DECOYS FOR WILD FOWL. 245 



Surely tliere arc ways enougli of destroying 

 vermin without resorting to tlie use of drugs, 

 that if by chance they find their way to man, 

 woman, or cliikl, may be fatal to all alike. 

 The law against the sale of deadly poison is too 

 easily avoided, — in fact, tliere is no effective law 

 in respect to it; and of this, two instances have 

 very lately been brought to my notice. The 

 one was that several valuable dogs in Dorsetshire 

 had been poisoned by strychnine said to have 

 been bought by a tenant-farmer for rats. The 

 other was in the deaths by poison administered 

 by thieves, commonly called poachers, to the 

 valuable pigs of the owner of a large estate, 

 because some low beerhouses, where thieves did 

 congregate, and labouring men got drunk witli 

 the money they ought to have spent in main- 

 taining their wives and children, were abolished 

 l)y the lady of the mansion and manor. We 

 greatly need a revision of the law against the 

 almost unrestricted sale of poison, and were I 

 ever in either House again, it should be my 

 endeavour to effect it, 



