338 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



Christians can bavCj is to be wicked on behalf of righteousness, and cruel 

 out of piety. Let us not have a code of laws for the government of man 

 which begets selfishness and partiality only to the rich or to its own 

 followers, while it inspires hatred, outrage, and condemnation to the 

 poorest of the poor. 



In the recent alterations made in the tax on dogs a great oversight has 

 been committed in not taking steps while a change was under consideration, 

 to remedy the injustice of rendering greyhound puppies liable to duty at 

 six months old. A greyhound does not come into sporting use till twelve 

 mouths old, when, as the most dangerous period of his existence is that 

 which lies between six and twelve months, the owner of litters of grey- 

 hounds are often made to pay tax for a creature whom they never use. 

 In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred at the above-mentioned age, a grey- 

 hound whelp and puppy has to combat for existence with the distemper as 

 well as the yellows, and the chances are two to one in favour of death, or 

 some constitutional debility entailed by the disease, which w ill render the 

 animal useless for any sporting purpose. It would, therefore, be infinitely 

 more just to fix the age for the payment of the tax at twelve instead of at 

 six months, and in the end more conduci\'e to the interests of the revenue, 

 for a greater number of greyhounds would be bred than at present ; and if 

 the brood bitch sworn to as never used in the field, was also exempted 

 from charge, that too would increase the stock. It was, undoubtedly, the 

 intention of the law to charge for the use of the dog of every description, 

 and not for his mere existence ; for a man may keep a Newfoundland or 

 other dog to guard his house free of duty, if he does not use them in the 

 field. "Sharp practice" is always the word with the tax-collector or 

 surveyor and the gentleman, while " loose and easy " is the word between 

 those functionaries and the thief of game and deer. For this reason, that 

 the one will not take a false oath, and has money to pay ; while the other 

 will swear an)i;hing, and forces the tax-gatherer to remember the old adage 

 as to "what he is likely to catch in suing a beggar." The tax on dogs is 

 a good one, properly enforced, and an even one, too, if all were made to 

 pay who are liable : the poor man paying for one, and the gentleman for 

 many ; but I regret to say that the tax-collector is perhaps the worst, the 

 most unjust and uneven, of all those employed in the collection of the 

 revenue, and never half looked-up by the district commissioners. If every 

 man was made to pay for a licence to kill game, who notoriously and 

 openly does kill it, and all paid tax for dogs who used them for sporting, 

 the Chancellor of the Exchequer would find an agreeable addition to his 

 ways and means, and might let tlie collectors wink at their immediate 

 friends in their own sphere of life, who either gave them dinners, or in 

 the case of their superiors, employed them in their several trades. This 

 corrected state of things will never be unless the reformation comes 



