January, 2001

The House of Commons has acquitted itself admirably in the ban on foxhunting in Britain and I congratulate it. Next I propose a ban on house cats. Not content for the quick kill of foxhounds, these rascally felines toy with their prey unmercifully, in fact taking pure joy and pleasure from the game. Who has not seen a cat torture a mouse, bat about a wounded bird, feathers flying? Down with cats I say. Jail all those errant grandmothers whose house pets infringe on the welfare of a thousand times the foxes killed in a year. Is a mouse not as friendly a creature as a fox? Friendlier I say, more cute and cuddly. I've never carried a fox on my shoulder or in my pocket, feeding it from my hand.

Or perhaps declaw these rampant felines, an act that merely tortures the cat. Hurrah---there's a solution for the foxhunt as well. Detooth hounds, let the toothless chase the soothless, the incredible chase the inedible. I don't know how you feed a toothless hound, but perhaps McDonalds is the answer---one can eat anything on their menu without teeth, it's their stock in trade.

I don't come to this issue with clean hands, having ridden eighteen seasons with the Mill Creek Hunt in the United States as its harried treasurer. Every fox I've seen killed was dispatched with amazing speed, as are the animals of the natural world, prey to the mink and eagle. But I have recently become the owner of a cat---dreaded animal, I should be ashamed. And when the do-gooders come for me, I shall give myself into their loving hands with bowed and shamed head.

We are living today in the tyranny of the small minded, when Dwight Eisenhower and Winston Churchill would be prohibited from enjoying a smoke after dinner. Those who love the fox are unable to love equally the homeless. Their solutions are exact, their targets wrongheaded and absurd.

Get out of the Archives and read what Jim's writing today