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description. But we must be doing Mr. Bright injustice; he cannot intend to confiscate property-he who would suffer so much from anarchy; he means, doubtless, to make the game laws more efficient. But if his object be to abolish game, we will give him a hint to assist him. It has probably never occurred to him that to repeal the game laws alone will not achieve this. He must go further; he must abolish the law of trespass.

Is Mr. Bright prepared to do this? Are Messieurs the tenant farmers prepared to see gangs of the "poor but honest, &c.," marching in line, not alone over parks and through woods, but in the uncut wheat, and oats, and barley, and over clover and through beans and potatoes? We will suppose the game laws abolished. A man (one of the burglars before alluded to) who was tried for attempting a burglary last assizes, observed, when he was caught, that it was only a misdemeanor, not a felony; for it was only an attempt: his intended iniquity was not complete; still he thought "it would be a curious point for the judge." The judge told the jury it was, under the circumstances, "a curious point;" but that he thought the prisoner was right in his view of the law. Such sharp fellows as this would soon find out that the extreme penalty for trespassing is only forty shillings each; so that, even if they are caught, and visited with the last rigour of the law, still it must be a poor game country that would not pay their legal expenses and leave them "where withal," as Mr. Grantley Berkeley neatly expresses it, to refresh themselves after a pleasant day's sport. But if you do not abolish the law of trespass, you must make it effectual that is, you must make it severe enough to counterbalance the temptation to pursue game; or, in other words, you must under a new name reimpose the game laws. It may be a consolation to be imprisoned for the same period under one statute instead of another. the acute gentleman who so nicely discriminated between felony and misdemeanor, the attempt to commit a burglary and the complete offence, it would doubtless be a point of some importance; but to the public, to those who have to prosecute them, to the wives and children of the criminals, to the parishes who have to support their families during their incarceration, it must be a matter of much indifference, certainly not worth the agitation it has cost. Unless the law of trespass is abolished, the repeal of the game laws will be in operative. Imagine Prince Albert looking forth from Windsor Castle, and seeing the poor but honest, &c.," sweeping down his pheasants, and rolling over his hares in dozens; imagine his keepers sent to arrest them, returning with a brace of pounds a head, the law of the land empowering them to harry the covers of Cumberland Lodge for that small consideration ! Doubtless, Mr. Bright's garden trampled down, and all the wheat and barley and oats in the country flat on the ground, would call for a severe law of trespass. Well, then we should have our old game law with a new name; and Mr. Bright would have had his labour and Mr. Berkeley shown his appreciation of crows to no purpose.

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Let us return for a moment to the economical part of the question-the loss sustained in consequence of the existence of game. Who bears this loss? Not the tenant we have proved; unless, indeed, the tenant be a fool. The tenant calculates and offers less rent in consequence of having to feed the game. And here let me observe, in passing, that the

game is the tenant's, to the exclusion of the landlord, and that when the landlord acquires the game, he does so by private agreement, for which concession the tenant receives a compensation; or if he does not, he makes a foolish bargain. The landlord bears the whole expense of feeding the game; but even this is not much. Hares, probably, consume a good deal, but partridges scarcely anything; and pheasants cost more in keepers and watchers than in food, even though food be purchased for them. Pheasants and partridges feed on the grains that fall from the ears of corn when it is reaped. If excessive game preserving leads to poaching, the landowners suffer for it; the expense of supporting the families of imprisoned poachers comes out of the rates that are levied on the lands. We promised not to trouble the reader about feræ naturæ, &c. ; we will keep our promise; but one argument against game laws is, that a bird hatched here may feed there, and be killed ten miles off. This is not so. Those acquainted with game know that they live and die in the fields where they first saw the light. But even if such was not the case; if game were given to rambling, the average would be the same. If A killed a bird B fed, B would soon return the compliment to A. Again it is asked, "How can an ignorant man help killing a bird belonging to he knows not whom?" Possibly the ignorant man may not know whether a pheasant belongs to the Duke of Buckingham or Lord Orkney; but he knows to whom it does not belong he knows it does not belong to him. Sheep and ponies run wild on the Welsh hills, but the peasantry are not in the habit of stealing them on that account. There were several letters in the Times from a Captain Forbes, who lives near Windsor, piteously complaining of the destruction caused to his crops by Prince Albert's pheasants. If Captain Forbes, instead of complaining to the Times, had sent a case to counsel, asking for advice on the subject, he would have seen that the remedy was easy, plain, and in his own hands; in short, the outery against the game laws is caused partly by the ignorance that prevails on the subject, and partly by the bad advocacy of their supporters. Heaven help the question with such advocates!

