174 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



which they find them, and pay a tax to the government for the 

 privilege of shooting or coursing. The hares and rabbits are ex 

 tremely destructive to the farmers crops, and the complaints of 

 them are universal. It is considered that five hares, or seven 

 rabbits, consume as much as one sheep, besides a considerable 

 amount of incidental damage j and it is stated that there were 

 sold, from one farm, in one year, for the benefit of the landlord, 

 no less than two thousand hares and rabbits, which was a tax 

 upon the farmer equal to the support of three hundred sheep. 

 They do great damage to much of the produce which they do 

 not consume, in biting the turnips and in trampling down the 

 grain. A farmer is liable to imprisonment or transportation if he 

 destroys them, even when committing havoc upon his crops. An 

 allowance is undoubtedly made, in some cases, though not in all, 

 for these depredations and injuries. It is obvious, however, that, 

 in most cases, an equivalent can hardly be made, not for the loss 

 merely, but the immeasurable vexation, which they occasion. 1 

 entirely accord in the unanimous opinion of the farmers, whom 

 I have met with, that, with the exception of feathered game, the 

 game laws inflict a most serious injury upon the agricultural 

 interest.. Of their moral tendency this is not the place for me to 

 speak; but the innumerable convictions for poaching that is, 

 entrapping or stealing game with which the judicial calendars 

 are filled, and some trials for which charges I have attended, 

 and the several murders of gamekeepers which have occurred even 

 within the last year, present a subject of serious consideration for 

 those who know that one great preventive of crime is to remove 

 the facilities and inducements to it, and that whoever, voluntarily, 

 and without necessity, presents a temptation to crime, necessarily 

 shares in its responsibility. It is a subject which never can be 

 too strongly urged upon just and reflecting minds, how much the 

 manners and pleasures of the upper, the educated, and the influ 

 ential classes, affect the morals of those beneath them. They 

 inflict, oftentimes, an infinitely deeper injury than any injury to 

 property can be. In the United States, though there are laws to 

 protect from extinction races of birds and of fish, there are none 

 which confer any exclusive privileges for the capture or destruc 

 tion of that which Heaven has made as free as water and air, 

 though any man would be liable to a penalty if he injured his 

 neighbor in pursuing it. 



