MODERN HUNTING

Evening Star, Issue 23451, 16 December 1939, Page 3

MODERN HUNTING

[Written by Panache for the ‘ Evening Star.’]

Certain philosophical people will assert that nothing really cnanges from age to age. This may be true about Governments and girls and love, the modern varieties dufering but slightly from the ancient. Yet i think 1 can make out a good case to prove that hunting is not what it was in the old days. in the beginning hunting was fun, and hunters were brave, wise men. While the puny non-hunters sat at home doctoring their lily livers with vegetable extracts the hunters went forth, strove, and enjoyed, braving lire and Hood and tooth and claw for the joy of the chase and their own virility. At the end of the day they returned triumphantly, with their quarry slung over their shoulders, or else disappointed and empty-handed, but not dispirited, since the race had been to the swift, and, anyhow, there was always to-morrow, with plenty to hunt for men sufficiently brave and enterprising. The cave man evolved, and life became less exciting, but the descendants of the cave man found they could sublimate their blood lust by hunting little foxes. , In the English countryside, this winter, if one can believe what gets past the censor of private letters, the happiest hunting grounds are the herds’ of evacuees. In New Zealand towns, this summer, all of the hunting that is done is hunting for houses. The term “hunting” is misleading. Certainly, as the cave man’s descendant sets off hopefully in the morning, he is ready to brave any danger in' his quest. But bravery avails him nothing, and the only jungle qualities that are of use in this modern hunt are not those that hunters have been encouraged to cultivate. The househunter’s eye must not be too quick or he will see rusty spouting and peeling paint; his nose must not be sen-sitive.-to drains or musty cellars: if his hearing is acute he will notice how windows rattle; and if his step is light the rottenness of floor boards will be hidden from him. Should he see a house and 1 desire it, his cave man technique is useless. The house is certain to be tenanted, and modem humanitarian methods deny the hunter the right of driving out tenants with a club, however, much he longs to seize the house by its hair and subjugate it to him. Even if the house is willing, he can do nothing. The arrow of his desire may hit it clean between the eyes; he may rub noses with its knocker; the vibration of the door bell is his vibration. The house and he know they are made for each other, but nothing can be done. It wohld be truer to say that houses are got to-day not by hunting, but by stalking. Not in the market place at noon, but in clubs and lanes at midnight or dawn are vacant dwellings spoken, of. The house-stalker prowls the streets, his eyes alert for an uncurtained window or an untrimmed hedge. Ho eavesdrops. Knowing the futility of straightforward methods, be must acquaint himself with the movements of all business men and inquire into their private affairs, asking are they likely to be transferred within the next five years, and, if so, have they made any arrangements for the leasing of their dwellings? The sight of a removal van in the .street sends our, house stalker into a frenzy of frustrated desire. He leaps into a, taxi and follows the pantechnicon, bribes the furniture man with beer to discover whence the household goods have come and whither they are going. Should our stalker find that there actually is a house vacant he approaches warily, for experience has soured him. This desirable residence must be a whited sepulchre or it would have been snapped up long before. Ihe hunter, though his face was once frank and his manner ingenuous, knows that he must not be too keen. Hence he haggles and depreciates, takes the temperature of the house, and questions about its, metabolism, its circulation, the viscera of the flues and the gas stove. ■ He does all these unpleasant things, when, he should just stand at the door and feel the house’s pulse. When our house-hunter takes an hour off from the search he meets an acquaintance who asks enthusiastically why he does not apply for one of the lovely Government houses with all conveniences and the sink of scientific height. The hunter is saddened to learn that such houses are disposed of by ballot, and is moved to protest feebly that a house should not be treated as lightly as if it were a mere member of parliament or a city councillor. Still, it would mean a home for the day, and if the clematis is not transplanted soon it will be too old to move. After the weary miles that have been tramped it will be good to shelter behind one’s own hedge. In spite of his love for old houses he may take his acquaintance’s advice. Dog? Clematis? Hedge? But such excrescences are not permitted in model settlements. , , So the modern>hunter goes sadly back to the house whose new owner requires it, the house that for years lie has cherished and polished and oiled and scrubbed, whose deficiencies he has hidden, and whose good points he has accentuated. The , house looks quite happy. So does the garden. He hopes that they are merely inarticulate • but he knows, for a poet lias told_ him, that Nature is heartless and witless, and that the: lawn, from which he has lovingly removed, so many plantains, docs hot care whether he or a stranger cuts it next.