with him; for he cannot stick his fork into that tempting fowl before him until he can satisfy us, the public, that the grain it has consumed would not have been more profitably applied in fattening sheep or cattle. And what, pray, is that array of plate on the buffet behind him but so much capital held back from the creation of employment and food for that starving population, which he assures us (though every one but himself knows it is nonsense) is increasing at the rate of 1000 per diem! Political economy of this quality may do very well for the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce; but we really hope, for the credit of the city he represents, that he will not expose himself on any other stage, nor consider it a necessary part of his duties as a legislator, to prescribe the precise manner in which corn shall or shall not be used.

The supposed amount of destruction by game of cereal and other produce, has afforded a fine field for the more erudite of the game law opponents. Mr Gayford's celebrated calculation, that three hares eat as much as a full-grown sheep, is generally assumed as the infallible basis of their estimates, and the most astounding results are evolved from it.* Mr Charles Stevenson thinks the destruction cannot be less than two bushels per acre over the whole kingdom, representing a total of two hundred thousand quarters. "If it be the case," says Mr Chiene Shepherd, with a modest hesitation-"if it be the case, that throughout this empire the farmers, in general, suffer more loss from game than they pay in the form of poor's tax (and I suppose it cannot be doubted that they do so-that in most parts they suffer more than double the amount of their poor-rates,) then it follows, of course, that there is more destruction from game than would

make up the sum collected from poorrates from the whole lands of the empire."† Double the amount of poor-rates paid by land may be taken roughly at some £9,000,000. But there are others who think even this too low an estimate, and throw into the scale (a million out or in is of no importance) the county rate, highway rate, and all the other direct burdens on land put together! Let us carry on the line of calculation a step further: if game animals alone consume all this, and if we allow a fair proportion of voracity to the minor, but more numerous fera-rats, mice, rooks, wood-pigeons, &c.—it is clear as daylight that it is a mere delusion to think that a single quarter of wheat can, by any possibility, escape the universal devastation. There is no lunatic so incurable as your rampant arithmetician; and the only delusion that could stand a comparison with the above would be the attempt to reason such men out of their absurdities.

But the actual waste of grain is not, it seems, the only way in which the public suffers. The annual cost to the community of prosecutions under the game acts is an enormous and annually increasing burden. This is proved, of course, by the same system of statistics run mad as that of which we have just given some specimens. The game convictions in the county of Bedford, it is discovered, were, in the year 1843, 36 per cent of the total male summary convictions; and the lovers of the marvellous, who listen to such statements, are quietly left to infer, not only that this is usually the case in Bedfordshire, but that a similar state of things prevails throughout England and Scotland also. They are sagacious enough, however, never to refer to general results. They carefully avoid any mention of

+ Scotsman, February 12, 1848.

the fact, (which, however, any one may learn for himself, by referring to Mr Phillipps' tables,) that the average of the game convictions during the five years these tables include, was, for all England, not 36, but a fraction over 6 per cent of the whole. Now, let us see how the case stands in Scotland. We have observed that our northern orators always draw their illustrations from the south of the Tweed; and we have, therefore, looked with some curiosity into the records of our Scotch county courts, as affording some test of the real extent of the grievance in this part of the empire. Unfortunately these records are not preserved in a tabular form by all the counties; but we have been favoured with returns from five of the most important on the east coast, which we selected as being those in which the preservation of game is notoriously carried to the greatest extent. An abstract of these returns will be found below, and will suffice to show how false, in regard to Scotland, is the assertion that game prosecutions are alarmingly numerous; while every one knows that the expense is borne, not by the public, but by the private party, except in very

*

rare and aggravated cases. From these it appears that the whole number of game cases tried, or reported to the authorities, in these five counties, during the years 1846 and 1847, was one hundred and forty-four, being about 2.5 per cent of the whole. Fifeshire (which was selected to be shown up before Mr Bright's committee as an abyss of game-law abuses) had, in 1848, out of eight hundred and thirty offences, only three under the game acts. As to the alleged progressive increase of such cases, the subjoined table of the numbers for the five years preceding 1848† proves that, whether it be true or not as respects isolated districts of England, that the number of game-law trials is every year becoming a heavier burden on the public, it certainly is not true in four of the largest and most game-keeping counties of Scotland.

We have now to make a remark or two on the plea set up on behalf of the poacher against the present game laws. What is it that makes a man become a poacher? "Temptation," says Mr Bright, "and temptation only. How can you expect that the poor but honest labourer, who, on his way home from his daily toil, sees hares and

pheasants swarming round his path, should abstain from eking out his scanty meal with one of those wild animals, which, though on your land, are no more yours than his? The idea would never have occurred to him if he had not seen the pheasants; and if there had been no game laws, he would have remained an upright and useful member of society." Such, we believe, is the beau-ideal of the poacher, as we find it in abolitionist speeches, and in popular afterpieces at the theatre. He is, of course, always poor, but virtuous,―

"A friendless man, at whose dejected eye Th' unfeeling proud one looks, and passes by."

