GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 261 



picbcrving game; and to endeavour, by a. contrary 

 conduct, to prevent those mischiefs which naturally 

 arise from poaching. 



Wherever manors are so rigidly preserved, there 

 will always he plenty of poachers. Numbers of per- 

 sons who, in other respects, are fair and honourable 

 sportsmen, will absolutely employ poachers on those 

 particular manors where they are. imperiously order- 

 ed not to sport. 



However, that there are a few lords of manors 

 tolerably liberal with respect to game, I am willing 

 to allow ; though, generally speaking, they are far 

 otherwise ; and some of the most illiberal, not con- 

 tent perhaps with two or three manors of their own, 

 borrow those which border upon them, when the 

 owner resides at a distance, and does not choose to 

 be at the trouble and expense of preserving them, in 

 order to extend a petty tyranny, which by no means 

 harmonizes with the general spirit of British legisla- 

 tion, and by which they render themselves not a jot 

 more amiable to their less wealthy neighbours. What 

 is very extraordinary, even those lords of manors who 

 probably do not take the diversion of shooting once 

 in a season, are, notwithstanding, extremely severe 

 in the preservation of game. 



There appears something extremely hard, and very 

 inconsistent, in the idea of one hundred pounds per 

 annum in landed property being a sufficient qualifi- 

 cation, whilst one hundred thousand per annum, 

 drawn from the funds, will not answer the same pur- 



