GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 255 



men to be always withstood ; and there is no doubt 

 but many of them destroy and sell more of their mas- 

 ter's game than it is in the power perhaps of a nume- 

 rou,s gang of poachers to effect. It is evident, there- 

 fore, that the very means which are adopted to pre- 

 vent poaching, not only encourage it in a superior 

 degree, but are also the foundation of all those evils 

 which spring therefrom ; for it must be here ob- 

 served, that there are other serious mischiefs arising 

 from this source, independent of those immediately 

 connected with the practice of poaching. A man, for 

 instance, who has imbibed this habit, frequently gets 

 to robbing hen-roosts, &e. Evil, by thus becoming 

 familiar, loses its terrors, and a strong propensity to 

 crime appears, as it were, inherent, and seems to im- 

 pel the wretch from one gradation to another, till at 

 length transportation becomes his lot, or he ends his 

 days on the gallows. The arbitrary and occasionally 

 unlawful manner, too, in which these great landed- 

 property men (who are frequently justices of the 

 peace) order their gamekeepers or other servants to 

 search the cottages of the peasants for snares, nets, 

 and guns ; and the manner in which these petty de- 

 spots execute such orders, very often stimulate the 

 former to retaliation and revenge, and they are thus 

 instigated to crimes, which otherwise would have 

 never entered their heads. 



A certain baronet, of Norman extraction, who 

 lived in Derbyshire, not far from the banks of the 

 Trent, and whose immorality was perhaps equal to 



