34 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



a spot of brilliant colour on its plumage, would be 

 impossible. 



The New Forest people are, in fact, just what circum- 

 stances have made them. Like all organised beings, 

 they are the creatures of, and subject to, the conditions 

 they exist in ; and they cannot be other than they are 

 namely, parasites on the Forest. And, what is more, 

 they cannot be educated, or preached, or worried out of 

 their ingrained parasitical habits and ways of thought. 

 They have had centuries long centuries of practice 

 to make them cunning, and the effect of more stringent 

 regulations than those now in use would only be to 

 polish and put a better edge on that weapon which 

 Nature has given them to fight with. 



This being the conclusion, namely, that " things are 

 what they are, and the consequences of them will be 

 what they will be," some of my readers, especially those 

 in the New Forest, may ask, Why, then, say any- 

 thing about it? why not follow the others who have 

 written books and books and books about the New 

 Forest, books big and books little, from Wise, his 

 classic, and the Victoria History, down to the long 

 row of little rosy guide-books ? They saw nothing 

 of all this; or if they saw unpleasant things they 

 thought it better to hold their tongues, or pens, than 

 to make people uncomfortable. 



I confess it would be a mistake, a mere waste of 

 words, to bring these hidden things to light if it could 

 be believed that the New Forest, in its condition and 



