48 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Feb. 16, 1862. 



opiui i: V These latter snay know when to stop, Inn, thou 

 followers and imitators "better their instructions, " and spice 

 their ai' J- ic suit the pelite cf then- rer-dem rcgirdlcssly 

 of the evil effects necessarily arising from the propagation of 

 untruth. They are indeed' the less to blame, in thai tbfej 

 take for granted what has not been proved, and, on the prin- 

 ciple given above, that safety in morals lies in abnegation, so 

 satisfy i heir conscience. The primary misleading lies in the 

 general high reputation of those writers whom journalists 

 blindly follow. lint what misehief is not created by selling 

 class 'against class, not to speak of that injury or hindrance 

 done to the redressing of real by the creation of false griev- 



ances. In many instances the ignorance ol 

 a ludicrous turn. Some years ago there 

 Twelfth of August impression of a daily ] 

 a paragraph to this effect (I quote from 

 words, if not their arrangement, are correc 

 this morning's paper is hi the bauds e 

 of the hunters will have been heard 



journalist,! 

 appeared in the 



iper of eminence 



memory, but the 



reel):— "By (he time 



iur readers, the horns 



a thousand hills, and 



many a gallant heath-cock, after an animated chase, will 

 hove stained the heather with his crimson blood," and so on. 

 The thing was so exquisitely tickling to ray fancy, that I 

 followed ft up by sending to the paper a still more spicy 

 paragraph, describing the horses, the red-coats of the hunt- 

 ters, down to their spurs, with the hounds in full cry. The 

 editor, however, could not swallow that; he drew the line at 

 the horns of chase, and had the acumen not to insert the 

 paragraph. 



As leading up to the few remarks I shall make on the 

 positive, side of the question, I quote the following from the 

 autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini: — 



"About this time, whilst I was still a young man of three- 

 and-twenty. so dreadful and epidemic, disease prevailed in 

 Rome that there died every day several thousands. Though 

 I was somewhat ten-hied at this calamity, I began to indulge 

 myself in certain pleasures of fancy arising from different 

 causes, which I shall hereafter specify; for on holidays I 

 amused myself with visiting the antiquities of that city, and 

 sometimes took then' figures in wax, at other times 1 made 

 drawings of them. As these antiquities are all ruinous 

 edifices, where a number of pigeons built their nests, I had a 

 mind to divert myself among them with nay fowling-piece ; 

 hut being greatly afraid of the plague, I avoided all commerce 

 "with the inhabitants, and marie Pa ulin o carry my gun: thus 

 we repaired together to the ruins, from, whence I often re- 

 turned home loaded with pigeons of the largest size. But I 

 never chose to put more than a single ball into my piece, and 

 in this manner, by being a good marksman, I procured a con- 

 siderable quantity of game. The fowling-piece which I held 

 in my hand was. both on the inside and outside, as bright as 

 a looking-glass. I likewise made the powder as fine as the 

 minutest dust; and in the use of it I discovered some of the 

 most admirable secrets that ever were known till this time. 

 Of this I will, to avoid prolixity, give, only- one proof, which 

 will surprise even those who are" adepts in this matter. When 



I had charged my piece with a quantity of powder, equal in 

 weight to the fifth part, of a ball, it carried 200 paces point- 

 blank. In a word, so great was the delight I took in shoot- 

 ing, that it often diverted me from the business of my shops. 

 Though it had this ill-consequence, it in other respects pro- 

 cured me considerable advantages: for, by this exercise of 

 shooting, I greatly improved my constitution; the air was of 

 vast service to me. and braeed mv nerves, which were natu- 

 rally relaxed. Whilst I was enjoying these pleasures my .'■pints 

 suddenly revived. 1 no longer had- my v.surtl ffti>0 A, Und I 

 worked, to more purpose lhan when my attention i, ■..,.. •,'//, 

 engrossed by business ; \ipn,i (he whole.' my gun iurned rather 

 to my advantage than to the contrary."' 



