SUPERVISION OF GAMEKEEPERS 327 



It is constantly urged that we should be a little 

 blind in regard to the perquisites of our servants, 

 for a suspicious master is never as well served as 

 an easy-going master. But there is a vast differ- 

 ence between perquisites and wholesale robbery. 

 Besides, laxity on the part of the master only en- 

 courages dishonesty in the servant, and thus a par- 

 ticular class of servants gain an unenviable notoriety. 

 The keeper to a non-residential shooting-tenant has 

 innumerable temptations, and if he yields to them 

 there is little chance of detection. But the worst 

 of it is that the honest keeper has to suffer for 

 the sins of the black sheep, and gets no credit 

 for his honesty in resisting temptation. He is re- 

 garded by his neighbours as being accessible to 

 bribery, and if he refuses the bribe he is considered 

 churlish. Amongst the lower classes of the rural 

 population he is looked up to as a petty potentate, 

 and flattered accordingly. He is king of his company 

 in the village alehouse, and the terror of all small 

 boys. We can hardly wonder that he has an 

 overweening sense of his own importance, especially 

 when he has no residential master to keep him in 

 his proper position. 



Now, if the master were the sole sufferer from 

 the faults of the keeper, the general public would 

 have little right to complain, except on sentimental 

 grounds. Of course, the relations which exist be- 

 tween master and man should be such as are con- 

 ducive to morality. This is a primary axiom of 



