Punch,  47 (1864), 154.

Sport and Sport

Anon

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Cruelty, Crime, Hunting, Class


    Discusses a trial at a police court in which a young boy was charged with cruelty to a cat. Disagrees with the judge's decision to sentence the boy to the house of correction, believing that 'any respectable, if ragged, school is fitter to instruct [such boys] in humanity'. Proceeds to note differences and similarities between this crime and traditional hunting. Points out that cats, unlike stags and hares, are not 'good for food', but, like stags and hares, they are 'killed for sport', and adds that while the gentry have an 'excuse' for shooting game, 'street-boys have not for killing cats'. However, the writer stresses the similarity between the street-boy and the noble sportsman (who might include the judge in the trial) and accordingly wonders why their respective acts of cruelty towards animals are marked in such different ways.



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