51 ff Letter on Affairs in general. [MAY, 



this fining and imprisonment, it leaves, by a subsequent clause, the party, 

 whose ground is trespassed on, at full liberty to bring an action against the 

 trespasser for the same offence a proceeding which, to say the best of it, 

 savours not a little of vexation and oppression. The bill, after providing 

 for the seizure of snares, and for the punishment of those who commit the 

 enormous crime of destroying the eggs of game, comes to the real point at 

 issue between the public and the landed aristocracy. It enables the per- 

 sons who are entitled to kill game to sell it to certain persons, who are li- 

 censed to deal in it, and releases those who buy it from such licensed dealers, 

 from the penalties to which they are now liable. On the propriety of 

 repealing Mr. Bankes's foolish and inoperative law relative to the sale and 

 purchase of game, nobody who refers to the evidence taken by the House 

 of Commons a few years ago, or to the informations which are now filing 

 under it at the different police offices in the metropolis to defeat its provi- 

 sions, can entertain the slightest doubt. Parliament has, within a short 

 period, created 800 millions of funded property, and a class of persons de- 

 riving a revenue therefrom of 40 millions a year; and yet, as the law 

 now stands, members of that class cannot have in their possession, 

 much less kill or eat, any '* hare, partridge, pheasant, black-game, 

 grouse, heath, moor-game, or bustard." Every day's experience proves, 

 that they are in the constant habit not only of violating the law on this 

 subject themselves, but also of encouraging others to violate it for the sup- 

 ply and gratification of their luxurious palates. Mr. Bankes justifies the 

 prohibition of selling game on the ground that it is " a restraint imposed 

 upon the opulent in consideration of the necessities and frailties of the poor." 

 Now, if Mr. -Bankes means thereby, that the landholders are prevented 

 from selling their game, in order that the poor may be encouraged to steal 

 it, I fully agree with him as to the practical operation of his law ; but if 

 he does not attach that meaning to his words and I am sure that he does 

 not I have some difficulty in discovering round what meaning he is so de- 

 liberately blundering. It has been well observed, that it is not because the 

 poacher kills the game that the poulterer buys it, but that it is because the 

 rich and opulent will have it, that the poulterer buys, and the poacher kills 

 it. Why, then, do you not alter your laws to meet the altered circum- 

 stances of your population ? Why do you not allow those who rear this 

 species of delicacy to bring it openly into the market, for the consumption 

 of the fundholder, whom you do not wish to destroy, instead of exposing 

 them to nightly conflicts with poachers, whom you wish to exterminate, 

 but cannot, because they are hired by the fundholder to procure for him, by 

 illegal means, that which he cannot procure, however willing, by legal 

 means ? 



It is said, that if ever the sale be legalized, " partridges and pheasants 

 will be no longer reserved to indulge the appetite of the head of a 

 corporation, but will grace the dinner-table not only of the alderman, but of 

 every man who has a table and a dinner." Now, omitting for the present 

 all comment upon the scornful love of power and privilege, which is mani- 

 fested in this sentence, I will venture to remind Mr. Bankes. who uses it, and 

 those who adopt it from him, that the consummation, which he seems to dread 

 almost as much as the repeal of the Corn Laws, the granting of Catholic 

 Emancipation, or the upsetting of the Lord Chancellor, has already arrived, 

 without the sale of game being legalized. There is not a tradesman in this 

 town, nay more, there is not a tradesman in London, populous and exten- 

 sive as it is. who does not make a point of putting game on his table, when- 



