ever saw was a hare, very hard pressed, that took to the water and swam right out into the middle with all the hounds after her, but she was. unfortunately, so beat I that she was drowned from sheer exhaustion halfway across.” "v The latest exhibition of brutality at Eton has shocked humanitarians, and an Influentially signed petition was presented the other day to Canon Lyttelton, the reverend head master *of Eiton college, begging him to do away with the pastime of hare hunting at Eton, on the ground that its effect Is “to» stimulate cruelty among the young." This, by the way, is by no means the first petition of the kind that has been laid before a bead of tbe famous college with a similar object. others in tbe past having been , signed by Herbert Spencer, Sir Frederick Treves, Sir A Conan Doyle, tbe late Lord Wolseley and other famous men, but all without avail. After due reflection Canon Lyttelton. who himself is the son of a lord, has replied to the petition in a letter in which he declines to do away with the beagles, and an exceedingly remarkable letter it it/. To begin with, this man of God, who, .before becoming bead master of Eton, was tbe honorable canon of St., Albans, and who la the author, among other books, of one called “Studies in the Sermon qf the Mount,” asserts that far from there being an increase of cruelty among English boys, "many educators are not without misgivings at tbe almost unnatural gentleness cf the modern schoolboy compared with his forefather.” ' “How insignificant, then.” says the canon, “must the influence of this kind of hunting be in tbe opposite direction." Tbe reverend canon ends bis letter by daclaring that, "as far as possible, all cruelty has been banished" from tbe hunting and killing of bares by the Eton boys. Needless to say, his shuffling apologia, as it is termed, has called forth a broadside of withering sarcasm. One of those who pay their compliments in the canon In no uncertain terms is Sir Philip Burns Jones, wbile among the reverend headmaster’s .critics are several old Etonians, one of whom, after recalling Lord Rossmote’s “pretty sight,” remarks: - "That’s my Idea of how the youth of the nation should be brought up,

and that’s why I am in hearty sympathy with Canop Lyttelton’s reasoning. Let him go on as he is going, then he will ( run no risk of offending Lord Bung, or Sir Gorging Midas, or other influential. people who have their sons at Eton. I was nearly seven years there myself, and was never troubled by any stupid humanitarian teaching.”