Once again, the North West hosts the notorious Waterloo Cup when, for three days, the normally quiet fields at Altcar echo to the excited, sickening cheers of hundreds of hare-coursing fans, watching powerful greyhounds chase and kill timid, defenceless hares.

Hunt apologists cannot even use their tired sophisms about "pests" or "painless death" because both have been disproved by the Burns Inquiry into Hunting.

What appeal can be made to people who travel hundred of miles to see a beautiful animal, full of joyousness and vitality, callously killed?

G METCALFE, Moorhey Crescent, Bamber Bridge.