1827.] Letter on A/airs in general. 407 



still steal game, under an altered arrangement, as they would go on to 

 steal any other kind of easily-come-at property ; but when we feel quite 

 sure as to every other species of depredation nobody makes a question 

 about it that, if we could get rid of the receivers, we should soon get rid 

 of the thieves, how can we fail to see that, by making game an article of 

 regular traffic (instead of compelling the whole of it to be furnished by 

 robbery), we should get rid to speak upon the lowest calculation of half 

 the poachers, because more than half their market would be cut up ? And, 

 for the same reason, it would appear, that the precaution of making 

 "licenses" necessary to deal in game is at least, in the first instance, 

 rather a flying to the opposite extreme of our present system, than (as 

 some persons seem to believe) abiding in a measure by the spirit of it. 

 Because, if the apprehension be, that some dealers in game even when 

 the trade is legalised will still purchase from the poachers we admit 

 this and still see how the land-owner is benefited by the alteration 

 under the present law, ALL the dealers purchase of the poachers. Chang- 

 ing from our present ground, all that the raiser of game gets by the sale 

 law much or little is pure gain; because, now, he gets nothing: and 

 there need be no apprehension that such an arrangement will still open a 

 market to the poacher, " by increasing the consumption of game in town ;" 

 the supply of game, now, in the markets of London, is limited only to the 

 greatest quantity that, at the price which it costs, can be consumed every 

 gentleman cart, without going a quarter of a mile from his own house, pur- 

 chase any quantity that he has occasion for. This is a question which de- 

 serves more detailed consideration than can be given to it here ; but, I would 

 just say one word more : I hope that gentlemen of landed property 

 (because Lewis XI. of France certainly did hold counsel with his barber) 

 do not allow their minds to be influenced by the statements of their bailiffs, 

 or game-keepers, as to the probable effect of any alteration in the laws 

 respecting game ? Because I am afraid these dignitaries would hardly 

 be able, in general, to give an unbiassed opinion one of the first effects 

 likely to result from a measure legalizing the sale of game, being, that 

 it would, annually, change the direction of a very considerable sum 

 of money, from their own pockets into those of their masters. No doubt, 

 there will always be a certain number of marauders in society, who will 

 prefer any casual and irregular mode of livelihood finding it none tho 

 worse for being seasoned with an occasional touch of romance and peril 

 to the ordinary pursuits of honest labour. And the multiplying of pre- 

 serves, into which such a man may walk without climbing over walls, or 

 even breaking through fences and seize the property of a person, in com- 

 mon with whom he can have no feeling, will hold out such temptation, 

 that these persons will occasionally wire hares, instead of breaking into hen- 

 roosts. But by organizing a system, which shall openly, and legally, sup- 

 ply the public market with game, a man must be almost insane who can 

 have a doubt, that the great proportion of that demand, which now makes 

 poaching a sure and profitable regular trade to a labourer, must be cut 

 away ? And, in fact, that demand would expire, as nearly as possible 

 altogether ; because the land-owner the game being his property has it, 

 at least, at as cheap a rate, originally, as the man even who steals it from 

 him. And, looking at the different course by which he would dispose of 

 it selling it by wholesale, and avoiding all the ruinous profits of higgler, 

 carrier, &c. &c. which stand between the fraudulent obtainer, and the 





