From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re "Testing New Ban, Britons Run With the Hounds" (front page, Feb. 20):

Likening the ban on fox hunting with dogs in Britain to the end of a tradition should in no way mitigate the barbarity of this practice.

Just as slavery was once a tradition whose abolition was decried by many, so, too, is the vicious fox hunt another tradition that the world could surely do without.

Matthew A. MacDonald
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Feb. 20, 2005

Addendum: One of my readers sent a link to this.