The Devon and Somerset Badger Club

The April 10, 1909 edition of The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News has an article by "Peep-out" on the Devon and Somerset Badger Club started by Arthur Heinemann in 1894.

The picture of Heinemann tailing the badger is “tres Cowboy” as a friend might say.

As seems to be the norm with these things, a massive number of people are in tow, including women and children.

The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News was an English weekly magazine founded in 1874 and published in London. In 1945 it changed its name to Sport and Country, and in 1957 to Farm and Country before closing in 1970. The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News shared its address with The Illustrated London News.

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THE DEVON AND SOMERSET BADGER CLUB.

In these days of leagues and unions and combinations it has seemed good to the faithful few to band themselves together to promote the breeding of working terriers and the protection of their legitimate quarry, the bold British badger, perhaps the oldest mammal to-day extant in the British Isles. More learned pens than the writer's have proved to us that Meles taxus was a contemporary of the mammoth and the megatherium, both of which fearsome beasts he has survived to this day, thanks to his nocturnal habits and to his natural and physical superiority to all existing enemies.

Presently the writer hopes to show that the two objects of this club s existence are not by any means incompatible, but rather that the one is the corollary of the other. Just as one cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs, in like manner one cannot well breed working terriers without putting their mettle to the test of a day's badger-digging. To many dogs it comes natural to face a fox, whose bite is a mere flea-bite compared to that of a badger, and whose scent seems natural to a fellow-member of the Canidae.

A more punishing foe is the otter, but even his bite is not, generally speaking, so severe as that of a badger's. Terrible indeed are the wounds a badger's jaws are capable of indicting on rash puppy or dead-game veteran, but more disconcerting still are the headlong charges of a boar badger and the alarm-inspiring growls and gruffs that often accompany them.  Moreover, the mephitic and offensive odour the Mustelidre have the means of emitting only too often disgust a terrier whose heart is not in the right place.

Badger-baiting is obsolete and rightly illegal, and is of no value to the breeder of working terriers, but in a day's badger-digging a terrier, if properly handled and treated, will learn invaluable lessons. He will learn to disregard noise and confusion to go to ground to stay there to thread sinuous mazes of underground galleries in search of his quarry to stick close to him when found, so as to drive him into a corner or cul-de-sac and, most desirable quality of all, to throw his tongue every tick of the watch to tell his master where to dig in order to reach the scene of conflict.

Nor need such a terrier suffer wounds or punishment. To temper zeal with discretion should be his aim and that of his breeders. A hard dead-game mute dog is useless in a big earth. Breeders of working terriers aim at producing a terrier who will draw a big earth as thoroughly as a pointer will quarter a field of roots, who will stick to his quarry when once located, and who will throw his tongue freely to tell the willing hands waiting on the surface where to sink mine and counter-mine.

All this can well be done at no cost of wounds to a terrier who knows his business and while no dog-lover cares to see his favorite mauled, he also has the satisfaction of knowing he can work the same dog day after day literally with impunity.

To interest keepers and trappers, owners and occupiers of land, shooting tenants and others, to educate popular opinion as to the little damage badgers do to game or foxes (or even lambs, a fallacy a certain naturalist who should have known better is only too ready to believe), and, above all, to obtain for Mrs. Brock a brief respite from turmoil and terrier denied her by the law, so that in February and March she may devote her whole time and attention to her nursery duties. These are the objects of the club.

That the club have been so far successful is proved by the fact that in Devon and Somerset badgers are more numerous and evenly distributed than they have been in the memory of man.

"Prosperity to Badger Hunting," the motto of the club's button, is only threatened by the rabbit-trapping now prevalent in the West and by the deplorable action of certain landowners, who have turned a too ready ear to humanitarian and hysterical agitation and a deaf ear to their tenants' wishes in this matter.

All subscribers and their terriers are welcomed by the club provided they are in sympathy with its objects. The honorary secretary for Somerset is Mr. Arthur Heinemann of Porlock, and for Devon Mr. Arthur Chichester, of Instow, the latter of whom is at present big-game shooting in South Africa.

The pack has unearthed 368 badgers since 1894, only a percentage of which have been killed. The badger-digging season extends from August 1st to February 1st. and from April 15th to May 30th. -- "Peep-out"