EFFECTS OF THE DEER REJIOVAL BILL. 283 



the vermin they kill, which, I believe, is printed, and the 

 same attention to so necessary a destruction should 

 be paid here, and each keeper made to nail up the 

 head of every vermin as a proof of his attention to 

 duty. Why should not the New Forest have been re- 

 tained by the Crown as a place for the stalking of red 

 and fallow deer, within two hours' reach or nearly so of 

 Buckingham Palace ; that in conjunction with its black 

 game, pheasants, hares, rabbits, woodcocks, snipes, and 

 wild fowl of every sort, with its scanty capabilities 

 for useful cultivation, surely ought to have saved it 

 from the present Act of Parliament : an Act, in its 

 working so unpopular, that all the gorse in the forest 

 of any growth has been obliged to be cut to prevent 

 the poorer classes from a general incendiarism, in the 

 event of a dry season. Before the gorse was cut, I 

 have, at night, seen from my windows three incen- 

 diary fires raging at one time ; and, on one occasion, 

 forty acres of Crown oak timber were consumed. In 

 addition to this, the respectable portion of the inhabi- 

 tants of Burley dared not go to bed at night while that 

 dry weather lasted, if the wind set from the forest 

 gorse to their habitations, for fear of the conflagration 

 reaching them while they were not up to put it out. 

 My ears are filled by the complaints of the poor as to 

 the hardships of the present system; and their lamen- 

 tations of the loss of their milch cows — no little loss, 

 I can assure the reader, to a large and youthful family. 

 Formerly the milch cows " in use " were permitted to 

 run from the cottages in the forest, while they were 

 in milk ; now no distinction is made, and all cattle 

 must be " up " on a given day. I think it was Mr. 

 Sturges Bourne who granted the yearly run of cows 

 in milk. It is all very well to say to a cottager he 



