20 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
LETTER 2S 
TO THE SAME. 
THOUGH large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbourhood, 
yet the injury to the morals of the people is of more moment than 
the loss of their crops. The temptation is irresistible ; for most 
men are sportsmen by constitution: and there is such an inherent 
spirit for hunting in human nature, as scarce any inhibitions can 
restrain. Hence, towards the beginning of this century all th.- 
country was wild about deer-stealing. Unless he was a hunter, as 
they affected to call themselves, no young person was allowed to be 
possessed of manhood or gallantry. The Waltham blacks at length 
committed such enormities, that government was forced to interfere 
with that severe and sanguinary act called the “ Black Act,” * which 
now comprehends more felonies than any law that ever was framed 
before. And, therefore, a late Bishop of Winchester, when urged 
to re-stock Wal:ham Chase,} refused, from a motive worthy of a 
prelate, replying ‘‘that it had done mischief enough already.” = 
* Statute 9 Geo. 1. cap. 22. 
+ This chase remains unstocked to this day ; the bishop was Dr. Hoadly. 
t Poaching and its effects are deplored in Letter VII., and the reduction of the stock 
of deer kept in the forest, the maintenance of which could not be of any very great public 
or private utility, was then in consequence resolved upon. The propriety of keeping up 
of the large stock of deer in the royal forests being for these and other reasons at the 
present time questionable, a reduction was contemplated a few years since; and a Bill 
was lately proposed to be introduced into Parliament “ to extinguish the right of the crown 
to stock the New Forest in Hampshire with deer and other wild beasts of the forest, and 
to empower her Majesty to enclose the several portions of the said Forest.” This would 
have been regretted by White, for the wild and natural character of the county will be 
changed, and with that a corresponding variation will occur in its inhabitants. On the 
continent this is carried toa greater and more serious extent. Ina book lately published, 
“Chamois Hunting in Bavaria,” it is stated that by the increase of poaching, and the 
assumed right of the peasantry to consider the game as their own, brought on probably by 
the excessive preservation, and therefore temptation, it has been deemed necessary to 
extirpate it. In one chase of a circumference of about 60 English miles, a sporting count 
calculated that he would be able every year to kill 300 roebucks, 80 stags, and 100 
chamois, but this was done at some cost. The count kept twenty-four game-keepers, 
picked men. At the commencement of their preservation they shot seven poachers, and 
one of the keepers who had killed four was himself shot. Where the game was thus abund- 
ant, and kept upat such a price! one of those political changes took place which gave the 
right of shooting to every individual of the community, and the count, somewhat to diminish 
his pecuniary losses, ordered the game to be destroyed. This was done by proprietors 
and people, and in a very short period the extermination was almost completed. In 
another chapter the same author writes: ‘*The noble proprietors of the forests bordering 
the Danube, in the neighbourhood of Donan Stauf, paid every year a considerable sum 
to the peasants, as indemnity for the damage done to their crops by the game; and 
according as the price of corn rose these sums were increased. As the money received 
