262 THE SHOOTER'S GUIDE. 



pose. It is absolutely ridiculous, in the present state 

 of things, to assert, that because a man's property is 

 vested in the funds, he has not thus, in justice, a 

 right to share a diversion, to which another person is 

 entitled, owing to the accidental circumstance of the 

 property of the latter being vested in land. A con- 

 tracted bigot may say, that because the person desti- 

 tute of lands does not evidently contribute to the 

 support of the game (or, in other words, is possessed 

 of no grounds where it might feed, &c.), he has 

 therefore no right to kill it. This argument, how- 

 ever, is a lame one. A man may possess a freehold 

 of the necessary value, and yet have no grass or corn 

 lands to supply food for game, as the property might 

 consist wholly of building. And, in fact, if the man 

 of funded property does not contribute to the support 

 of animals denominated game at first sight, he does 

 it virtually, in as great a degree as the other. It is 

 the monied interest of this kingdom that gives those 

 strong sinews to commerce, and, by thus opening a 

 ready market for the productions of the soil, enables 

 the landlord to procure an enormous rent for his 

 ground, and consequently affords the tenant an op- 

 portunity of obtaining those exorbitant prices for his 

 commodities, without which it would be impossible 

 to pay it. That the game laws, taken in the aggre- 

 gate, are illiberal, contradictory, and oppressive, must 

 be allowed; but of all the arbitrary statutes with 

 which they abound, there is not one so unjust as that 

 which disqualifies the commercial part of the com- 



