Why Kill ?
BY SIR W. ]3EACIi THOMAS.
irINE of the most satirical words in the English idiom It is the instinct of those who suffer any loss to seek a scapegoat. The fishermen off Blalceney Point, in Norfolk, which is a charming sanctuary of peculiar quality, complained first that their industry was being ruined by the terns who were encouraged to nest on the Spit ; and later that the only salvation for the fishermen was to shoot the seals, who basked on the low-Water sands outside the Spit. The shooting of them was sometimes cruel and at long range. Fruitgrowers, if they lose a few fruit-buds, decree a general massacre of bullfinches, chaffinches, green-finches and tits, followed by the shoot- ing of blackbirds, starlings and thrushes when the fruit begin to ripen. Foxhunters not seldom persuade them- selves that the badger is an arch enemy of the fox and should be exterminated, and very wide districts have been cleared. Fishermen keep a long index expurga- toting. Herons, found dead beside a Shropshire stream, were reported, and the callous explanation was vouch- safed that they were shot by the water warden in the course of his professional duty, who, it seems, had not troubled even to collect the dead body. An illustrated paper published with notes, not of exclamation but of admiration, accounts and pictures of a holocaust of cor- morants. Animals as different as the merganser and the otter are condemned out of hand. The rabbit trappers could, and do, kill anything, themselves excepted, which kills the rabbit. The list of those who destroy in order to keep includes farmers who dislike especially the hedgehog and the woodpigeon, and afforesters who have found new enemies, some of which are the game-preserver's friends. Government afforesteis have been guilty of unexpected starkness, advertising their hostility to that glorious bird the blackcoek as well as to the much beloved brown squirrel.
Now these threats and actions concern the public as well as our legislators ; and we might include among the keepers, so-called, the enlargers, those who let loose strange and imported animals on the country : the Duke of Bedford, Lord Lilford and the fur farmers may be associated in this reference with game preservers, fishermen by sea and river, gardeners, foresters and farmers. Has a man a right to release a intskrat or barking deer or grey squirrel or little owl ? This is com- panion to the more important question : has a man a right to kill and destroy at his will in this holy land of England ?
It is not easy to be sure of the right answer in reference to any particular creature ; for no dichotomy into " beneficial " and " harmful " can ever be true or just ; but killing in itself is a brutal thing ; and, therefore, the principle should be established that the burden of defending his action is laid upon every killer. The law must condemn what it does not specifically allow ; and must be stringently administered (as it certainly is not, for example, in the setting of toothed traps in the open or the selling of birdlime). The lists of protected bird, in the several counties are tolerably thorough ; but we need a more general law framed on behalf of mammals as well as birds ; and this further principle should be made, as Kant used to say, "of universal application" that any one who kills without special leave and licence to kill so acts at his peril ; and the greater the peril the better ; in other words a more efficient administration And heavier penalties.
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