226 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



would be afforded by the means thus advocated. With all 

 respect for the Crown, I do not hesitate to affirm, that in its 

 distant possessions — I speak of forests far from Windsor Castle 

 — the poor are infinitely more neglected than around the estates 

 and private foi'ests of the nobility and gentry. 



The good and peaceful have no one to reward them, there is 

 no worldly premium to be won by an honest course of life ; 

 virtue is to all intents and purposes its sole and own reward ; 

 but, on the other hand, vice, theft, and smuggling are in the 

 ascendant on account of gain and apparent impunity. This 

 state of things is all wi-ong, and, if I may be permitted to say 

 so, not in accordance with the dignity of the Crown ; and, there- 

 fore, in these distant forests, a master-keeper or local steward, 

 or ranger capable and fit to do the duty should be on the spot 

 to keep order, restrain roguery, and reward the industiious and 

 good. The names of ranger, master -keeper, etc., with the 

 ancient appellation of bow-bearer, forsooth ! have been to this 

 day retained without the occujjation or care for which that name 

 when instituted was held to be responsible. A man might just 

 as well put a milkmaid in his stable in charge of his stud of 

 hunters, as the men I have heard named in the forest as 

 " master-keepers." It is this neglect, and such neglects as these, 

 that have produced the roguery that I fear has disforested the 

 forest. Poor Itene ! (one of the ancient names of the New 

 Forest), on whose beautifully wild undulations of heather Queen 

 Elizabeth, in a journey to Southampton, once "to her Majesty's 

 great delight beheld a thousand head of red deer" brought 

 within view by the keepei's, its woods and heaths might have 

 afforded every kind of sport and evei'y head of game to the 

 Royal hounds and gun, not only without detriment to others, 

 but with infinite good to all, if it had been properly and fairly 

 attended to ; instead of which it fell into the hands of neglect 

 and knavery, and hence its ruin. Loixl Duncan knows, and so 

 do I, where all the best venison went to ; but I do not know, 

 and I don't know whether he knows, who gave the order for it 

 to go there, or whether it found its way there, as I suspect, 



