96 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



Preservation cannot exist without due care, and 

 agrarian crimes of all sorts, from sheep-stealing 

 to robbing hen-roosts, must, by the vigilance of 

 keepers, be considerably curtailed. In fact, if the 

 owner of the large preserve issues proper orders, 

 and his men do their duty, everything on the 

 manor must be held in watchful supervision. 



In illustration of all these things, I now come 

 to facts brought before me in the place whence I 

 write the present volumes. On leaving Winkton, 

 which I rented under my dear good friend, the late 

 Mr. Weld, of Lulworth Castle, and which the late Mr. 

 Mills, of Bistern, subsequently bought, Itook Alderney 

 Manor. The game on it consisted of three pheasants, 

 some partridges, a few hares, and a great many 

 rabbits — a great many rabbits, of course, as always 

 is the case when the farm bailiff \\^^ what is erro- 

 neously called '^ the keeping of them down," which, 

 being translated, means putting them down his 

 throat, and selling them — the possibility of these 

 two facts, of course, rendering him desii^ous of 

 keeping up a good stock. Tlie very poor, idle, and 

 dissolute squatters in mud huts, who had put up 

 places in which to live, finding a wide stretch of wild 

 heaths, not commons, abandoned to their disposal. 



