THE ECONOMIST.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12061, 17 July 1917, Page 7

THE ECONOMIST.

It was neither the Buddhistic belief nor the vegetarian attitude of mind that made James Waldron eschew the pleasures of sport. If. in your imagination, you hove any definite conception of physical pain, it cannot fail to bo expressed in a writhing beast, choking in its own blood, or the heating wings of a bird as it tumbles out of the freedom? of the sky and comes to earth, all palpitating in the sudden rush of life that, is leaving its body. Sentiment no doubt it is. in such circumstance to feel that you are the cause of suffering; but the struggling beast upon the ground and the thin stream of smoko from the barrel of the gun in your hand are two facts, to intimatply related to your intention, that the astutest of barristers would find it difficult to win your case on a plea of sentiment alone.

There is no intention in this to rouse an argument either for or against the ethics of sport; it is merely to explain why Jim Waldron preferred seeing the rabbits playing on tho fringe of the hedges in his fields to shooting them, and why when the partridges rose out of the long grass with that whirring sound of a spring unloosed, he rather would watch them reach the safety of another cCy-er than bring them in a cloud of feathers to the earth.

It is ono sentiment to enjoy tho movement of life. Tn all possibility it may be another to relish the swiftness of one's eye and the quickness of one's band in one's power to bring that movement to a sudden end.

This is a question of sport; but hr> is surely a vegetarian or a sentimentalist ,who denies that a man must be fed with wholesome meat.

When in the stress of these present conditions, the butcher in the nearest town put up his shutters and went io the war, Mrs Waldron declared that they must livo on rabbits 'and such chickens or ducks as could be bought from the neighbouring farms. That was as it should be. Jim went into the little town with her one morning when she did her shopping. "Yoy don't mind rabbits, do you?" said she.

Not a bit. He liked them. Done with a brown sauce, with little bits of—a sort of salmi—and then all. that talk of the various ways a rabbit coul.l be cooked, the talk about food thar, becomes more absorbing as we grow older and proves we are materialists, nearly every one of us, down to the pits of our stomachs.

Thoy wore on sale at the greengrocer's, a convenient place, for there wer? <all ths littlo bits handy to mako his di&h She bought two and took th°m away.

" D-id you ask how much they were 0 " he inquired as thoy walked down the street.

She shook her head. "I wonder." said he, "when you'll take into your houl the spirit of economy. This war's teaching you nothing. Look at the way you ordered that hot and cold water basin to be fixed up in the bathroom the other day."

'What about it?" she inquired. "" Well, you simply ordered it. You nerer asked for an estimate "

"' T thought wo wanted it," Paid she

Ho raised Iris eyes to that heaven a man looks for when earth has become well-nigh impossible. At last, rather than wound his economical soul any longer by watching tho extravagance of her purchases, lie* left her at the ironmonger's and wandered back to the greengrocer's alone.

'•'How much were those rabbits?" he) inquired. "One and eightpence each, sir" " One end c'ghtpence?" "That's right, sir." "Each?"

"Yes, sir."

Ho came out of the shop and walked up and down the- street, joining her Later when ail her purchases had been made. All the way homo he said nothing; nothing, that is to say, that was any great pleasure for her to hear. In a sudden moment of that divine humour, of some women, which unfortunately is always present at the moment when it is absent in their men-folk, she wanted to accuse him of economy of speech. Wkcly enough she refrained. Few men ha.v 6 room for humour when fchsv are reasoning with themselves. By tho expression on his face, she knew ho was making calculations. '"* That night they had the rabbits for dinner. Passing tho door that opened from the hall into the kitchon quarters., he allowed the savoury smell of that salmi with its little- bits of all sorts to linger for a moment in, his nostrils. Then ho closed the door and closed it loudly.

