202 POACHING 



the farmer from taking proceedings against these un- 

 licensed sportsmen. 



" Well," I hear some millionaire exclaim, " if you 

 clodhoppers don't care about your game, -why should 

 not we or the poachers have it, and what's the harm done 

 by poachers after all ? " Not very much, perhaps, if 

 these gentlemen would only confine themselves to taking 

 what we do not care much about losing ; but this is only 

 the beginning of evils. In a neighbourhood in which I 

 resided a few years since, the farmers allow the poachers 

 to walk over the course without dispute ; but the mis- 

 fortune is, that as soon as the game is swept off, these 

 midnight marauders commence their regular system of 

 thinning out the poultry houses. 



Having rather a large assortment at that time of the 

 fashionable Cochin China fowls, which were tall enough 

 nearly to feed off the dining-table, without sitting up in 

 an arm-chair, it was politely intimated to me that these 

 higgling gentry intended to try their flavour upon the 

 first opportunity ; to which obliging communication I 

 replied that not having the pleasure of their acquaintance, 

 and to prevent any mistake as to identity of person, I 

 would endeavour to set my mark on them, and should 

 communicate my intention of so doing by a double speak- 

 ing-trumpet, whose language they would not require 

 an interpreter to explain. Two large dogs also were 

 commissioned to give intelligence of their arrival, should 

 their visits be made in the night season. This is not a 

 very favourable state of things in the nineteenth century, 

 but it was rather an out-of-the-way part of the coimtry, 

 and where the blue jackets had not yet made their appear- 

 ance. 



Fuss enough is made about the light-fingered gentry 



