POLICY AND PROTECTION 207 



grounds, or with insufficient evidence, is sure to be 

 set down to malice against the individual, and will 

 prejudice him in the eyes of the local public as well 

 as of the magistrates. 



I must record an opinion that it is a great mistake 

 for a gentleman, especially the owner of an estate or 

 a member of his family, to take part in night watch- 

 ing or lying out for poachers. It has been done by 

 many for whom I have a great respect, but has 

 nevertheless always appeared, in my humble judg- 

 ment, to be an error. It adds, for the keepers, to the 

 risks and responsibiUties of a conflict, tends in the 

 direction of fomenting class hatred, and is sure if blows 

 are struck to arouse a sympathy with the marauders 

 which very probably would otherwise not exist. 



In the colliery and manufacturing districts these 

 questions are of great importance, the large numbers 

 of the poaching gangs, and their violence when long- 

 standing enmities are aroused, frequently resulting in 

 serious encounters and sometimes in bloodshed.' In 



' A head keeper was murdered by poachers at Wortley, in 

 the West Riding of Yorkshire, in the time of the present writer's 

 grandfather, and another some twenty years ago during the life- 

 time of the present owner. A better system, however, has led 

 to a much less violent state of things, and it is only during the 

 continuance of long strikes in the colliery districts, when the 

 whole countryside is in a lawless state, that serious encounters 

 are to be feared. 



