It's not just the ripping of the fox apart that's cruel - in fact that last act is parhaps the least cruel part of the whole sickening process because it's over, and the victim despatched to oblivion, relatively quickly. The cruellest part is surely the chase - with an animal that's terrified out of its wits being pursued to exhaustion by a horde fired by the basest human instinct, blood-lust.

Maybe if a few of the Toffs and Hooray Henrys (along with all those others from the lower orders who make themselves feel important by associating with them) were put into a situation where roles were reversed, they might see the world from behind a different set of blinkers?

And if it's OK to hunt foxes with packs of dogs, why isn't it OK for me to pit my Staffie against another? (OK, he's been dead a long time now, but you know what I mean!). Presumably the Yoicks Tally-Ho mob would regard dog-fighting (which involves two reasonably evenly-matched animals) as barbaric. Why? I'm not saying it's right, just that it can't be any wronger than hunting - that's to say ABSOLUTELY wrong.