252 FORESTRY IN FRANCE. 
taken into account. The punishment can also be made to follow 
promptly the committal of the offence, without the necessity for 
dragging the accused and the witnesses from their occupations to 
attend before a tribunal, the time of which is thus not occupied in 
the trial of these petty cases. The present system is easy and 
simple for the Forest Department; and that it acts very leniently 
on the population living near the forests will be seen, when it is 
stated that the amount of compensation exacted during the last year 
for which the record has been prepared, amounted to only one-fifth 
of the sum which the Courts must have awarded had the offenders 
been proved guilty before them. Occasionally the compensation is 
allowed to be paid in the form of a number of days’ work done in 
the forest. 
With the advancing prosperity of the country, forest offences 
become less frequent, and the number committed annually is very 
much smaller now than it used to be a few years ago. It is worthy 
of remark that they are more than twice as numerous in the com- 
munal as in the State forests, probably because individual inhabi- 
tants of the communes think that there is not much harm in 
committing minor depredations on property which they doubtless 
regard as their own. During the year 1876, the number of offences 
was 26,377, there being 3 per 1000 acres in the State forests, 
and 7 per 1000 acres in those belonging to the communes. More 
than half of the offences were connected with the theft of wood or 
injury to trees, and nearly a quarter related to pasture and cattle 
trespass, 31,231 persons being involved in the charges. As might 
be expected, wood-stealing is more prevalent in winter than in 
summer, while the reverse is the case with regard to breaches of the 
grazing laws. Of the total number of charges made in 1876, 7 per 
cent. were abandoned, either owing to the trivial nature of the 
offences, or owing to want of sufficient evidence ; 70 per cent. were 
dealt with under the compensation law ; and the remaining 23 per 
cent. were taken into court, convictions being obtained in 99 per 
cent. of these cases. 
In addition to clauses dealing directly with wood thefts, illicit 
grazing, and other fraudulent practices, the Forest Law provides 
that no person having cutting instruments in his hand can leave the 
ordinary roads which pass through the forest, and that no fire can 
be either lit or carried within, or at a less distance than 200 yards 
from, any forest boundary. A regular tariff exists which fixes 
the penalties for damaging trees of various ages and species. The 
