262 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



arch enemy of the Manchester school. Mr. Bright 

 Imew as well as I did, that if the game laws were 

 abolished, there must have been a most stringent 

 trespass act put in their place, quite as good a game- 

 preserving code, ten times more arbitrary, but infi- 

 nitely more suitable to lands and villas in the close 

 vicinity of Manchester and other manufacturing 

 places ; the owners of which on Sundays, and to some 

 extent on week-days, are much annoyed by tres- 

 passers, who, when in pursuit of a sparrow or a black- 

 bird, or simply roaming about with a gun, cannot be 

 made amenable to the laws, because there are neither 

 rabbits nor game to pursue. Unless, therefore, a pre- 

 vious notice had been given not to trespass, or some 

 amount of damage done to fences, trees, or land, 

 no case would exist for an action or more summary 

 conviction. The frustration of that attempt of Mr. 

 Bright's, I have ever looked back upon with satisfac- 

 tion ; and though I have lent my best endeavours to 

 remove any unnecessary hardship from the face of 

 the present game laws, such us enacting that persons 

 might keep greyhounds, and hunt with harriers 

 without a game certificate, still I am convinced that 

 the code as it now stands is and would be infinitely 

 preferable to laws which, for the protection of private 

 property, must be made, if it were abolished. 



A good many otters at times use the rivers at 

 Heron Court, and on one occasion I brought my 

 hounds to try the Moors river. Lady Pembroke and 

 her daughters, who were staying at Heron Court, 

 came out to see the sport, and for the first time in 

 her life her ladyship was at the death of an otter. 

 None of my field had ever seen an otter found before, 

 and when the word was given by me on the peculiar 

 squall of my old terrier, named Tip, that "the 



