GROUSE MOOES AND DEER FORESTS. 269 



ends with a line drawn perpendicularly from its upper outer 

 edge. 



Thus, as matters stand at present, hares and rabbits may 

 be shot by the occupier of the land, while pheasants, 

 partridges, and a few other species of legal "game," are the 

 property of the person in whose hands the shooting is. 



Living, much as I have done, in various counties, and 

 seeing, as it has been my good fortune to do, various kinds of 

 game manors, from the roughest to the most scientific, 

 I do not think that there is a shadow of justification for the 

 outcry against game preserving, except perhaps on the single 

 count that it encourages poaching. To suppress it on this 

 account would be as reasonable as to mollify the nocturnal 

 burglar by smelting down your silver spoons, or to content 

 yourself with one change of linen per annum out of sympathy 

 with the wardrobes of the Great Unwashed! As it has been 

 well said by a reviewer of these laws : " What really 

 underlies the Radical outcry is, not compassion for the 

 ill-used agriculturist, but jealousy of the territorial magnate. 

 It is really the sporting right, and not the game, which all 

 the hubbub is about. The farmer, when he grumbles at 

 all, grumbles for want of the shooting. The righteous 

 indignation of the Radical is really inspired, not by the 

 sight of rabbits nibbling the wheat, but of a country gentle- 

 man with a gun, suggesting to his diseased imagination 

 ideas of Front de Boeuf or William Rufus, and sending him 

 back to the commercial room of his hotel to sta.rtle all who 

 hear him with his pictures of rural tyranny, patrician 

 insolence, downtrodden serfs, and all the other well-known 

 abominations of ' landlordism.' " 



The agricultural labourer of the day has no doubt 

 substantial troubles. When he is told that there is a panacea 

 for all these in the tender and effusive affection of Socialistic 

 agitators, he is cozened, against his homely good sense, into 

 supporting the side of big promises, and, perplexed by the 

 confusion of the day's burning questions, hearkens to the 



