A CRUEL FOX-HUNT.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3486, 7 June 1884, Page 3

A CRUEL FOX-HUNT.

Fox-hunting, cruel as it is even under the most favorable circumstances, may become a positive crime if it is pursued in the fashion recently adopted by a number of brutal sportsmen ia a New Jersey village. At Williamstown, it seems, a fox-hunt was announced, and a fox was duly caught in readiness for the sport. Unfortunately its leg was broken in the trap, and os the poor animal was unable to walk it was confined for a fortnight, at the end of which time it could stand on its feet, but the leg was not healed. On the day fixed for the great hunt a crowd of spectators assembled to see the fox unbagged. The fox, however, looked bewilderingly from side to side, dazed and helpless. His brush was shaven to a stump, to facilitate his movements, it was said. In order to compel the fox to show sport, one of the “ sportsmen” poured a flask of turpentine over the miserable animal, causing it to make a feeble effort to escape. It ran a little way with a curious sidelong lope, dragging its broken leg in sheer helplessness, But it now stopped again and rolled itself in agony on the sere winter grass. Again the turpentine was applied and, smarting under the biting pain, he tried to gain a thicket. The hounds were let loose, the horsemen followed, and in a moment the struggle was over. The wounded fox shivered with fright, A short, sharp, struggle, a sound of tearing flesh and crunching bones, and the intrepid little chase lay dead and mangled beneath the eyes of gallant sportsmen. And this happened at Williamstown, county Gloucester,U.S, A. in the year 1884, the partakers being the heads of the village community and the surrounding country—nominally Christians and certainly men.