Mr Brown, master of Middleton Hunt, and Richard Burge of the Countryside Alliance do not seem to understand. It doesn't matter how many of their hunting fraternity demonstrate against a ban on fox hunting, because most people want a ban because it is cruelty at its worst.

Cruelty means feeling pleasure in others' pain and suffering. This applies to the hunting brigade. Dorset hounds killed a fox in front of two children in a neighbour's garden. Badminton-based Beaufort Hunt has been condemned after its hounds caused the death of a pregnant horse. Plus seven hounds from the New Forest were killed on railway lines, in Brockhurst, Hampshire.

If these were our dogs causing damage and mayhem we would be fined and banned from keeping animals.

D Fillingham,

The Crossway, York.