WANTON MISCHIEF. 139 



Here, in this wood, no attempt is made to obtain profit 

 from the fruit, yet it gives rise to much trouble. The nut- 

 stealers take no care in pulling down the boughs, but 

 break them shamefully, destroying entire bushes ; and for 

 this reason in many places, where nutting was once freely 

 permitted, it is now rigidly repressed. Just before the 

 nuts become ripe they are gathered by men employed on 

 the place, and thrown down in sackfuls, making great 

 heaps by the public footpaths ocular evidence that it is 

 useless to enter the wood a-nutting. 



The keeper thinks that these trespassers grow more 

 coarsely mischievous year by year. He can recollect when 

 the wood in a measure was free and open, and, provided a 

 man had not got a gun or was not suspected of poaching, 

 he might roam pretty much at large ; while the resident 

 labouring people went to and fro by the -nearest short 

 cut they could find. But whether the railways bring rude 

 strangers with no respect for the local authorities, or 

 whether ' tramps ' have become more numerous, it is certain 

 that only by constant watchfulness can downright destruc- 

 tion be prevented. It is not only the game preserved 

 within that closes these beautiful woodlands to the public, 

 but the wanton damage to tree and shrub, the useless, 

 objectless mischief so frequently practised. For instance, 

 a column of smoke, curling like a huge snake round the 

 limbs of a great tree and then floating away from the top- 

 most branches, is a singular spectacle, so opposed to the 



