20 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER VII. 



TO THE SAME. 



THOUGH large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbourhood, 

 yet the injury to the morals of the people is of more moment than 

 the loss of their crops. The temptation is irresistible ; for most 

 men are sportsmen by constitution : and there is such an inherent 

 spirit for hunting in human nature, as scarce any inhibitions can 

 restrain. Hence, towards the beginning of this century all thi: 

 country was wild about deer-stealing. Unless he was a hunter, as 

 they affected to call themselves, no young person was allowed to be 

 possessed of manhood or gallantry. The Waltham blacks at length 

 committed such enormities, that government was forced to interfere 

 with that severe and sanguinary act called the " Black Act,"* which 

 now comprehends more felonies than any law that ever was framed 

 before. And, therefore, a late Bishop of Winchester, when urged 

 to re-stock Waltham Chase,f refused, from a motive worthy of a 

 prelate, replying "that it had done mischief enough already." J 



* Statute 9 Geo. i. cap. 22. 



t This chase remains unstocked to this day ; the bishop was Dr. Hoadly. 



t Poaching and its effects are deplored in Letter VII., and the reduction of the stock 

 of deer kept in the forest, the maintenance of which could not be of any very great public 

 or private utility, was then in consequence resolved upon. The propriety of keeping up 

 of the large stock of deer in the royal forests being for these and other reasons at the 

 present time questionable, a reduction was contemplated a few years since ; and a Bill 

 was lately proposed to be introduced into Parliament " to extinguish the right of the crown 

 to stock the New Forest in Hampshire with deer and other wild beasts of the forest, and 

 to empower her Majesty to enclose the several portions of the said Forest." This would 

 have been regretted by White, for the wild and natural character of the county will be 

 changed, and with that a corresponding variation will occur in its inhabitants. On the 

 continent this is carried to a greater and more serious extent. In a book lately published, 

 "Chamois Hunting in Bavaria," it is stated that by the increase of poaching, and the 

 assumed right of the peasantry to consider the game as their own, brought on probably by 

 the excessive preservation, and therefore temptation, it has been deemed necessary to 

 extirpate it. In one chase of a circumference of about 60 English miles, a sporting count 

 calculated that he would be able every year to kill 300 roebucks, 80 stags, and 100 

 chamois, but this was done at some cost. The count kept twenty-four game-keepers, 

 picked men. At the commencement of their preservation they shot seven poachers, and 

 one of the keepers who had killed four was himself shot. Where the game was thus abund- 

 ant, and kept up at such a price ! one of those political changes took place which gave the 

 right of shooting to every individual of the community, and the count, somewhat to diminish 

 his pecuniary losses, ordered the game to be destroyed. This was done by proprietors 

 and people, and in a very short period the extermination was almost completed. In 

 another chapter the same author writes : "The noble proprietors of the forests bordering 

 the Danube, in the neighbourhood of Donan Stauf, paid every year a considerable sum 

 to the peasants, as indemnity for the damage done to their crops by the game ; and 

 according as the price of corn rose these sums were increased. As the money received 



