NEW rAEK IN THE NEW FOKEST. 279 



walking-sticks, and smelling very much like manure 

 from a farm-yard, of as much use to the deer as casting 

 before them a heap of stones. The best of the hay 

 was used one way or other at New Park, and the deer 

 were wronged and starved. If the hay that I saw 

 came from New Park, it was the topping up or the 

 bottom rubbish of stacks, the useful part of which 

 had all been sold or applied elsewhere, and in con- 

 sequence of this, the keepers, to maintain a few 

 bucks at hand, were obliged to browse them by 

 lopping the trees all winter and summer — a thing 

 which never should have been needed nor per- 

 mitted under proper care of the pasturage. If any 

 old bucks Avere left, from being thus cheated of their 

 hay, and the winter was hard, cold and wet, they 

 died ; and, besides this, not a doe was killed for 

 winter venison. The consequence of this neglect and 

 mismanagement was, that the forest became full of 

 old, worn-out does and young female stock, and the 

 valuable portion of the deer, from whom a revenue 

 might have been raised, were wasted, and what with 

 theft, mal-appropriation, and neglect, the sale of 

 venison contributed not a sixpence to the ways and 

 means. Men, having no property nearer than Lon- 

 don, and of course no claim to the rights of common, 

 possessed brood mares in the forest. Half the sad- 

 dler's shops in London and elsewhere were, and are 

 now, supplied with hollysticks for whips by people 

 who have no business to cut a twig ; and whenever a 

 man living in the purlieus wanted a gate-post or rail, 

 he entered the forest and took it. 



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