RAGGED JACK 213 



tions, and speak to his honesty, respectability, and worth, that 

 happened which neither abuse, blows, wounds, nor the prospect 

 of death by tempest at sea, nor a loaded gun at his head would 

 have produced the man burst into tears ! I never saw greater 

 effect made on a court of inquiry, and Hooper's cross-examina- 

 tion ceased. 



There is a man named Read, living near my house now, 

 whom, as a convicted and reclaimed poacher, I called before that 

 committee. He had been a confirmed poacher or game-stealer 

 for forty years, but had never been caught and convicted ; always 

 going by the name of Ragged Jack, and, as poachers invariably 

 do, spending the money he got in public-houses. It was not 

 long before my keepers caught him, and he was sent to gaol. 

 In reply to questions from Mr. Bright, this man told the com- 

 mittee, that so far from thinking that the game laws were harsh 

 and useless, he only wished I had come into Hampshire and 

 caught him forty years before, when, if I had, he might have 

 been by this time, comparatively speaking, a gentleman instead 

 of a mole-catcher, so much would it have reformed him and 

 made him respectable. He added that the punishment he had 

 received made him leave off poaching and the public-house, and 

 that now every gentleman was content to see him over park and 

 manors, unwatched by the keepers and free from a suspicion of 

 evil designs. That was, perhaps, one of the longest committees 

 that ever sat, and a keenish encounter of wits was kept up 

 during the time it lasted, Mr. Bright making a sweeping charge 

 against every game preserver in the land, and endeavouring to 

 set landlord and tenant by the ears, with a view to split or 

 weaken the agricultural interest at elections to come ; many a 

 tenant farmer donning the character given of the whole class 

 by Mr. Cobden, that of being " as stupid as their own oxen,' 1 

 by not seeing through their arch-enemy of the Manchester 

 school. Mr. Bright knew 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 infinitely more suitable to 



