THE HARE AND THE LAWYERS 55 



(jxaiiiple, kept a kennel of these dogs in the county of 

 Cumberland. One Allan Wastehouse took charge of 

 it. He kept ten hounds, and four men formed the 

 staff of his kennels. The cost of keeping it up for 

 eighteen months amounted to 109/. i^s., a consider- 

 able sum in those days. But while the rich and 

 powerful claimed the right of chasing poor Puss in 

 sport, poorer men sought to enjoy her in the pot. 



For centuries the fortunes of the hare oscillated 

 between her persecutors, and the legal strategy which 

 devised protection for this a.nimal is curious to study. 

 Richard II. passed a statute prohibiting any layman 

 from keeping greyhounds, or catching hares in nets 

 or snares, unless he could prove that he possessed 

 lands or tenements of the annual value of ^os. I do 

 not know^ whether sporting parsons were then in the 

 ascendent. Possibly they may have been. At all 

 events, any weakness on their part for the pleasures of 

 the chase was anticipated by the draughtsman of this 

 same statute, who debarred the clergy from hunting 

 hares unless their emoluments of office amounted to 

 no less a sum than ten pounds per annum. There- 

 after, the lawyers modelled their statutes to suit the 

 views of country gentlemen. 



Their patrons, as justices of the peace, brought 

 offenders to book. If necessary, they sent some luck- 



