The Fox Hunt, Part I

Now, this is something I have issues with!

Fox Hunt out of Powderham Castle England

Using scenthounds to track their prey when hunting dates all the way back to the Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians; it was known as venery. All over Europe the Greek and Roman influenced countries have had very long traditions of hunting with hounds. Hunting using Agassaei hounds was very popular and wide spread in Celtic Britain even before the Romans arrived introducing the Castorian and Fulpine hound breeds which they were using to hunt prey down with. Norman hunting traditions were brought over to Britain with William the Conqueror along with the Gascon and Talbot hounds.  

Fox Hunt includes Children

To the peoples of Europe foxes were beasts of the chase by medieval times along with the red deer - the hart and hind, martens and roes. The earliest known attempt to hunt foxes with hounds took place in Norfolk England, 1534 with the farmers first pest control attempts they began chasing foxes down with their dogs. In the late 1600's came the very first use of hound packs specifically trained to hunt foxes, the oldest fox hunt being more then likely in the Bilsdale, Yorkshire. By the end of the 1700's, deer hunting was in a severe state of decline because they'd been hunted close to extinction so the government created the Inclosure Acts which brought in built fences to separate the wide open land into fields, then the deer forests were cut down so arable land increased. With the start of the Industrial Revolution people moved out of the country in favor of growing towns and cities to find work. Roads, rail and canals began splitting hunting country up but in the process made hunting, in general, accessible and more widespread. Shotguns were improved during the 1900's for the shooting of gamebirds and that became a more popular sport among the rich and idle. Fox hunting developed still further in the 1800's when Hugo Meynell created breeds of hound and horse to address the new geography of rural England and the hunting continued.

Fox Hound, developed to hunt down & kill foxes for the pleasure of the rich and idle

Victimized for centuries and still today

To protect Pheasants for these sport hunters gamekeepers culled foxes almost to extinction in many areas all over England this caused huntsmen to improve their coverts to preserve their quarry. The Game Laws were relaxed in 1831 this meant anyone could get a permit to take rabbits, hares and game birds.


In Germany Hermann Goring first banned hunting with hounds with an initiative on July 3, 1934. In '39 the Nazi elite extended the ban to include Austria after Germany's annexation of the country. Bernd Ergert, director of Germany's hunting museum in Munich said that the aristocrats were understandably furious but they could do nothing about the ban given the totalitarian nature of the regime. 

At least he did something right!

The Masters of Foxhounds Association of America states that an Englishman Robert Brooke was the first to import hunting hounds to America by bringing his pack with him into Maryland in 1650 when he imported his horses with a pack of foxhounds. Around this same time European red foxes were being introduced into the Eastern seaboard of North America for the purpose of hunting and killing them for sport. The very first organized hunt was for a group rather than a single person and was started by one Thomas, 6th Lord of Fairfax in 1747. 

In the United States Presidents George Washington  and Thomas Jefferson both kept packs of fox hounds before and after the American Revolutionary War and very likely used them to hunt and kill foxes.

Imported Victim of Bloodthirsty Fox Hunts

Australia has proven itself particularly bad for when the European Red Fox was introduced it was established solely for the purpose of fox hunting in 1855, so the native animal populations have been very badly affected since that time seeing the extinction of, at the very least, 10 species attributed to the proliferation of foxes imported deliberately. Fox hunting still continues in Australia with thirteen clubs that have over 1000 members that are still hunting with horses and hounds in the state of Victoria alone. This results in somewhere around 650 foxes being killed annually in Victoria as compared with over 90,000 shot over a similar period in response to the State government bounty that is offered.

Victoria, Australia Fox Hunt

Next I will offer more information about this atrocious sport that I feel is utterly repulsive. I can't help but wonder if Mrs. Wallis Simpson was 'put off' by this sport or not.


Catspaw

Does The Demon Cat Still Haunt Washington's Capitol Hill?

I tripped over this story on Wikipedia this morning. It concerns a completely black cat of average cat size that came to be known as Washington's Demon Cat. This name was given to the ghost of (a) cat, one that is supposed to haunt the DC government buildings. 

Washington, DC Capitol Hill

Seems that back in the 1800's cats were being brought into the underground tunnels of the Capitol buildings where they lived in the basement killing rats. So far, so good, until... 

Tunnel connecting the US Senate to the LOC. What?  You were expecting something cave-like!

It started in the 1890's when a cat apparently and inexplicably vanished before the startled eyes of some Capitol Hill guards as they, presumably in fun, took a potshot at it. One guard, being so terrified by the sight of a disappearing cat, allegedly keeled over from a heart attack after witnessing this event. 

Tunnel that connects the House of Representatives to the Capitol

The Hall of the Capitol

What is now a accepted as a story from the past, states that this 'Demon Cat' is the one cat that decided never to leave and it now inhabits the basement crypt of the Hill, once intended for the burial chamber of President George Washington.... calling it home. Also in accordance with tradition, its said to often be seen just prior to presidential elections and disasters that transpire in Washington, such as being purportedly observed by White House security guards in the late dark hours before the assassinations of Abe Lincoln and John Kennedy. 

 

If it can be believed, these spectators tell a tale of a cat that 'swells' from pint cat-size to a whopping giant tiger-size ~ 10 by 10 feet when startled!!  Even more incredibly, it will either explode or pounce at the unfortunate that sees it, thankfully dissolving right before it reaches its victim! Personally, I wouldn't be waiting around to watch this transformation.

OK, so it is possible to have an enormously huge and possibly exploding cat!

The last 'official' sighting was in the 1940's when Capitol Police force officials were rather notorious for adding inexperienced relatives and friends of Congressmen to the payroll as a gift. According to one version told by the US Capitol Historical Society, a security guard was once 'licked' by a cat when he was in a drunken stouper on the floor; he thought he was still standing and was to all appearances very scared of the huge cat. 

This was enough to spawn tails of the Demon Cat legend and it wasn't long before other guards took up the story and learned they could achieve a day off (with pay??) if they saw the demon cat up close and personal. 

 

What do you think?

Catspaw