In reply to Graeme Worsley's pro-hunting sermon (Letters, July 9), cruelty is a human attribute.

Cats are not human. They have no understanding of play or sport, they act on natural instincts domestication cannot suppress.

Halal and Kosher butchers do not kill in the name of sport. They prepare food according to their deeply held religious beliefs.

Fishermen catch enormous numbers of fish in order to feed the population. To "bump" each one on the head would be a laughable impracticality.

Animals killed by cars on the highways suffer their fate by accident, not in the name of sport.

But people who indulge in the sport of fox hunting do so intentionally. They chase a terrified animal across miles of countryside on horseback and dig it up if it goes to ground.

They allow their ravenous hounds to rip the fox to shreds.

They are not acting on natural instinct they cannot suppress.

They are not following a religious belief or trying to satisfy their hunger by consuming the fox. They are not killing the fox by accident.

Fox hunting is not a sport.

It is the act of the torturer. To treat animals in such a way is a short step from treating people the same way.

-Richard Hammond, Lewes