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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



THE GAME LAWS AND THE FARMERS. 



The opening: paragraph of her Majesty's Speech 

 refers with much satisfaction to the decrease of 

 pauperism and crime. The absence of the one may, 

 indeed, tend very much to the suppression of the other. 

 In the rural .districts, more particularly, necessity has 

 been generally the incentive to dishonesty. As an al- 

 most natural consequence, people with the opportunity 

 of doing well will not care to do wrong, and our work- 

 houses and our prisons are alike relieved. In fact, 

 there is just now bat one serious class of offence asso- 

 ciated with the habits of the farm-servant and village- 

 artizan. Sheep stealing, stack burning, machine 

 smashing, and other such malpractices have long since 

 gone out of use. But poaching still offers all its 

 irresistible attractions. We have yet the every-day 

 case of the father of a family committed for a month 

 or two, for snaring a hare or a pheasant. We continue 

 to read of midnight onslaughts, fearful affrays, the 

 shedding of blood, and even of the further loss of life. 

 While we have successfully combated with other evils, 

 ■wo leave this one quite unscathed. The preservation 

 of game is still regarded as a great good, worthy of all 

 the protection the Legislature can afford it. And 

 farmers lose their money, labourers their liberty, and 

 keepers their lives in the maintenance of such a system. 



The field sports of Great Britain have long stood 

 pre-eminent. They have tended, indeed, in no f«light 

 degree, to form and distinguish our national character. 

 The dash and enthusiasm of fox-hunting will teach a 

 man to charge at anything. The cool skilled courage of 

 the cricketer will always serve him in good stead ; and 

 the energy and bottom of the stalker or shooter go 

 equally to make a man sound in heart and body. For- 

 tunately, moreover, such pursuits are attended with 

 but few drawbacks. Hunting has hardly an enemy, 

 without it be the game-preserver. Cricket is the 

 amusement not of one, but of all classes of our country- 

 men ; and the sportsman who steps fairly out to find 

 his own birds, and get a shot here and there, has a wel- 

 come as hearty as any. It will be in an evil hour 

 when we attempt to interfere with or do away with our 

 people's jiastimes, be they those of high or low. 

 But is this monstrous over-preservation of phea- 

 sants, hares, and rabbits really an English sport ? 

 If we wished to show a foreigner what an English 

 sportsman was, and what he could do, should wo take 

 him to a battue ? Is there anything either manly, in- 

 vigorating, or even skilful, in the conduct of such a 

 business? Let liini picture four or five gentlemen 

 " placed" in rides and corners, with one gang of men 

 to drive the game up to them, and another set of ser- 

 vants to load their guns for them. Let him see the 

 cover swarmmg with hares, and the air darkened with 

 pheasants. And let him watch these great English 

 sportsmon blazing away into the middle of them, with 

 scarcely the need for either aim or exertion. They 



have not to walk half a mile the whole day through. 

 There is neither the pleasure of seeing their dogs 

 work, nor the excitement of beating up to and spring- 

 ing their own game. There is far too great an abun- 

 dance for anything of that kind. Their only point or 

 challenge is the continuous " cock"-" hen" cry of a 

 beater; and their only relief to this monotony of 

 slaughter the hot lunch, which is ordered at the head 

 of the wood for two o'clock. 



We boldly maintain that this is not sport, or, at any 

 rate, certainly not the sport of Englishmen, Is it then 

 worth upholding, if we but consider the monstrous 

 abuses and injustice with which it is maintained ? The 

 over-preservation of game does injury to almost every 

 class such a practice can in any way affect. It is the 

 one great drawback to the popularity of the country- 

 gentleman, to begin with. What, as often as not, will 

 ho do with this immense quantity of game when it is 

 once carted ? Does he not send it as systematically to 

 the poulterer as would the very poacher he is so bitter 

 against ? Is not his keeper an unwarrantable spy over 

 the whole district, making bad blood and ill-will 

 almost every where he goes? Then, again, as regards 

 the farmer, this excess of Vfrmin is the greatest impe- 

 diment he can have to contend with. Leases, liberal 

 covenants, or even compensation for the damage, can 

 avail him but little, if all he has done is to bo wantonly 

 undone again in this wise. But no tenant ever yet really 

 received actual compensation for such description of 

 losses; while in the majority of cases he has 

 hardly more than nominal recompcnce. Wo 

 have galloped through wheat in July, that, as the 

 occupier admitted, " you could not hurt," 

 with two game-preserving landowners, each equally 

 reluctant to allow it was his fault. We have seen 

 keepers come methodically round, to drive the game 

 in again after feeding, from another man's lands into 

 their own master's covers. The uncertainty as to 

 whom it belongs, or to whom he should properly look, 

 has beat many a farmer before now, as it will beat him 

 again. In fact, no man, however striving or able, can 

 contend against too great a head of game. He 

 loses not merely his money, but with it his indepen- 

 dence and self-respect. How can any one feel, who is 

 perpetually dogged ;md directed by another's servant, 

 and whose greatest enemies are positively the other's 

 perquisites? "The rabbits belong to the keeper;" and 

 we can well imagine what this official's animus will bo, 

 when he sees an occupier exercising his now just right, 

 and destroying those on his own holiliug. How ho will 

 follow every shot, and try to make out " It wasn't the 

 rabbits only Mister was after !" In short, a gamekeeper 

 with his present excess of authority, and leave and li- 

 cense to go when and where he jdeases, is a positive 

 curse to a country. Ho creates dissension between 

 landlord and tenant ; he is continually laying traps and 



