92 



will cheerfully look into the condition of their poor neigh- 

 bours, and render them all the little acts of kindness in 

 their power. Linen Clubs, well managed, and aided by 

 annual subscriptions, from owners or occupiers of the land, 

 have been found to do much good. Whether it is common 

 in villages I know not, but in this, and in many others in 

 the county where the collages belong to different persons, 

 most of them have but one sleeping room, so that grown-up 

 sons and daughters, father and mother, all inhabit the suuiu 

 room. Should this be the case where the cottages belong 

 to those who own the whole parish, on this fact being 

 known, such persons, it is hoped, would take the necessary 

 steps to remedy so great an evil. Most agricultural la- 

 bourers are now accommodated with small allotments of 

 land ; to those who are honest and industrious, this is a 

 benefit, without the probability of injury arising to any of 

 the farmers of the parish. Such allotments ought not to be 

 larger than the labourer and his family can cultivate, 

 without interfering with his regular employment. 



The preset ving and so greatly increasing the number of 

 pheasants, the game the most tempting and easy to poach, 

 has greatly tended to the increase of crime amongst agri- 

 cultural labourers. They sally forth, well primed, from the 

 beer shop, on their midnight battues, in such numbers 

 and determination as generally to set at defiance all force 

 sent against them, and the game being in abundance, -they 

 are pretty certain of obtaining from the sale of one night's 

 poaching, enough to be able to live, without doing any 

 work, for many days after ; besides this, whi>n once a 

 villager becomes a poacher, it seldom occurs that he is ever 

 afterwards an orderly and industrious labourer. Large 

 preserves of game, in thinly populated and insulated parts 

 f the country, a great distance from, and with little trafh'c, 

 with our great consuming metropolis, may be kept up 

 without those bad consequences arising from poaching, 

 which are sure to take place where game is preserved in 

 populous parts. A great part of the amusement in shooting 

 appears to me to be in the pursuit of the game, and in 

 observing the hunting of well broken-in dogs. In a battue 

 there is none of this. Country gentlemen who have not a 

 preserve of pheasants, and have visiting friends, fond of 



