Genre:

News-Commentary

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Illustrators:

J L *

Subjects:

Hunting, Cruelty, Class

    Discusses a row between 'gushing gents who write for the cheap press' and 'a certain noble duke' who killed a fox being hunted by his 'rich neighbours' and which had run onto his land. The 'Gushers' regarded this as 'an act of overbearing tyrannical oppression' of a 'freeborn British subject', the fox. Stresses that Mr Punch does not think the 'Gushers' have good grounds for being so abusive towards the duke, regarding fox hunting as 'a national fine English institution, and does more good to the country than the gushing gents may know'. He rejects the 'Gushers'' claim that fox-hunting is 'frivolous and foolish' and insists that it is a pastime that 'brings classes together'. Preferring the 'fine old country fox-hunter' to that of a 'smoke-dried pumped-out individual' who takes his pleasures only in the town, he upholds the motto of '"Live and let live" [...] and don't kill foxes but by hunting them in fair and manly sport'. The illustration shows an aristocrat who, while riding a goose, pursues a fox.