We shall not quarrel, however, with the fidelity of this fancy sketch; but we may be allowed to doubt whether any large proportion of those who incur penalties for game trespass have been led into temptation by the mere abundance of game in large preserves. Men of plain sense will think it just as fair to ascribe the frequency of larceny to the abundance of bandanas which old gentlemen will keep dangling from their pockets while pursuing their studies at print-shop windows. The evidence taken by the committee seems rather to show that the poacher's trade thrives best where there is what is called "a fair sprinkling of illwatched game, than where he has to encounter a staff of vigilant and welltrained keepers. But what though the case were otherwise? Suppose the existence of the temptation to be admitted, is it to be seriously argued that the province of legislation is not to prohibit offence, but to remove all temptation from the offenders? not to protect men in the enjoyment of their rights, but to abridge or annihilate those rights, that they may not be invaded by others? This, we affirm, is the principle when reduced to simple terms; and startling enough it is to those who have been accustomed to think that the proper tendency of laws and civilisation is in precisely the opposite direction. What although a breach of these laws may sometimes be the commencement of a course of crime, are there no other temptations which open the road to the hulks or the penitentiary? If the magistrates of our towns, who so vehemently

denounce the danger of the game laws, are sincere in their search after the sources of crime, and in their efforts to repress them, we can help their inquiries-we can show them at their own doors, and swarming in every street, temptations to debauchery, which have made a hundred crimes for every one that can be traced to game laws, and yet we cannot perceive that the zeal of our civic reformers has been very strenuously directed to discourage or to diminish the numbers of these dens of dissipation. We can refer them to the reports of our gaol chaplains for proof that three out of every four prisoners are ignorant of the simplest rudiments of education; and yet a praiseworthy attempt lately made in our metropolis to promote instruction by means of apprentice schools, was not favoured with the countenance of our chief magistrate, because he happened to be engaged in the more philanthropic duty of presiding at a meeting for condemning the game laws!

If we are called upon to assign a reason for the frequency of poaching, we should attribute it neither to the mere superabundance of game by itself, nor yet to the pressure of poverty, but very much to the same sort of temptation that encourages the common thief to filch a watch or a handkerchief-namely, the facility of disposing of his spoil. Well-stocked covers may present opportunities to the poacher for turning his craft to account, but it is plain the practice would be comparatively rare if he did not know that at the bar of the next alehouse he can barter his sackful of booty either for beer or ready coin, and no questions asked. Every village of 1000 or 1500 inhabitants offers a market for his wares, and any surplus in the hands of the country dealer can be transferred in eighteen hours to the London poulterer's window. There cannot be a doubt that the consumption of game has increased enormously since the beginning of this century. It was formerly unknown at the tables of men of moderate means, except when haply it came as an occasional remembrance from some country relation, or grateful M.P. Now-a-days the spouse of any third-rate attorney or thriving tradesman would consider

her housekeeping disgraced for ever, if she failed to present the expected pheasant or brace of moorfowl "when the goodman feasts his friends." And even if we descend to the artisans and operatives of our large towns, it will be found that hares and rabbits form a wholesome and by no means unusual variation of their daily fare. We have the evidence of one of the great Leadenhall game dealers, that in the month of November hares are sent up to London in such quantities, that they are often enabled to sell them at 9d., and even at 6d. each. The average weight of a hare may be taken at about 8 lb.; and if we deduct onehalf for the skin, &c., there will remain 4 lb. of nutritious food, which, even at 2s., is cheaper than beef or mutton; while the occasional change cannot but be both agreeable and beneficial to those who have so limited a choice of food within reach of their means. Some idea may be formed of the vast quantity of game brought into London, from the statements of Mr Brooke, who buys £10,000 worth of game during the course of the winter; and there are ten other great salesmen in Leadenhall market alone. If we make allowance for the supplies sent directly to the smaller poulterers, for the consumption in the other great towns throughout the kingdom, and for the probably still larger quantity that never comes into market at all, it is impossible to deny that game has now become an important part of the food of the people, and that, as an article of commerce, it deserves the attention of the legislature. Any attempt to check the production and sale of a commodity for which there is so general a demand, must prove both useless and mischievous. It is in vain to proscribe it as an expensive luxury, and insist on the substitution of less costly fare. It may be true, for anything we know, that the grain or provender consumed by the 164,000 head of game, which Mr Brooke disposed of in six months, might have produced a greater weight of bullocks or Leicester wedders, (though this is extremely unlikely, for the simple reason that grain, grass, and green crops form only a part of the food of

