248 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



for the rich and another for the poor was expressed in a 

 letter I had sent me from a Hampshire cottage. I will 

 quote it just as it was written, with its appalling lack of 

 erudition and its sound common sense : 



" The man must deprive him self of something to get a pig in 

 the house wich a lot mor people could do if they ware to try 

 wich they ought to do at these times but the man that do keep 

 a pig ought to have the bent-fit of it the same as the uper tens 

 that got land and can go out and can kill Rabbits, Hares, and 

 wild birds as they please but what I want to know is does the 

 poor man's pig come in with the Meat Rations or not ? " 



The labourer could still be lined or imprisoned for snaring 

 the rabbit which was so destructive to our crops. It was not 

 until later, that the County Agricultural Committees placed 

 warreners on estates overrun with game and issued certifi- 

 cates to farmers or their appointed men to destroy game. 



But in spite of the wedge driven into the Game Laws by 

 an order issued by the Board of Agriculture prosecutions 

 for being in pursuit of game continued through the whole 

 of war time. The Government repeatedly asked every one 

 to produce as much food as possible and to keep down all 

 pests, and yet poor folk were still living under the shadow 

 of the iniquitous law of 1862 which subjected them to the 

 indignity of a search without a warrant. It is extraordinary 

 what a difference there is between a good and ragged coat 

 in the eyes of the law. Walking through a wood my dog 

 ran down and killed a rabbit. I picked up the dead rabbit 

 and carried it boldly through the wood past a row of cot- 

 tages and a policeman. Though the policeman saw me 

 carrying the rabbit almost immediately after I left the wood, 

 I was never questioned. 



These petty prosecutions angered many men, especially 

 those who had been fighting. I remember a case before the 

 Bench at Hoi>ham where a discharged soldier was fined i 

 for bring in pursuit of conies. As he left the Court he 

 ilunir out this taunt to an astonished Bench : 



If I kill three Germans I am a sanguinary hero ; now 

 ii 1 :-nare a rabbit I am a sanguinary felon." 



Fortunately, sport has its lighter side, atid I was very 