In the above remarkable passage lies the marrow of the 

 whole matter, and the curious reader will .ilso observe with 

 interest that Cellini, with all that force of character which 

 marked the man, went deeply into the "most admirable 

 secrets"' in the use of gunpowder, and practically anticipated 

 the_ point-blank range of modern rifles by over three cen- 

 turies. Now, if any one lived who might be supposed, 

 through love of his art, vanity, and other incentives to exer- 

 tion, to be above or beyond the requiring of field-sports to 

 trace his nerves and restore his jaded spirits, it is the immor- 

 tal sculptor of the Perseus. The world may never know 

 how much it is indebted for those gems of art which make 

 Cellini's name tower above that of any other competitor — 

 rival he has none — to the "exercise of shooting " described 

 above. Had he. plodded on, minded solely the business of his 

 employers— of his "shops," at* he modestly terms them — he 

 might, have produced a great number of 'mediocrities, and 

 there an end 



What then do we shoot for, what is the purpose? The 

 answer is, that the very foundation of all intellectual 

 advancement — maintained exertion of thinking faculties — as 

 well as the concomitants of high civilization, such as more 

 luxuriant living, the congregating for much of our time in 

 confined spaces, as must be in all city life, commercial, legal, 

 or legislative, and the non-necessity of actual daily labor by 

 the possessors "of acquired or hereditary capital (for all wealth 

 is originally founded on labor of somekind or other) demand 

 some counterpoise to balance our constitutional equilibrium. 

 It may be asked why not take, exercise without following a 

 field sport? The reply is clear: — the more we exercise our 

 intellect (lie less we 'are inclined or able to exercise our 

 hody in equal degree without a stimulus to exertion, and 

 that stimulus the "chase supplies. Cellini could have taken 

 a walk, but "this exercise of shooting" would have been 

 wanting, and so it is now. Put a gun into the hands of 

 a man "who may not walk live miles along a highway 

 with case, and the difficulty will be, not to get him to 

 walk five, but to restrain him from walking twenty. 

 Just then as there has been a severe strain on (He mental, 

 and a neglect of the physical, powers, so there is now 

 hrought into action a reversed process. The mind goes 

 into abeyance; the body comes into play: the deep 

 reasoner,' Ihe fagged merchant, the speculative philoso- 

 pher, disappears: Hie latent hunter asserts his preroga- 

 tive. Men therefore are enabled to rapidly compensate for 

 fchfiir prj&vious enforced physical inaction, go back lo a, state 

 of nature and the (oils of the primitive hunter for a time, and 

 yet not break in unduly or for too long a period upon lis- i , 

 excise of their highest" intellectual faculties. 1 think lam 

 safe in asserting that the highest order of thought is incom- 

 patible with .-alii-jri. dily bodily Cfcri-ise. Tc attain high 

 development, the intellect must entirely predominate for a 

 lime. In like maimer must not only the Ihinker. the lawyer, 

 the ■-'<■ i 'M'l.i !, out also the merchant, the manufacturer, and 

 in :i '.i, d, the man of business of any kind in these davs, 

 givfi Op lo; v hole mind lo his profession to keep pace With 

 his competitors, and periodically seek for recreation in an 

 entire holiday. Men do nol Shoot Or follow other field-sports 

 with all this philosophically arranged ib then- intentions, but 



II 5 folio .■ ring instinct, which leads them \& pau- 



icl ; " onformity with the reqiiirement of natural laws, 

 o not need, to !•<'.■ i ■. i o i " i ■■ to llieir ultimate 



purpose in order to obey (hem. The law is there, and abides; 

 the Creator has arranged the final results. The Duke of 

 Argyll, in an admirable article " On Animal Instinct" [7 he 

 Cmfampora/ry Review, July, 1875), has put this very clearly. 

 "All our trust and confidence in (he results of reasoning mu'st 

 depend on our trust and confidence in the adjusted harmony 

 which has been established between instinct and the truths 

 of Nature We see it to be a great, law prevail- 

 ing in the instincts of the lower animals, and in our own, 

 that they are true not only as guiding the animal rightly to 

 the satisfaction of whatever appetite is immediately con- 

 cerned, but true also as ministering to ends of which the ani- 

 mal knows nothing, although they arc ends of the highest 

 importance) both in its own economy and in (he far-off econ- 

 omies of creation. In direct proportion as our own minds 

 and intellects partake of the same nature, and are founded on 

 the same principle of adjustment, we may feel assured that 

 the same law prevails over their nobler work and functions. 

 And the glorious law is no less than, this — that the work of 

 instinct is true not only for the short way it goes, but for 

 that infinite distance, into which it leads in a true direction." 

