During the summer
considerable acerbity had been added to the matter by certain
articles which had appeared in certain sporting papers, in which the
new Duke of Omnium was accused of neglecting his duty to the county
in which a portion of his property lay. The question was argued at
considerable length. Is a landed proprietor bound, or is he not,
to keep foxes for the amusement of his neighbours? To ordinary
thinkers, to unprejudiced outsiders,--to Americans, let us say, or
Frenchmen,--there does not seem to be room even for an argument. By
what law of God or man can a man be bound to maintain a parcel of
injurious vermin on his property, in the pursuit of which he finds no
sport himself, and which are highly detrimental to another sport in
which he takes, perhaps, the keenest interest? Trumpeton Wood was the
Duke's own,--to do just as he pleased with it. Why should foxes be
demanded from him then any more than a bear to be baited, or a badger
to be drawn, in, let us say, his London dining-room? But a good deal
had been said which, though not perhaps capable of convincing the
unprejudiced American or Frenchman, had been regarded as cogent
arguments to country-bred Englishmen.
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