N " I shall have to put up a. notice on that, door," he &aid to the frightened, maid. ''Twenty times at least, I've told you to keep it. shut. It's revolting having the smell of the dinner coming up all over the house." Having some knowledge of psychology, and knowing how the deed rather than the word is impressed upon the memory of the untrained mind, he went, again to the door. " Now--do you tlnnk you'll remember this?' 1 said he. and he op en eel, 'the door. " I want this door kept shut."' Whereupon he shut the door • again> drawing the pleasant odours of that salmi of rnbbit once more through his nostrils, and going into the diningroom, adding that he was ready for dinner and, if Mrs Waldron wn.s downstairs, they could bring it in. v At the first taste of that ploasantlysnielling dish, he looked up. "These ajen't English rabbits," said he.

'' They're shipped over from Somewhere or other. They're tough. And vou pay one rind eightpence apiece for them!''

In reply to her inquiry as to how he knew, he told her. "Somebody in this house must exercise a spirit of economy," said he. "I can quite see what I shall have to do." She looked at him with some apprehension, for when a man sees a path of duty plainly before him, as often as not, it is distressing and unpleasant.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"It's fairly obvious," he replied. " There are hundreds of rabbits in thatfield of ours down by the lane. I'v-i seen crowds of them in the orchard; they've got burrows everywhere. And here's the Government preaching economy at the top of its voice/ -.and we pay one and eightpence apiece for foreign rabbits—-tough, too—.when they're swarming over the place, and_can be had for the asking. I don't mind raK bits myself., when they're tender and cooked properly. This is cooked all right, but it's tough. If you've finished~, they can 'take it away. I don't want it." That pleasantly smemng dish was borne out of the room, and then she glanced across the table at him. " How are you going to get the rabbits?" she asked. " Shoot them." said he.

Tenderer of heart than he, there flashed across her mind the vision of those scampering brown things with—as she always described thenwtheir little white hehinds, scuttling into the safety of the hedges. The freedom of life, she asked, for everv living thing, and one day in Rotten Bow she might have been seen removing a &lug from the dangers of the open footpath. This can he the most pitiable sentiment. It can also be an intimate apprecia* tion of life itself. There ar* many men who will go out of their way to arrest the spirit of wastefulness in Nature, being in no way economic themselves. She put these visions pwjftly from her, for at the back of her mind there WAS a healthy appreciation for the adventures 6f the hunter in .pursuit of bis' food. It was the rpbrfc of killing she

had no sympathy with ; the beaters and the driven game, with the sportsmen idly waiting-till the birds came by. And here, she was oompelled to agree with him, was a cage in point. It was food, they needed, when, according to her philosophy, a man is justified even in stealing a. loaf of bread. " How are you going to shoot them?" she asked.

" With a gun," said he. " I supposed that. But you haven't got one."

'"'No—T shall buy one." Ho went into tho nearest big town tho next nay and he bought a gun.

"It's always economy to buy the best,'' said bo, and he bought the best.

" I'm afraid we shan't be; ahle to supply the cartridges for that gun much longer." said the. man over the counter. " The Government's holding us up, and unless wo can get them through America, wo shall only have what we've got in stock." "What have you got in stock?" ho inquired. " I don't think we've got more than a thousand."

Ho argued quickly in his mind that a gun, however, good, is no use without cartridges, and bought five hundred, Tho next day he went to the Post Office and bought his gun license. "This lasts me for a year, I supposej" said he. Tne girl across the counter shook her head.

"Only till August the thirty-first," she replied.

"That's not much more than a month !" he exclaimed. She glanced at a, calendar, and true to the nature of all civil service training, replied—" A month and fivo days, lint when you renew it, it will be for a full year." He laid down his ten and sixpence on the counter with remarks about the Government that were meant for her hearing as a Government official, but at which, to his disappointment, she seemed to taken no oit'enco. " Don't you object to it when you hear your employers spoken of like that? : ' he asked, hoping still that she might feel the point of his remark.

'• I get my pay every Saturday," sho replied. Ho thrust the license in his pocket and went home.

That evening, just as the light began to fail, he slipped a. dozen cartridges into his pocket and. when he thought his wife was not about, crept, i.ut of tho house with his gun undor his arm. From an upper wjndowj shewatched him go. wondering if the real and primitive man had returned him and he were glorying in thif, justifiable excuse to kill.

