OF SELBOENE 15 



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 inhibi- 

 tions can restrain. Hence, towards the beginning of this century 

 all this 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 Wal- 

 tham blacks at length committed such enormities, that government 

 was forced to interfere with that severe and sanguinary act called 

 the black act, 1 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 Waliham chase,' 2 ' refused, 

 from a motive worthy of a prelate, replying that " it had done 

 mischief enough already ". 



Our old race of deer-stealers are hardly extinct yet : it was 

 but a little while ago that, over their ale, they used to recount 

 the exploits of their youth ; such as watching the pregnant hind 

 to her lair, and, when the calf was dropped, paring its feet with 

 a penknife to the quick to prevent it's escape, till it was large 

 and fat enough to be killed ; the shooting at one of their neigh- 

 bours with a bullet in a turnip-field by moonshine, mistaking him 

 for a deer ; and the losing a dog in the following extraordinary 

 manner : Some fellows, suspecting that a calf new-fallen was 

 deposited in a certain spot of thick fern, went, with a lurcher, to 

 surprise it ; when the parent-hind rushed out of the brake, and, 

 taking a vast spring with all her feet close together, pitched 

 upon the neck of the dog, and broke it short in two. 



Another temptation to idleness and sporting was a number of 

 rabbits, which possessed all the hillocks and dry places : but these 

 being inconvenient to the huntsmen, on account of their burrows, 

 when they came to take away the deer, they permitted the 

 country people to destroy them all. 



Such forests and wastes, when their allurements to irregularities 



1 Statute 9 Geo. I. c. 22. 



2 This chase remains un-stocked to this day ; the bishop was Dr. Hoadly. 



