GAME LAWS. 423 



men are in the field ; or in the afternoon, while the 

 legislator is at the first course of his dinner ; his 

 head keeper at his tea ; and the under keepers watch- 

 ing the coverts. 



Many a " bird-keeper !" too, have I seen leaving 

 the good farmer's corn to the generosity of rooks, 

 while he had skulked off to the river, to try the quality 

 of his master's gun and ammunition at a duck or a 

 moor-hen. 



A freeholder of five hundred acres (or a tenant, with the con- 

 sent of his landlord) may depute a gamekeeper. 



As the law now stands, many a gentleman is living 

 on his estate, which consists of more than a thousand 

 acres, and yet has no means of obtaining game from 

 that very estate on which the game is bred, unless he 

 is a sportsman himself, or invites others to come and 

 shoot for him. 



Thus the man of ONE thousand acres, if he is not 

 the lord of a manor, is to be left dependent for ONE 

 BRACE of birds ; while the lord paramount, with his 

 FIVE thousand acres, could perhaps command his 

 FIVE THOUSAND head of game in a season ! And, 

 what is even harder again on the former, while the 

 occupier of not so much as one hundred acres has a 

 right to appoint a keeper, because he happens to be 

 the lord of a manor ! All this may be thought very 

 clever and very proper ! but, unfortunately for me, I 

 am so blind as not to be able to discover the pro- 

 priety of such a law, though it requires but little 

 penetration to perceive its monopoly and injustice. 



