SQO GAME LAWS AMENDMENT BILL. 



This, the committee imagine, would have the effect of inducing 

 the retailers to purchase only from such persons as are so quali- 

 fied ; and, for their own interest, they would assist in putting a 

 stop to an illegal sale of game by the poacher. 



In case the House should agree with your committee in the 

 propriety of making the proposed alteration, it is evident that 

 game, becoming thereby an article which may be legally sold, 

 will acquire a real value ; and that those who have the means, 

 should be encouraged to supply the market with it, and have a 

 fair claim to any additional protection which it may be capable 

 of receiving, and which may be compatible with other consider- 

 ations. 



In considering this part of the subject, it appears to your 

 committee, that the present laws do not afford a sufficient sum- 

 mary remedy against the depredations of persons who are in the 

 habit of trespassing upon the lands of others, in the pursuit of 

 game ; they therefore recommend, in addition to the alteration 

 proposed in the laws as to the purchase and sale of game, that 

 the present laws relating to the latter species of offence should 

 be rendered more summary. 



Your committee do not hold out to the House, that poaching 

 can by this or any other mode be suddenly and entirely put an 

 end to : it being evident that many of those now engaged in it 

 are of a description not likely to be deterred from it by any thing 

 but an absolute impossibility of carrying it on, which the most 

 sanguinary laws would not create ; but your committee must 

 state to the House their conviction, that the purchase and sale 

 of game, under regulations, will have the effect of decreasing 

 the nftmber of those who are at present concerned, or who might 

 henceforward engage in that practice, which greatly conduces 

 to demoralize the lower orders of society ; and that those persons, 

 ^whose residence upon their property in the country is in all 

 points of view so eminently beneficial, will find in these measures 



