In reply to our remarks about his booklet “The Eton Hare Hunt” we have received the following letter from Mr. H. S. Salt:
SIR,—I have read with interest your good-natured review of my pamphlet on ‘The Eton Hare Hunt.’ I cannot, of course, expect you to agree with me in matters of opinion; but with regard to your remark, on a matter of fact, that ‘it is not fair to call the E.C.H., founded in 1863, a survival of the good old times of ram-hunts and badger-baiting,’ I would point out that though the E.C.H. was first officially recognised about the date which you mention, the hare hunt itself was in vogue at Eton, according to Mr. Wasey Sterry and other authorities, as long ago as the time of Dr. Keate, when it was ‘unlawful though winked at.’ I think, therefore, I was justified in describing the sport as a ‘survival’ from that period.
“Then again, on another question of fact, your statement that the drag-hunt, proposed as a substitute for the hare hunt, ‘removes all the elements of skill and uncertainty,’ is in conflict with the experience of those who have themselves used the drag. The late Lady Florence Dixie, one of the most distinguished of sportswomen, described how ‘ with the beagles we imitated the hare, lifting the scent, doubling back, and so on, and in fact brought thus two competitors into the sport, i.e. the drag-layer versus the huntsman, and pitted their wiles and their cunning against each other.’ This testimony is fully confirmed by that of Mr. A. G. Grenfell, head master of a school in Cheshire, where the drag was used successfully for more than twelve years. The President of the Beagle Club, Mr. W. H. Crofton, also referred to the drag a few days ago in the Times, as providing excellent exercise ‘when run with skill by one who understands the art.’
“Finally, when you say that the Humanitarian League is inconsistent in attacking the Eton hare hunt, ‘while leaving the sport of beagling severely alone,’ you are evidently unaware that we have throughout condemned all forms of hare-hunting, and have made protests not only against the Eton sport but also against that carried on at the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, and elsewhere. But Eton, as the leading school, has a greater responsibility in this matter, and has no right to cry out that she is being hit harder than the rest. “Your quotation from Mr. Bryden’s work on ‘Hare Hunting,’ in which he insists on the need of such sports as a preparation for military fitness, makes me wonder whether he has ever heard of the Japanese.
Yours faithfully,
Henry S. Salt
Humanitarian League
London
Eton College Chronicle, March 25, 1909, p. 454