THE DEER REMOVAL BILL. 293 



struggled througli this ; for in those days the deer 

 were in the forest, and Ave had our milch coay, pigs, 

 and plenty of turf When the new law passed, the run 

 of our milch cow was taken away, and, it not being 

 in our power to keep her up a part of the year, she 

 was forced to be sold for little or nothing. It was 

 hard, indeed. Sir, for my poor husband to bear up 

 against it all. To hear them, as called themselves 

 freetraders, say it was wrong to keep the deer to 

 eat up the pasture, but that the pasture should be 

 for the good of us all ! Good of us all, indeed ! the 

 moment the free-trade party altered the law, and de- 

 stroyed the deer, then there was no pasturage at all 

 for half the year for our milch cow, nor for nothing 

 else, and the forest laws as to turf and other things 

 were made more restrictive to the poor than ever. 

 Well, Sir, my husband could not bear to see our 

 altered condition ; the milk of our cow was like taking 

 a little fortune from us : so, one day, in a fit of anger, 

 he set fire to the furze, and was detected and sent to 

 prison." 



The tale told by this poor woman was not a 

 singular one ; there were many of the cottagers on 

 the New Forest similarly reduced in circumstances: 

 and if we stand on yonder rising ground, we shall 

 see the very face of nature changed. The scene, as 

 far as the eye could reach, though in summer, offers 

 little more than a barren desert. On one hand were 

 the bleached stumps of furze and trees that had been 

 widely consumed by the act of nocturnal incendiaries, 

 while, on the other, all the gorse that had escaped the 

 various conflagrations had been cut, of whatever age 

 it might be if old enough to be set fire to, by the 

 order of the Commission now at the head of affairs. 



u 3 



