THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 15 
LETTER VII. 
Though large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbor- 
hood, yet the injury to the morals of the people. is of more 
moment than the loss of their crops. ‘The temptation is irre- 
sistible; 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 be- 
ginning 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 com- 
mitted such enormities, that government was forced to inter- 
-fere with that severe and sanguinary act called the “ Black 
Act,” which now comprehends more felonies than any law 
that ever was framed before. And, therefore, a late Bishop 
of Winchester, when urged to re-stock Waltham Chase, re- 
fused, from a motive worthy of a prelate, replying “that it 
had done mischief enough already.” 
Our old race of deer-stealers is 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 the shooting at one of 
their neighbors 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, suspecting that a calf 
new-fallen was deposited in a certain spot of thick fern, went, 
with a lurcher, to surprise it; when the parent-hind rushed out 
of the brake, and, taking a vast spring with all her. feet close 
together, pitched upon the neck of the dog, and broke it short 
in two. 
Another temptation to idleness and sporting was a number 
of rabbits, which possessed all the hillocks and dry places: but 
these being inconvenient to the huntsmen, on account of their 