Another moment and she came downstairs, .busying herself. with things in tho house that made a noise. likeJy to drown the sound of o distant gun. It came at last in a quiet moment, as would happen, first one report, then swiftly another, after which, to distract her mind from the vision of that picture she saw in the fields, she went; upstairs again to her room, burying herself in the interest of a book. But there were other reports. First one and then a second in quick succession. Later, there were more; eight in .all. The excuse to kill, she thought. At the back of all tboir sentiments, there is the primitive man. But from her window Bat* saw him returning, and to her amazement, empty handed. He walked quickly, with a swift glance at the windows that could not, pierce the curtain from behind which she watched him.

Nothing was said of his first venture, and the next night they had macaroni o-u gratin for dinner, with an oft, repeated sweet from the most prolific fruit in the garden. Notwithstanding that the door was shut, he caught the scent of it as he came down into the hall for dinner. Frequent gun shots were heard in the neighbourhood for many evenings, but they said nothing about it at home. It seems that either a sporting dog or a ferret are necessary if to shoot rabbits. The odd chance of one, starting up out of the grass within range is so remote that the only alternative is to stalk them.

Ke stalked rabbits for a week, knowing that netting them was a last resource, bub clinging to his gun. If he learnt nothing else, he acquired the trick of holding his breath for long intervals with a beating heart, and could cover the ground as lightly as any Red Indian on the trail.

A.t Inst, one evening be returned, earning a diminutive creature by the hind legs. He was net- very proud uf it- Nevertheless it was a rabbit.. Taking it. by back ways to the kitchen, he gave jfc to the. cook. "We'll have this for to-mor-row.'' said he, and laid it. in the larder.

"Both you and the mistress, sir?" asked the cook. "Yes. both of us. It's rather small, of course, but if you make it up in a dish like those last rabbits we had, there ought, to be. enough. Anyhow it'll he tender." "' Oh, it'll be tender, sir," she replied. "Those little young ones are bound to be that."

Th© same appetising odour, fainter now because the d'oor was shut, was lingering in the hall when ho came down to dinner the next evening. "Cook says you've brought in a rabbit," Baid she as they sat down to the nieal. '' So I didn't order anything. AVas that right?" " Qiiit« right/' said he. "We've got good food in our own fields, just for tho Khooting-r-we may as veil have it. What's beef a pound now?" " One and 6ix." " Terrific!" said he. She contrived to help the dish when it came in, and what there M'as of it 6he gave to him. Tho graVy and little bits of all sorts on bor plate as ho glanced' at it from the other end of the table seemed to be a full 'measpre.

"Well, this is the tendcrest thing I've ever tasted," said he after the first mouthful. "It knocks a chicken into a cocked hat. And there are people paying exorbitant prices for meat-, who just for the trouble of going into the fields with 3, gun could have a meal like this any time they liked. And the Government sets itself up to teach us how to be economical. But you can't learn economy, you know. It's in your blood, or it's not. It's in mine, but it isn't in yours, old thing." " Why do you say that?" she asked. " fancy,'-' said he. "fancy going and buying two rabbits at one and eightpence apiece—tough ones, too —when all I have got to do is to slip out into the field's and shoot one like this. It isn't because you mean to Mo extravagant, you dear old thing, but you don't think of these things. " No, I hadn't thought of economy like that," she admitted. Later that night, he happened to look into her little-sitting-room. She was eating biscuits and making up accounts. " What on earth aro you eating biscuits for now?" he asked"l don't know. I suppose I get hungry," said she. "By the way, where did you put that receipt for the gun?" she added. "I can't find it anywhere." "I shoved it in that,pigeon-hole—-this one~-wjth the «tber receipts you Said' v6u kept there." "Yes I keep them there till the end of the month, but then I put them on a file." H« turned towards the door"If you ever want your gun license," she remarked as he went out/ of the-room, "you will find it in the top drawer here." He waited for a long while before she went up to bed, for, having only ten fingers, mathematics was no 6tr6ng point with her. When she had gone, he crept with his economic spirit into her little room to glance at her monthly accounts. , " It's the only way to maintain economy," he muttered to himself. ]ieef—one *&-& a pound!