THE THIEF AND POACHER. 97 



All these men kept lurcliing dogs, and many 

 of tliem liorseSj a cow or two occasionally, and 

 doid^eys, and grazed these animals on the surromid- ■ 

 ing pro2)ertyj they not possessing any other land 

 than the little plot on Avliich the mud cottage 

 stood. 



Now, I take on myself to say, that every man of 

 these mud huts, not only would not work at any 

 honest labour, but that most of them lived by theft 

 and on the trespass of their cattle. On Sundays, 

 during church-time, they used to assemble on the 

 heaths, every man with his lurcher, and run at 

 rabbits, and at a hare if they accidentally found 

 one, for money to he spent in heer. 



So habituated had these ^^poor" become to the 

 illegal use of what belonged to other people, that 

 at last they began to think that anybody's property 

 within their reach — from a watch, a fowl, wood, 

 turf, game, or rabbits, by a common right of 

 equality or communism — was theirs. 



In fact, there had been no gentleman or landed 

 proprietor capable or willing to protect his own, 

 or what was let to him, or kindly assigned him, by 

 other people ; and when timid people, or maudlin 

 men, took some of the lands or the house, to 



VOL. II. H 