 In connection with this branch of the subject it may be fairly 

 asserted that, the peculiar scent given out by game, the man- 

 ner iu which game animals (birds in particular) crouch and 

 then suddenly "start into motion within range of the gun, and 

 the whole nature, powers of smell, and general economy of 

 limiting dogs, argue an arrangement far beyond the powers 

 of Man. The whole seems a wise adaptation to some specific 

 pmpose. Men may have trained dogs to the chase, but could 

 never give to the objects of the chase the peculiarities which 

 distinguish them from other animals, ami cause them to be 

 hunted as game, with all the advantages I contend for. 



That many men hunt or shoot who do not overstrain their 

 intellect is a mere matter of course; because the instinct of 

 the ChasC is universal, and is confined to no one class, or in- 

 tended as a counterpoise to any one tension only in another 

 direction. No "glorious law" can be parcelled oul. It 

 would be no more an answer to my argument to say that 

 men already in robust, health of body and" mind do hunt, or 

 shoot, or 1 bat field-sports maybe carried to an excess, than 

 in :>y il,!i we should not eat now, because some other per- 

 sons have already eaten, nor eat enough, because some peo- 

 ple eat too much. Besides, the very state of high health 

 which might, be. the sentimentalist's 'argument as "rendering 

 the chase unnecessary, may demand an outlet for its energies. 



There is an argument I would offer with diffidence, yet. I 

 have often thought that, where there is much building up, 

 there must be a yearning for breaking down. Construction 

 and destruction seem the complement of each other. We 

 have a craving to be doing something or other that demands 

 the very opposite of combination of thought. Hence comes 

 dissipation, (literally, scattering) and the ""denouncers of the 

 morality of field sports lay themselves open to the grave ac- 

 cusation of promoting iaamoral dissipation by vilifying the 

 moral, for men will seek some change from their daily rou- 

 tine. Marcus Antoninus told us long ago that nature is al- 

 ways breaking down and building up'. I know not a more re- 

 freshing occupation, short of the chase, than trimming one's 

 garden hedge or shrubbery with a good sharp whittle. Mr. 

 Gladstone finds pleasure in hewing down trees. When the 

 greatest orator of Hie age, the ever to be respected Member for 

 Birmingham, broke down in health some twenty years ago, 

 his physicians sent. him to Scotland to practice "one of those 

 field sports he had so pertinaciously and fervently condemned, 

 and I could not refrain from writing at the time, in a certain 

 magazine article, that he might have fancied, when he drew 

 his first, trout from the waters of Loch Lomond, that it ut- 

 tered, "El ti/, Br /" with its dying breath. Yet no one 



would grudge this eminent statesman the health, improved if 

 not quite restored, which his continuance since then of the 

 higher branches of angling has afforded him. Long may he 

 enjoy them! 



I know not if it come exactly within the scope of this ar- 

 gument, but it may be incidentally remarked that where there 

 is undue prominence given to the intellectual faculties, or 

 where these faculties have risen to nn undue prominence, the 

 family most commonly becomes extinct, or else the intel- 

 lectual power disappears and is followed by its opposite. 

 The family of the Bernoulli's, the famed mathematicians, is 

 nearly the only exception. The existence of their great and 

 hereditary abilities, in which quite a number of them shared, 

 extended over several generations, and beyond 150 years in 

 period of time. But every one knows that an exception only 

 proves a rule. It is a fair assumption, that the mingling of 

 the labors of field sports with maintained exertion of the 

 mental faculties would tend to transmission of genius. 



In judging of the correctness of the foregoing reason- 

 ing, and of the morality of field sports, "it would bo 

 well to consider how these have been followed by the 

 wisest, the best, the purest of mankind. Witness George 

 Washington, who kept a private pack of hounds, and 

 hunted the fox regularly two or three days a week. The 

 Duke of Wellington maintained the spirits, vigor, and 

 courage of his officers, on his constrained military inac- 

 tion during several winters in the Peninsula, by the same. 

