1827.] Notes for the Month. 407 



given points, vast quantities of a species of property as to which no visible 

 ownership does or can exist ; which is placed under no visible fence or 

 protection ; and which (from the state of the law, which the claimants 

 of it themselves have made, and refuse to alter with respect to it) 

 the very moment it is stolen, their fellow-citizens although of the 

 highest respectability feel not the slightest hesitation to buy ! 



Now we venture to affirm that there is no property, except Game, which 

 the law would consent to protect under such circumstances. And we are per- 

 fectly confident -the thing cannot be tried, but all analogy we think will 

 lead our readers to the same conclusion that no London or Westminster 

 jury would if the case were before them to-morrow consent to transport 

 a man for poaching. One of the first feelings of the law of England we 

 hear it expressed from the Bench in criminal cases twice a week is, that 

 a man is not entitled, by a careless disposition of his goods, to lead those 

 who may be distressed into temptation. He who has property, must put a 

 reasonable guard upon it, or the law will not interfere to guard it for him. 

 What Judge, we ask, is there, if a Baronet thought fit to leave his 

 silver spoons in his unenclosed grounds all night and cause the fact that 

 they were left there to be publicly known what Judge is there, although 

 the owner's property in the spoons, and his right to place them there, would 

 be perfectly undoubted, that would consent to transport a starving plough- 

 man for having stolen them ? And yet the silver spoons, upon every 

 principle, would be a more justifiable property for the owner to expose than 

 the pheasants; because stolen silver spoons are not an article of general 

 commerce ; not an article in which the wealthiest and most influential 

 persons in the community openly and habitually deal ; nor is theft (according 

 to a law which the owner himself has made and insists upon maintaining) the 

 only medium through which silver spoons although every body has them, 

 and is known to have them can come into the possession of the great mass 

 of the community. 



We do not dream of throwing open to all mankind the property in 

 game ; we are disposed to leave the privileged classes much ; but they 

 must not be allowed, in the plenitude of their power, to run in the very 

 teeth of common decency and of the first interests of the public. It 

 would seem to be scarcely conceivable indeed, looked at it in the abstract, 

 how there can be two opinions about the existence of a state of law, under 

 which A, we will say a clergyman in London openly and unhesitatingly 

 purchases the property of C, a squire in Gloucestershire, which B, a 

 labourer, living near C's estate, is tried and transported at the assizes 

 of the county, for having stolen 1 Every bodyknows that all the wealthy 

 people in London buy game. Every body knows that all the poulterers 

 in London sell it. Every body knows that all the stage-coach and mail" 

 coach people all the higglers and carriers that go through the country 

 regularly, and almost as their chief article of trade, carry and deal in it. 

 And all this mass of dealing must be tainted with theft must be carrried 

 on in direct violation of the law to gratify the coxcombry of a few 

 individuals! one half of whom, after all, are absolutely traitors to their 

 own covenant; for it matters little whether they are paid in meal or 

 malt, in money or in service after their pride has led them to denounce 

 and prohibit the sale of game, their necessities the offspring of that same 

 pride induce them to sell -it. If all this did no mischief, it would be suf- 

 ficient to speculate upon and to smile at it; but that a large class of the 

 people should become the sacrifices of such a system, is a state of things 



