248 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 
Curiously enough, to find bitter hostility to the 
game laws, or supreme ignorance of the questions 
they involve, we have to look in these days to at least 
one of the highest legal dignitaries in England, or to 
a Member of Parliament who professes to champion 
the cause of the classes with whom his habits, 
education, and ability permit him no genuine sym- 
pathy, and at whom he laughs in his sleeve when 
regarding the nakedness of the hook with which he 
leads them by the nose. 
A judge can rightly order the court to be cleared 
when ignorant applause is uttered from the gallery, 
but he should at least be above uttering from the 
hench the claptrap which provokes it. A Member of 
Parliament may deliver diatribes against landlords 
and sport whenever he comes across a genuine 
grievance, but he should at least know something of 
the question, and not prostitute his undoubted talents 
by endeavouring to impose upon the dwellers in 
towns what are after all but the envious whimperings 
of a cockney journalist. 
Such treatment of the subject is worse than 
malicious, it is stupid-‘C’est pire qu’une faute, 
cest une méprise.’ It is, again, worse than stupid 
from a modern point of view; it is not up to date. It 
is as antiquated for attack as a medizval man-at- 
