IT IS typical of the Conservative hierarchy in the form of David Cameron leader of the party, to say he will repeal Tony Blair's banning of blood sports in the form of fox hunting.

Desperate for votes I consider this a very backward step.

Farmers today — generally the hunters — are very much more attuned to animal welfare; there have been some most interesting programmes on television recently. Can they still be so barbaric where wild animals are concerned?

Surely there can be pleasure and exercise for both animals and humans in drag hunting which we are assured has taken its place. Or does there still have to be the 'fun' of terrifying a hunted animal and the added glory of being 'blooded' brought back by Mr Cameron and his party?

I find it necessary for the uninitiated to copy a quote going back to a psychological effect published in 1931.

'Some Psychological Aspects of a Fox-Hunting Rite', by Ingeborg Flugel.

'There exists in England today a curious hunting rite, which is well known to all followers of hounds, but which, perhaps because of its very strangeness and barbarity, is seldom if ever mentioned in the copious literature of hunting.

'When a person — nowadays usually a child — is present at a kill of a fox for the first time, the Master, taking some severed portion of the animal, smears some of the blood upon the face of the person, who is not allowed to wash it off until the evening. This procedure of 'Blooding' or 'Christening', as it is called, is regarded as an honour, and, to judge from various accounts I have collected, usually gives great pleasure to the parents of the children who are blooded, though the children themselves naturally react to the ceremony very varyingly.

'Some are not a little terrified. One small boy cried bitterly, until, to the dismay of his parents (who belonged to a well-known fox-hunting family) it became necessary to wash the blood.'

What more need one say?

JOAN MAZUMDAR

Galmpton