Bibliothèque mondiale du cheval

« Perhaps no greater anomaly — no more palpable anachronism — exists than fox-hunting in England. Yet it has been called, and is, the "national sport." Why ? Population increases; the island is filling up fast. The limited area unoccupied by human dwellings machineries, and locomotive facilities of all kinds is still, in spite of bad seasons, as a rule fertile enough to supply some considerable proportion of the increasing wants of the nation. Every acre worth cultivating, let waste land reclaimers say what they will, is cultivated; and impoverished landlords and tenants alike are less than ever able to bear the losses inflicted by broken fences, unhinged gates, and overridden wheat, which are the result of the inroads of constantly increasing multitudes of ignorant riders unable to distinguish seeds from squitch or turnips from tares, and which have already caused the masters of several packs of hounds to discontinue the public advertisement of their meets. Why, then, is fox-hunting, which is generally regarded as the rich man’s or country squire’s (by no means synonymous terms) amusement, still the popular sport of the nation ?
The reason is to be found, first, in the manly predilection inherent to our Anglo-Saxon nature for a sport into which the element of danger conspicuously enters; and, secondly, in that it is essentially a democratic sport, wherein the favourite socialistic ideal, "The greatest happiness for the greatest number," is in some sort realised.[…] » Présentation de l’éditeur (1885)