 means. Buxton, the philanthropist, was not only a sports- 

 man, but attributed any success in life and proper direction 

 of his aims and faculties to the early moral training he had 

 under a perfectly illiterate but high-souled gamekeeper, 

 whose memory lie held in deepest reverence till his dying 

 day. The neatest practical approach I have ever known to 

 the scene in Burns' magnificent " Cotter's Sa1 urday Night" 

 was iu the eveuing family worship of a gamekeeper, under 

 whose roof I found hospitable shelter while on a shooting 

 excursion in Dumbartonshire. If is with all respect and 

 reverence that I may also allude to the ease of his late Royal 

 Highness Prince Albert, one of the purest men that, ever 

 breathed, whose influence — not the less potent that if was 

 not ostentatiously displayed— operated (and is operating to 

 ibis day — "he, being dead, yet speaketh") beneficially pa the 

 social fabric of the country, and through it upon that, of the 

 Whole civilized world. Who can read" I may add, (he short 

 yet graphic records by the Queen, in her Majesty's "Leaves 

 from the Journal of' our Life in (he Highlands," of her 

 young husbaud's exploits in ihe chase, without a glow of 

 sympathy and sorrow for her irreparable loss ? Who in all 

 history lias ever had a name more identified wilh humanity 

 nd all the gentler feminine virtues than Queen Victoria"? 

 .vkish sentimemalisin, deeply 



Iu regard to the effect of the pursuit of field sports on the 

 commercial classes, I shall not readily forget a recent conver- 

 sation with a gentleman from one' of the Western United 

 States of America. I have particular satisfaction ia any in- 

 vestigations into the moral and other good effects of shoot- 

 ing, but I have never heard the matter put so plainly. " My 

 father, sir," said my friend, "was the first man that, ever took 

 a double-barrel shot-gun west of the Allegheiiics, and when 1 

 was a boy I always shot squirrels with "a rifle My father 

 was also the first man known to kill birds flying — out there 

 West. He was a great sportsman, and made us," his sons, go 

 out to shoot regularly to make us strong and hardy. Our 



neighbors said, 'This' Mr. McO is bringing up his boys to 



ruin, certain and sure; he sends them to shoot squirrels when 

 they should beat the counter and desk.' Well, sir, time 

 went on, and my brother and I w 7 ent on, not to ruin, but to 

 success in life as well as iu shooting, and I used to kill my 

 sixteen squirrels in seventeen shots of a morning. 1 have a 

 largo business, and my brother, who is younger than 1, has 

 already retired on a fortune. Cf the young men who were 

 pointed out as patterns to us, not one' is now living. One 

 died of this, another of that, but mostly all through illness 

 brought on by making money their only object; and I tell 

 you, sir. that on their death bed more (ban one of them said, 



'These McO s were right, and we were wrong, after 



all.' " 



This simple narrative probably contains the germ of a 

 great philosophical truth. It seems an established fact that, 

 besides the general straggle for existence- in all animated 

 nature, there is a special One for existence in individuals 

 imported into a new climate. Let us suppose two families 

 engaged in commerce migrating "out West." The children 

 of one of these are encoufaged to familiarize themselves with 

 the surrounding climate influences; to face and overcome 

 these influences under invigorating action: the children of 

 the other are not, but are. hrought up, let us say, aceordingly 

 wifh their New York or European antecedents! These sit at 

 a. desk, those shoot squirrels in the forest, t think it. may be 

 safely predicted which will be the survivors. 



This American is a type of the sound sense of his count ry- 

 men. There is not a 'more common fallacy than that game 

 laws, denounced as the remains of a, barbarous feudalism, 

 arc not to be tolerated in new countries or under Republican 

 Covernments. To many of my readers it may lie something 

 new to learn that, in the United States of America, the game 

 laws are much more stringent than in this country, and 

 embrace a larger number of animals. The penalties are much 

 higher, and every encouragement is given to prosecution by 

 any person by such complainant sharing in the pecuniary 

 fines. Were this a treatise on game law 1 should startle my 

 readers by going more fully into those existing in the United 

 States. Besides the usual punishment to offenders directly 

 infringing the law, all railway officials, carriers, and such 

 like are heavily fined for illegally transporting game or fish, 

 and where either of these is "reasonably supposed to be con- 

 cealed, the warrant of a justice of the peace authorizes 

 "search to be made at any horn?, in any house, mark, i , store 

 shop, boat, car, or other place or building, or any person for 

 that end may cause any apartment, chest, box, locker, barrel, 

 crate, or other place of concealment to be broken open ami 

 the contents examined." It is also provided that "the for- 

 malities required in penal actions" need not be eompliil with. 

