The Promotion of Kindness to Non-Existent Animals

DEAN INGE must look to his laurels. He has long held a monopoly of that characteristic saying, that no one has so strong an interest in the production of bacon as the Pig; but now there is a rival in the field, another audacious clergyman, the Rev. H. S. Vinning, of Green’s Norton, Northants, who has lately offered a defence of the Grafton Hunt, on the ground that the Fox ought to be very grateful to his pursuers, because “if they did not chase him, he would not have been born.” Nay more, the reverend gentleman gave a signal proof of his personal conviction, by informing his audience that “if he had not been born a parson, he would like to have been born a fox.”

Now the silliness of these two comparisons of existence with non-existence is so obvious, and has so often been pointed out, that it would be wasting my readers’ time to demonstrate it anew; they are, indeed, a mere excuse for indulgence in a personal pleasure, whether of the Table or of the Chase. But the peculiar piquancy of Mr. Vinning’s appearance, in the same field of prevarication, lies in the fact that the Dean, to his great credit, is an opponent of blood-sports, that is, of the practice which Mr. Vinning would justify by precisely the same argument (if argument it can be called) by which Dr. Inge claims that he does the pig a kindness in eating him. The Dean will therefore need rather more than his usual self-confidence, if he is to contend that the pig, in this matter, stands in a different category from the fox, and has a better right. To the benevolence of bacon-eaters than Vulpes vulgaris to that of the kindly gentlemen in pink.

Nevertheless, as I still have a sneaking regard for gladiatorial combats, I confess to a hope that Dr. Inge will now “face the music,” and give us the fun of seeing a bit of (bloodless) sport, by impugning the validity of his fellow-cleric’s assertion that there is no one who has so strong an interest in the continuance of hunting as the fox. For this should indeed be a battle-royal, between St. Paul’s and Green’s Norton, between the Porcine and the Vulpine interests—between what may be called the Dean’s Baconian Doctrine and the Foxology of the blood sportsman. And if Dr. Inge should fail to assert himself in this question, it is much to be feared that he may be ousted from the proud position which he has occupied for some time—that of being the chief advocate of the Promotion of Kindness to Non-Existent Animals. In that event his opponent will have played the winning, or perhaps should say the Vinning, card.