Wanton Mischief. 137 



in this wood, no attempt is made to obtain profit from 

 the fruit, yet it gives rise to much trouble. The nut- 

 stealers take no care in pulling down the boughs, 

 but break them shamefully, destroying entire bushes ; 

 and for this reason in many places, where nutting 

 was once freely permitted, it is now rigidly repressed. 

 Just before the nuts become ripe they are gathered by 

 men employed on the place, and thrown down in 

 sackfuls, making great heaps by the public footpaths 

 — ocular evidence that it is useless to enter the wood 

 a-nutting. 



The keeper thinks that these trespassers grow 

 more coarsely mischievous year by year. He can re- 

 collect when the wood in a measure was free and open, 

 and, provided a man had not got a gun or was not 

 suspected of poaching, he might roam pretty much at 

 large ; while the resident labouring people went to 

 and fro by the nearest short cut they could find. But 

 whether the railways bring rude strangers with no 

 respect for the local authorities, or whether ' tramps ' 

 have become more numerous, it is certain that only 

 by constant watchfulness can downright destruction be 

 prevented. It is not only the game preserved within 

 that closes these beautiful woodlands to the public, 

 but the wanton damage to tree and shrub, the use- 

 less, objectless mischief so frequently practised. For 



