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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



I only wish to show that the common feeling of the 

 country is apt to regard the offence as a very venial one. 

 Robin Hood, one of the favourite heroes of our ballad 

 minstrelsy, was, I fear, little better than a trespasser in 

 pursuit of game in Sherwood Forest ; and the great ge- 

 nius of this country — the master-mind of all ages — 

 Shakespeare himself, had a warrant out against him for 

 poaching over good Squire Lucy's domain. Do we 

 think much the worse of him for this little passage in his 

 early history ? But I have termed poaching an insidious 

 disease ; and I have little doubt but that it reduces a 

 man from worse to worse ; habitual idleness, a passion for 

 drink, hen-roost robbing, sheep-stealing, and even graver 

 crimes have been not the unusual close of the poacher's 

 career. The over-preservation of game injures the farmer 

 quite as directly in this wise. It demoraUzes his labourers 

 tempts the best away from hiui, and renders them dis- 

 satisfied with and independent of a fair week's wages 

 when they can get three or four pounds a night 

 in the woods. At the time the la3t Game Liw Cumtaittes of 

 the House sat, now just fifteen yeara sirce, it was a very fa- 

 vourite argument, that the preservatiou of game employed a 

 number of people. " Does not the country gentleman, fond of 

 sport, keep up a large establiahmeut ?" " Are not a frreat num- 

 ber of meu engaged as keepers and watchers ?" ludced, it 

 almost seemed that the most poUtic thing to do was to tempt 

 two-thirds of the surplus population to poaching, and then set 

 the other third to catch them. But this crowuing argument 

 is woru out. We have little au-plua agricultural latiour no'ic- 

 a-days. Every man in the parish cau be employtd to a vast deal 

 more advantage than as a watcher or beater, and gentlemen 

 who fancy that by retaining these large establishments they 

 are doing an immensity of good, cannot be too soon unde- 

 ceived. One of the points of modern husbandry is the use of 

 more labour, aud we shall soon want all that we can obtain. 

 Poaching, however, is on the decrease ; or at any rate, the con- 

 victions are not so many. In 1813, a very heavy year, there 

 were in England alone 4,270 convictions, and in 1859 only 

 2,608, the United Kingdom through. Up to the first period I 

 have referred to, 1843, crime of this character had been strik- 

 ingly on the increase. The gradual diminution may be 

 ascribed to a variety of causes. Amongst the first of these is, 

 that we have had less distress in the agricultural districts. 

 From eaiigration and other collateral causes the labourer has 

 been enabled to find a more ready market for his work, and 

 has consequently had less actual need to sin. Thsn, the 

 country magistrates have been rather more careful. That 

 terrible iaslrunieut of torture, the Press, lias been looking them 

 up, and the word of a keeper I fancy scarcely stands for quite 

 so much as it did. The Parliamentary Inquiry was no doubt 

 conducive of some good. No one can go through that mass 

 of evidence without being struck with the monatrjus abuses 

 and injustice associated with the system. This Commission 

 unfortunately came at the wrong time, when the nation was in 

 the heat of a great party battle ; and it was, moreover, but 

 indiscreetly conducted. In msny quarters it was taken to 

 mean nothing more nor less than another attack 

 on the landed interest; and it certainly reads, 

 with its cross questions aud crooked answers, veiy like 

 another passage of arms between the Manchester school and 

 the Country party. The effect was so the least where it should 

 have been the greatest. The squires and sportsmen received 

 such evideuca aud the deduction from it with a certain preju- 

 dice and determination not to be thus influenced. Their 

 "backs were put up" by what Mr. Bright said, or asked, or 

 did, and they were not g.ing to amend their ways at his bid- 

 ding. Nevertheless, considerable improvement has taken 

 place within the last ten or twelve year.*, aud to this I chiefly 

 attribute the decreasing number of game convictions. The 

 temptation is beicg removed. It has been asserted that the 

 more strictly you preserve game, the fewer poachers will there 

 be. But this 1 do not believe to be the fact. A prolesaioual 

 poacher will only go where it is worth his while, and the mere 

 chance of a brace of birds or two would, in his own words, be 

 " no use" to him. Let the preserves be ever so well guarded, 

 we have only to go back through our criminal cases and news- 

 paper reports to ste ho^v systpinatically poachers make up 

 their parties to fight the keepers ; when the greatest of all 

 crimes, murder itself, has been committed, aud men have been 



as recklessly sacrificed in this Christian country to the pheasant 

 or the hare — shot, hung, or banished — as they were when the 

 heathen, in his blind idolatry, offered up his victims to other 

 birds and beasts. And now comes the grave question — How 

 shall we remedy such a state of things? Does not the tenant 

 take his farm with his eyes open ? Is not the game in the first 

 instance his own property, without he chooses to sign it away ? 

