Mrs. Packletide's Tiger
THE first stages of the Jaipur tiger shoot came straight out of the pages of Saki. In one of his stories he described how a tiger, 'driven by the increasing infirmities of age to abandon game-killing,' was lured by villagers within range of the predatory Mrs. Packletide: stationed on a Platform at a safe height above the ground. A goat 'with a particularly persistent bleat, such as even a partially deaf tiger might be expected to hear on a still night' was tethered within easy range; the tiger duly arrived; Mrs. Packletide fired, killing the goat; and the tiger succumbed of heart failure from the shock of the explosion.
In Saki's time big-game hunting was still taken seriously enough to provide material for satire. Recently it has become unfashionable: partly because big game is tending to die out, and most of the emphasis is on its preservation rather than its destruction (the comments of game reserve wardens, who have to explain to the ignorant African natives that killing game is an uncivilised pursuit, will be worth hearing); partly because there has been a revulsion against the shooting of wild animals for sport. Particularly large animals; men and women who continue cheer- fully to massacre grouse or hunt foxes are pre- pared to agree that Serengeti must not die, and to find something rather nauseating in the idea of killing a lion, or an elephant, or a tiger—in that order—for fun. And it seems all the more distasteful when it is done in cold blood, with 200 beaters driving the unfortunate animal to- wards the guns.
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