 I quote from the Laws of New Jersey, merely because they 

 are the first I chance to light on, but they are very similar 

 throughout the States, if any particular variety of game 

 becomes scarce a State will pass a law to protect if absolutely 

 for several years. What is this to do but what is commonly 

 called here, "getting up a head of game?" Several such 

 enactments are running now, Wc hear of individual game 

 preservers here being bitterly assailed, yet in the United States 

 1 here exist over one hundred powerful associations for the 

 flue prosecution of game law delinquents, and (lie associa- 

 tions are rapidly increasing and appear to be highly popular. 

 Here we have one struggling Anti-Game Law League; in the 

 States there are over one hundred flourishing Pro-Game Law 

 Leagues. The cry of a party here is: Utterly exterminate 

 all game as vermin; leave nothing to shoot at. The increas- 

 ing general cry across the Atlantic is: Preserve our game and 

 our fish for our genuine field sports. There is no Opposition 

 party in the field. The Associations are banded together, not 

 to oppose any other party, but lo stimulate legislative vigi- 



id to the 



The latter 

 vthing not 

 '• of words, 



Mr-- to Hie 



ir the final 

 S are also wise 

 ntaiu the vigoi 

 ippointed. 



fe 



Yet we see her, free from r 



interested in all the Prince's advent 



pointmeute by flood and field. "Wine, 



"a magnificent slag" which Prince Al 



sketched by her loving hand. We s;_n 



ness of (one and love of genuine field 



her royal sons. We need not doubt the destinies of a people 



with such examples set before them, nor fear the degeneracy 



Ol ike Lower Umpire. 



he vigor with which 

 t had just killed was 

 lso all this healthi- 

 ports perpetuated in 



ance. This is a. curious antithesis. It. may 1 

 different training of youth in Sparta and Athi 

 encouraged the chase, the former denounced 

 directly or palpably useful, even to any super 

 Wc all know which Republic lasted longest, 

 highest point in civilization. We need no 

 result in our own country, but the American 

 in their generation, and seem resolved to mai 

 of their race by the means which Nature has : 



If we turn for a moment to a very different country, old in 

 its institutions and the most densely populated in Europe- 

 Belgium, we shall find equal stringency. In a communication 

 which the Belgian Minister of the Interior did me. the honor 

 of sending me for the purpose of this inquiry, I learn that in 

 addition to the punishment as a matter of course of a. con- 

 victed delinquent, the farmer, or farm foreman, is held respon- 

 sible for acts of poaching committed by minors and 3ome 

 others; a system that would not lie tolerated in Britain. This 

 is stringency indeed, and yet, while high cultivation is alleged 

 to be incompatible with the existence of game laws, no country 

 in Europe, or probably elsewhere, is more highly cultivated 

 than BelgiuTU. 



Since 1 have mad" this digression! may state (hat, while 

 undue preservation of game is open to severe censure — the 

 effects are too frequently greatly overrated. I have had much 

 experience, and have been surprised to find how bitter com- 

 plaints by farmers have ended in Ihe finding of nO fflppreciabk 

 injury to" the crops, But 1 woidd desire lo write much more 

 freely on the absurd outcry made against "deer forests." 

 Wherever deer do injury lot the blame rightly fall and a 

 remedy be found, as by sufficiently fencing the nearest arable 

 lands; but what I especially refer to is the misleading of the 

 public opinion on what a ''deer forest," consists of. until the 

 masses believe that it is a tract, of valuable wooded land, able 

 to support a large number of sheep or oxen, being wickedly 

 devoted to the feeding of a few red deer kept for sport. Deer 

 forests (in this eountn they are only, so far as 1 know, to be 

 found iu Scotland) are tracks of the roughest; wildest, most 

 iuaceessille, and most valueless laud in the Highlands. As 

 for being "forests,'' there may not Ilea t rev upon them. True, 

 they might support a few cattle, but would it pay to do so.' 

 ■ ■ ■■ I .. [i lo lie kept there at a loss for the sentiment of the 

 thing? I -write advisedly. Some three . " \a an unusual 

 clamor a ro-e because ft certain sheep-farm in Sue uorlbwesi 

 of Scotland was bought, by a gentleman and turned into a 

 forest. I cannot, recollect anything more vtfulenl than the 