 Has he not a right to destroy the hares aud rabbits until he 

 consents to a clause to the contrary ? What, in the face of 

 all this, can be done ? Aiiolish game aud the Game Liws 

 altoge.her? I for one should be very loath to see any such a 

 measure attempted. Enact, then, that a man should never 

 take a farm without having the game with it ? I fear this is 

 equally impracticable. lu fact, 1 do not trouble the legisla- 

 ture a; al — that is, of course, assuming this impertinent pro- 

 position to rank rabbits as game be given up. But I seek 

 auditrcce at once with the landlords, and I ask their 

 agents and advisers to accompany me. I say the 

 farmers of England are not enemies to sport ; on the 

 contrary, they like to see the gentlemen enjoy it, 

 I say that they do not object to a fair head of game; but 

 that, as a bod}', they would readily maintain it. On the 

 other hand, I sny that battue shooting is not sport, and that 

 systematically rearing a large quantity of game, and, then, 

 as systematically selling it, is slowly but surely lowering the 

 character of the English gentleman. Let the owner and 

 the occupier learn to rely more upon each other. Let them 

 free themselves from tiie thraldom of that officious, ear- 

 wigging, scandal-carrying, mischief-making keeper. Let 

 the landlord address his tenantry as a noble Duke, whose 

 familj' name stands high in the annals of agriculture, did 

 some years back when he gave up game-preserving : — "Now, 

 gentlemen, I mean to make you my keepers, and I hope 

 when I come yon will be able to show me some sport." 

 Need I add, that hope has never been broken, and that no 

 one hss better sport, and that no man stands better with 

 his tenantry' or with the country than his Grace .^ As a 

 further example of how this can be done — how a good 

 supply will be kept up by the fanners— let me turn for a 

 moment to that voluminous inquiry, and give you a passage 

 from the evidence of Charles Shirley, Esq., a magistrate of 

 the Western Division of Sussex, and Deputy- Lieutenant for 

 that county. He says — " Before I came into Sussex I was 

 a game preserver in Warwickshire, upon the estate of Lord 

 Digby. I coiild not afford to spend much upon game pre- 

 serving ; but at that time I had as good shooting as ever I 

 could wish, and it was preserved entirely by the tenants 

 themselves upon Lord Digby's estate of 0,000 acres, I had 

 only one person that I co:il ! call a game-keeper. I was 

 dependent tntirely on the l.rniers for my sport ; and the 

 great difficulty I had was to prevent getting tipsy with 

 their strong beer and pork pies, which they brought out to 

 me in the fifld— they were so hospitable. They treated me 

 so well that I never would shoot a hare to interfere with 

 their coursing. They had the right to kill both rabbits and 

 hares by coursing. In 'inj' whole life I never knew such 

 civility and kindness. They marked for me, and the 

 shepherds and labourers had strict orders to keep off in- 

 truders of every kind. I am very fond of shooting and 

 hunting. I never sold any game in my life, and I do not 

 like the system of selling game. My amusement is shooting 

 with my own dogs, and walking. I have shot only two or 

 three times at battues, and I do not like it. A few years 

 ago I was with Lord Suffield, who is my brother-in-law, in 

 Norfolk ; aud for two or three days there was battue 

 shooting; we were ten guns; I think there were about four 

 guns at each bird, which I did not like ; and each 

 man had; his servant behind hino, who scored the bird 

 to you or to me ; so that at the end of the day there was a 

 vast number more heads of game killed than were in the 

 bag." I call that the speech of an English gentleman and 

 a true sportsman ; and it is on such testimony I should like 

 to act. A word or so now to the agents and managers of 

 estates. We are living bej'ond the time when it was only 

 thought right and proper to bind a man down by all sorts of 

 fines and covenants as to what he should do, and what he 

 should not. But I believe it is still thought rather know- 

 ing to keep as tight a hand as ever over the Game. There are 

 some sharp agents even now, who make it a point to reserve 

 the right to " the coneys", as they are called. But beyond 

 this they re too apt to stand aloof in the matter. 



