OF Sl^LBORNE. 
23 
LETTER YIL 
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 
HOUGH large herds of deer do mucli harm 
to the neighbourhood, yet the injury to the 
morals of the people is of more moment 
than the loss of their crops. The temptation 
is irresistible; for most men are sportsmen, 
by constitution, and there is such an inherent spirit for 
hunting in human nature, as scarce any inhibitions can 
restrain. Hence, towards the beginning of this century, 
all this country was wild about deer-stealing. Unless he 
was a hunter, as they affected to call themselves, no young 
person was allowed to be possessed of manhood or gallantry. 
The Waltham blacks at length committed such enormities, 
that government was forced to interfere with that severe 
and s-anguinary act called the black act,^ which now com- 
prehends more felonies than any law that ever was framed 
before. And, therefore, a late Bishop of Winchester, when 
urged to restock Waltham- chase,'' refused, from a motive 
worthy of a prelate, replying that ''^It had done mischief 
enough already .^^ 
Our old race of deer-stealers are hardly extinct yet : it 
was but a little while ago that, over their ale, they used to 
recount the exploits of their youth; such as watching the 
pregnant hind to her lair, and, when the calf was dropped, 
paring its feet with a penknife to the quick to prevent its 
escape, till it was large and fat enough to be killed ; the 
shooting at one of their neighbours with a bullet in a turnip- 
field by moonshine, mistaking him for a deer; and the losing 
a dog in the following extraordinary manner : — Some fellows 
1 Statute 9 Geo. I. c 22. 
2 This chase remains unstocked to this day : the Bishop was Dr. 
Hoadley.— G. 
