VERBUM SAP. 247 
has fairly earned and can afford to pay for, and treats 
the dwellers on the soil with a’ liberality and cheer- 
fulness to which they have long been strangers. 
The avaricious parvenu, who at once gets to 
loggerheads with the farmers, underpays his beaters, 
takes but an interested view of the well-being of his 
humble neighbours, and looks to saving two thirds of 
his rent out of the sale of the game, exists no doubt 
here and there, but he is rare. 
What is the result ? The game laws, except in the 
hands of a narrow band of faddists, who may make 
a little capital by attacking them in low-class urban 
constituencies only, where the electors are as ignorant 
as themselves, have ceased to provide a popular 
banner or a political weapon, and stand on safer 
ground than they have ever done in the history of 
England. 
It is now exactly seventy years since Sydney 
Smith employed his witty pen to expose the abuse, 
and urge the reform, of the game laws. But all the 
changes which he proposed have passed into law, 
and it should be remembered that the same humorous 
brain which suggested a ‘lord of the manor for green- 
gages,’ and a batch of ‘goose laws’ carrying the 
same heavy penalties as the game laws of those days, 
also advocated making game a property, and the 
theft of it a felony. 