We do not support those who preserve game to excess: we think it wicked and foolish, unless game is more profitable to the breeder of it than the crops the land would bear would be. That it may be more profitable, many places besides Scotland prove. But in a rich grass or corn country, we always regret to see more than a fair sprinkling of game. If all that is said of Blenheim be true, the Duke of Marlborough must lose considerably in the year by the destruction caused to the crops by game, and also by the poor rates which the numerous convictions for offences against the game laws must greatly increase. Still these are only moral sins: they cannot be touched by positive law, without causing worse evils than the law is designed to cure. We have a curiosity to see Mr. Bright's bill. If it be to abolish the game laws, it is utterly inconsistent with his past principles: if it be to alter, it

* Since writing the above we have heard that the Duke of Marlborough has given permission to his tenants to kill hares, provided they do not use guns for the purpose. We have also read "The Anti-Game Law Prize Essay," by a Scotch Farmer and Master of Arts. If this essay gained a prize in a nation so dialectical as Scotland, the cause the writer advocates must indeed be bad. The few arguments it contains have been refuted in our article; the rest of the pamphlet is merely declamatory.

must be to make those laws more effectual; and if so, a pretty position he will occupy the Champion of the Squires, and Betrayer of all the Buckinghamshire Chaw-Bacons ! We have a strong belief that Mr. Bright would be heartily glad if he could quietly drop the whole matter. We bid him heartily farewell, with the certainty that he must do one of two things-either abolish the laws and renounce his own principles, or make them more effectual and betray his followers; and whichever of these he elects, we apprehend his position will neither add to his happiness nor his legislative renown.

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Having reached London at the end of October, it occurred to me that the late Duke of Queensbury must have made a mistake when he declared town to be fuller than the country at this season of the year. In his days, to be sure, sportsmen were rarer than now; country gentlemen composed the fields of the Pytchley and other crack countries, and left the Surrey to the once-a-week lawyers-clerks and cockneys. Now, everybody hunts. This is a most unmitigated nuisance-the greatest bore imaginable. I don't give in to the notion of its improving the character of the population at large, because it gives a peculiarly English tone to the legitimate followers of it. It gives a very bad tone to some; it leads to mighty airs and graces, and to incalculable debt and mischief, in a set of people who have no earthly business three miles beyond Temple Bar. They are up and down by the rail, neglecting their occupations, and passing themselves off to the barmaids on the road as mighty fine gentlemen. Talk of the difficulties of the country! Why, everybody has been living beyond their means; and I have a much higher estimation for a poor fellow residing in a little box with one horse, and hunting from his own home, than for any one of these foxbitten pretenders to sportsmanship, be their stud ever so long. Upon my arrival in town I found that a great number of these gentlemen had deserted the paths of their predecessors, the foggy avenues of Regentstreet, Pall Mall, Cockspur-street, and the Strand, and were gone (Heaven save the mark!) to hunt with the Baron-for a month or two with the Pytchley-a week with the Warwickshire-or to see Sir Richard Sutton. The world, the London October world, good men in their way, were imitating Consols, and falling daily. To be sure, I did see, through the mist of four o'clock, p.m., a solitary sub. on the steps of the United Service, and miserable enough he looked; about as happy as Sir Squeamish Bubble, who hobbled out of the Athenæum just as I

turned the corner. I was at once convinced of the inappositeness of my position by a butcher's boy running up against me with his tray (a peculiar trait of theirs) and asking me what I meant by "blocking up the way here!" Blocking up the middle of the trottoir of Pall Mall from a butcher's boy at four o'clock in the afternoon ! What a joke! Making up my mind, therefore (a large parcel, and requiring plenty of time), that I was in the way, the next thing was to get out of it. That villanous portion of society, a butcher's boy, had opened my eyes. Where was I to go? Regent Street I never walk in, though I am told that at every season of the year there are people in it. As if people meant society. I tried dear Old Bond Street. Not a soul. The waiter at the Clarendon actually shook the bread crumbs out of his napkin at the door as I passed! The beast! He would have lost his place and his eye between May and August for such a bêtise. St. James's Street was as bad. Piccadilly was worse; and the mist from the Green Park and its basin convinced me that I must be off. I was passing Anderson's yard, thinking of a whereabouts, and out rushed Mason on a leggy bay. The Pytchley suggested itself; and down I came to my country quarters again; quarters they certainly are, as a facetious friend of mine observes, for they're not half so good as they ought to be.

