THE GAME LAWS. 26? 



prices, and ready money for their illicit commodities ; and, while 

 the traffic is thus encouraged, and the security from detection 

 increased to a very great degree, owing to the jealous feeling of 

 those who foster it, as well as the light in which it is unfortu- 

 nately viewed by the community in general, it will be no easy 

 matter to frame any legal 'restraints which shall operate as an 

 effectual check to poaching. Indeed, since the penalties have 

 been increased to a very great degree of severity, poaching, in- 

 stead of being checked in its baneful operation, appears to have 

 increased proceeding exactly in an inverse ratio. 



From experience, then, we may safely conclude that an excess 

 of severity, in legal enactments, tends rather to encourage than 

 to depress poaching : prudence, therefore, should induce us to 

 look for a remedy of a conciliatory nature rather than those irri- 

 table caustics which, though, for a time, they may cicatrize the 

 wound, it still remains unsound at the bottom, and ultimately 

 bursts out with increased virulence. Now, if as I have already 

 observed, the farmer were allowed to breed game and bring it 

 regularly to market in the same manner as domestic poultry, the 

 poacher would not only be under-sold, but more strictly watched 

 by the occupier of the land. And, however wild partridges and 

 pheasants may appear, there is no doubt, that by persevering for a 

 few generations they would be brought to propagate in the farm 

 yard as familiarly as domestic poultry. All our present domestic 

 fowls were unquestionably reclaimed from a state of nature. 

 Nothing could be more easy than to breed hares in abun- 

 dance, though in a state of half confinement. Such a system, 

 in my opinion, would operate most essentially in checking a 

 vice which every reflecting mind must seriously lament, and 

 which very often leads to the most mischievous, as well as the 

 most deplorable, consequences ; it would, also, have the good 

 effect of putting an end to those jealousies and heart-burnings so 

 frequently manifested by the middling classes of tradesmen,, $* 



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