Letter: Fox-hunting

Sir: Most people, so you report, want to see hunting banned. Probably they think it cruel. Most people, however, are unconcerned about the unnecessary cruelty involved in the raising of the eggs, bacon, chicken drumsticks and suchlike which they consume in large quantities. Ergo, really all of us are colossal hypocrites.

Like, say, trainspotting, fox hunting may have a corrupting tendency. Inevitably it is a fairly exclusive sport, which fosters suspicion. However, almost all the literature on sale in my local petrol station is undoubtedly of a corrupting nature. The difference is that such rubbish is the daily mental intake of the majority of people, and therefore all right.

People must have the right to read what they want. Equally I suggest people should have the right to indulge in the rural occupation of their choice, be it hunting, shooting, fishing, golf, horse-racing or pumpkin raising; so long as the essence of the pleasure does not lie in deliberate cruelty (as in badger-baiting or boxing) and reasonable property rights are not infringed.

Am I alone in deploring the modern tendency of wanting to ban anything one dislikes?

HENRY BEST

Somerset