When we take into consideration the wonderful sport that George Payne had last year with these hounds under all the difficulties of the season, there must be something wonderfully good in the master, the pack, or the country-perhaps in all three. I was so delighted, that my enthusiasm got the better of my good sense, and I wrote a moderately accurate account of all our doings here to a friend of mine. Happy am I to think that I have a love for the truth, and that I have no cause to blush for my private correspondence-for it became public. I always feel a great inclination to pull the nose of all those scandalmongers who publish letters in the papers, headed, "A private correspondent of ours from Beyrout informs us that Mehemet Ali has certainly added seven new wives to his establishment, &c. ;" or, "We extract from the letter of a friend the following alarming communication respecting the King Otho, &c., &c." It really is a breach of confidence, and sometimes leads to disagreeable results. I have escaped tolerably well; but after the first letter or two I became very cautious. Mrs. Scribble and the children were alarmed at every strange visitor, particularly if he walked in with a friend and a riding-whip, or one or the other; riding, and all matters connected with sport, are of such a delicate nature. It won't do to handle the "muffs" at all-they must be left out altogether. A gentle insinuation about a wetting must be understood to stand for walking about in the brook this season. I shall only allude to standing on one's head or kissing one's mother with the greatest delicacy. Half a dozen anonymous correspondents attacked me last year as an utter ignoramus, ignorant of the country, of the runs, of themselves, and fondly wedded to the Paynes, Villiers, Henleys, and Knightleys, prejudiced in favour of their performances, without pluck or impartiality to speak well of a set of fellows whom I never saw. swore I was a cockney, another a stud-groom, a third mistook me for that Parson and a fourth-generous dog!—said I was a very clever fellow, but wanted to know why I "buttered George Payne" to such an extent, as it was well known that he was the best fellow, but worst

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huntsman, in England; but then he was a master of hounds himself I suppose.

Now, my dear fellow, I write with my eyes open, I place no embargo upon my correspondence when once it shall have left me. Put it in the fire, or publish it; do what you like with it. The only thing is, that if I were certain of its appearing, I should become a trifle more Johnsonian in my periods, not quite so crude in my manner of expressing myself; the fact being that sense is thrown away upon many, I should like to give a little sound with it; that might be sound sense to be sure, and just as unappreciable as any other.

What a delicious thing is the beginning of the hunting season! The anticipations of success with your young horses-the doubts and hopes. with regard to the old; the re-commencement of something to do for many men-the certainty of a cheerful recreation for those whose minds are employed occasionally on something more than the pleasures or ambitions of the chase. Even at my time of life-old stager as I am—I do not sleep quite so long or so soundly on the 31st of October as I ought to do. My heart will beat the least bit more quickly than it should when a pair of dampish leathers comes reluctantly out from the bottom of a wardrobe, and the long-neglected tops repose in drowsy indolence before my dressing-room fire, preparatory to the insertion of an active principle in the shape of a leg. I cannot help peeping out of the window to see what sort of a morning it is, though I do feel rather ashamed of such an exhibition of interest in these days of refinement.

A good meet at the beginning of the season is a fine thing to see. Such horses, such hounds, such breeches, such boots, caps, whips, and scarlets, all spick and span new! Such satisfaction, too! The predominant feature is unalloyed happiness, from the noisy impertinent "How are ye, old cock?" of a "novus homo," to the more subdued recognition of an habitué.

"Holloa, Spriggs, my boy, how are you? When did you come down? What a neat grey horse! Can he go ?"

Spriggs is a swell from the Borough; his horse has a tail, lots of it, and a whole sadler's shop upon his head, and he ambles and capers while Spriggs reports upon his own doings and whereabouts.

"Going back to-night, or stay at Stoke Pogis?"

"Oh, hang it, no!

past five again."

Couldn't stand that. Off by the train at half

Spriggs! Spriggs! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Your governor wouldn't stand it, if you were not at the counting-house three mornings out of the seven.

Then follows a bevy of good men, who silently greet their brother sportsmen, extending a whip or a finger to one and a nod to another; then an awfully got-up young gentleman from a Spa-his boots pushed half way down his legs for the greater convenience of his calves; here and there a brown coat, drab breeches, and mahoganies that are never far behind; and a black coat and white neckcloth on the best-conditioned horse in the field, because he's the only one of the stud. What mistakes, too, the casual observer would make in the qualifications of the sportsmen! How he would admire the fiery chesnut, all head and tail, and the loud-talking, go-a-head, square-elbowed, gentleman on his back; or the free and easy swagger of the monkey, with his hat on one side,

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