

XXIX. TRESPASSING ANIMALS 



AT a Parish Council recently held to consider the 

 Jubilee bonfires, it was suggested that there should also 

 be a Jubilee restoration of the parish pound. It was 

 successfully urged against this that, since the Inclosure 

 Act, animals have ceased to trespass, and that the 

 proposal was as retrograde as one to renew the parish 

 stocks. This view is incorrect both in fact and theory ; 

 for enclosure really tempts to trespass, and the desire 

 to do so is as deeply rooted in animal as in human 

 nature. When people trespass in order to kill someone 

 else's game, or to take apples, or birds' eggs, or flowers 

 which do not belong to them, the act is naturally 

 regarded with severity. But most human trespassing 

 is done in order to enjoy nice places which are the 

 property of other people, to luxuriate in open spaces 

 instead of keeping to the road, and to gratify a lawless 

 desire for aesthetic and physical expansion. Children 

 trespass in order to run about and pick flowers ; older 

 people usually allege that * they only wanted to look ' 



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