THE MODERN THAMES 



THE wild red deer can never again come down to 

 drink at the Thames in the dusk of the evening as once 

 they did. While modern civilisation endures, the 

 larger fauna must necessarily be confined to parks 

 or restrained to well-marked districts; but for that 

 very reason the lesser creatures of the wood, the field, 

 and the river should receive the more protection. If 

 this applies to the secluded country, far from the stir 

 of cities, still more does it apply to the neighbourhood 

 of London. From a sportsman's point of view, or 

 from that of a naturalist, the state of the river is one 

 of chaos. There is no order. The Thames appears 

 free even from the usual rules which are in force upon 

 every highway. A man may not fire a gun within a 

 certain distance of a road under a penalty a law 

 enacted for the safety of passengers, who were 

 formerly endangered by persons shooting small birds 

 along the hedges bordering roads. Nor may he shoot 

 at all, not so much as fire off a pistol (as recently 

 publicly proclaimed by the Metropolitan police to 

 restrain the use of revolvers), without a licence. But 

 on the river people do as they choose, and there does 

 not seem to be any law at all or at least there is no 

 authority to enforce it, if it exists. Shooting from 

 boats and from the towing-path is carried on in utter 

 defiance of the licensing law, of the game law (as 

 applicable to wild fowl), and of the safety of persons 

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