More Good Than Harm?

Four august dignitaries of the Church of England searched their hearts and consciences last week, and announced their opinions of fox hunting.

This they did because Spanish editors (see below) were flaying roundly the barbarities of the English chase, and hinting at hypocrisy in the refusal of Edward of Wales to accompany the King of Spain to a bull fight. Characteristically, the London press was indignant, sought the opinion of the Cloth, elicited divergent and sturdy comment from the following reverend gentlemen:

The Venerable Robert Henry Charles, 71, Archdeacon of Westminster, erudite translator of the Ethiopia Book of Jubilees: "To find one's pleasure in a sport which consists of torturing and killing a defenseless animal bespeaks at best a thoughtless person whose outlook on life is immeasurably lower than that of the wolf or the tiger."

The Very Reverend Frank Selwyn Macaulay Bennett, 60, Dean of Chester, genial husbandman of souls: "I lived as a boy in the middle of a great hunting country. Hounds and pink coats still give me a sort of tingle. But the best part of me knows that it is all barbarous and brutal."

The Right Reverend Bishop James Edward Cowell Welldon, 72, Dean of Durham, onetime (1892-98) Chaplain in Ordinary to Queen Victoria, Headmaster of Harrow School (1885-98), Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of India (1898-1902), translator of various works of Aristotle: "It is difficult for me to understand how educated men and women can find pleasure in hunting and killing animals."

The Right Reverend St. Clair George Donaldson, 64, Bishop of Salisbury: "I think on the whole, that shooting, hunting and fishing do far more good than harm."