any of the game species); but, whether true or not, it is useless to prevent the rearing of game by any sort of sumptuary enactment, direct or indirect. The proper course of legislation is very plain. While compensation should be made exigible for all damage from excess of game, and new statutory provision made for this purpose, if the present law is insufficient-fair encouragement should at the same time be given for the production, in a legitimate way, of what is required for the use of the public. Facilities should be afforded to the honest dealer for conducting his trade without risk or disguise, and the useless remnant of the qualification law in Scotland should be abolished. Measures of this nature, by turning the constant demand for game into proper channels, will prove the most effectual discouragement to the occupation of the poacher, and to the reckless and irregular habits of life which it generally induces.

A very opposite result, we are persuaded, would follow from the adoption of Mr Bright's quack recipe for putting an end to the practice of poaching. By what indirect influence is the abolition of the game laws expected to produce this effect? If, indeed, along with the game laws, you sweep away also the law of common trespass-if you proclaim, in the nineteenth century, a return to the habits of the golden age, when, as Tibullus tells us

"Nullus erat custos, nulla exclusura volentes Janua;"

and if you authorise the populace at large to traverse every park and enclosure, at all hours and seasons, and in any numbers and any manner they please, then we can understand that a few months probably of rustic riot and license may settle the question by the extermination of the whole game species. But we have not yet met any game-law reformer so rabid as to propose putting an end to the penalties on ordinary trespass; on the contrary, we find most of them, (Sir Harry Verney and Mr Pusey among the number,)* anticipating the necessity of arming the law with much

stronger powers for preventing common trespasses. And even without such additional powers, will not the trespass law as it stands be employed by proprietors to prevent interference with their sports? Is it supposed that the abolition of the game statutes will at once prevent the owners of great manors from rearing pheasants in their own covers? It may indeed drive them to do so at a greater expense, and to enlist additional watchers; but it is not likely that keen game preservers will not avail themselves of such defences as the common law may still leave them. Game then, we contend, may be thinned by this plan, but it will not be exterminated. The consequence will be that its price will be enhanced; but as the demand will still continue, the trade of the poachers will remain as thriving as ever. He may have to work harder and to trudge farther before he can fill his wallet; but this will be compensated by the additional price; and if the present quantity of game is diminished by one-half, the consequence will be that his agents will be able to pay him five shillings a-head for his pheasants instead of five shillings a-brace. In short, we should anticipate, as the effects of abolishing the present statutes, that, while many of the less wealthy owners of land would be deterred by the expense from protecting game, and while the amusement (such as it is) would become greatly more exclusive than it is now, such a measure would not only fail to remove any of the inducements which tempt the idle peasant to take to the predatory life of a poacher, but would, in the outset at least, induce many to try it who never thought of it before.

We must now pass on to the considerations we have to offer on the situation of the tenant-farmer as to game; and the first question that suggests itself as to his case is this, Whether the injury suffered by tenants be really so serious and extensive as is represented?

"There is no denying," says Mr Shepherd, in his Essay, (p. 12,)" the notoriety of the fact that, in a great majority of instances, this excessive power of infringement on the property of the tenant through these

laws has been abused. It has been almost universally abused." Is this true as regards either England or Scotland? or is it merely one of those vague and reckless affirmations which a man writing for a purpose, and not for truth, is so apt to hazard, in disregard or defiance of the facts before him? One thing we do find to be notorious-that the committee's evidence of game abuses in Scotland was limited to one solitary case, that of the estate of Wemyss. And although we may very readily conceive that, with more time and exertion, the agents of the league might have ferreted out other instances, we may, nevertheless, be allowed to express our astonishment that, on the slender foundation of this single case, Mr Bright should have ventured to ask his committee to find the general fact proved, that the prosperity of agriculture “in many parts of Scotland as well as England, is greatly impaired by the preservation of game." We learn at least to estimate the value of the honourable gentleman's judgment, and the amount of proof which an abolitionist regards as demonstration. But the truth is, that the case of Scotland was not examined at all; and the rejected report of Mr Bright and his associates bears on its face the most satisfactory evidence of their utter ignorance that the law on this side the Tweed is a perfectly different system from that of England.

Will any believe that if our Scotch farmers, in a great majority of instances," found their property sacrificed, they would not have universally joined in demanding the interference of the legislature? But what is the fact? An examination of the reports on petitions during the last two sessions shows that there certainly have been petitions against the game laws, but that for every one emanating from an agricultural body there have been ten from town-councils. We have better evidence, however, than mere inference, for the general distrust with which the farmers have regarded this agitation; for we find the Leaguers themselves, one and all of them, lamenting that their disinterested exertions on behalf of the tenantry have been viewed by that body with the