would cost him without a turnpike. The New River | Company brings water to every inhabitant of London at an infinitely less price than he could dip for it out of the Thames. No country, in fact, is so expensive as one which human beings are just beginning to inhabit; -where there are no roads, no bridges, no skill, no combination of powers, and no force of capital. rights and pretensions in the best way they could; but the clearest of all propositions would be, that the four proprietors, among them made a complete title of all the fish; and that nobody but them had the smallest title to the smallest share. This we say, in answer to those who contend that there is no foundation for any system of game laws; that animals born wild are the property of the public; and that their appropriation is nothing but tyranny and usurpation. In addition to these arguments, it is perhaps scarce How, too, can any man take upon himself to say, that he is so indifferent to his country that he will not begin to love it intensely, when he is 5000 or 6000 miles from it? And what a dreadful disease Nostal-ly necessary to add, that nothing which is worth hav gia must be on the banks of the Missouri! Severe and painful poverty will drive us all anywhere: but a wise man should be quite sure he has so irresistible a plea, before he ventures on the Great or the Little Wabash. He should be quite sure that he does not /go there from ill temper-or to be pitied-or to be regretted or from ignorance of what is to happen to him-or because he is a poet-but because he has not enough to eat here, and is sure of abundance where he is going. GAME LAWS. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1819.) Three Letters on the Game Laws. Rest Fenner, Black & Co. London, 1818. ing, which is accessible, and supplied only in limited quantities, could exist at all, if it was not considered as the property of some individual. If every body might take game wherever they found it, there would soon be an end to every species of game. The advan tage would not be extended to fresh classes, but be an. nihilated for all classes. Besides all this, the privil ege of killing game could not be granted without the privilege of trespassing on landed property; an intolerable evil, which would entirely destroy the comfort and privacy of a country life. But though a system of game laws is of great use in promoting country amusements, and may, in itself, be placed on a footing of justice, its effects, we are sorry to say, are by no means favourable to the morals of the poor. THE evil of the Game Laws, in their present state. has It is impossible to make an uneducated man underlong been felt, and of late years has certainly rather stand in what manner a bird hatched nobody knows increased than diminished. We believe that they can- where,-to-day living in my field, to-morrow in yours, not long remain in their present state; and we are anx-should be as strictly property as the goose whose ious to express our opinion of those changes which whole history can be traced in the most authentic they ought to experience. and satisfactory manner, from the egg to the spit. The arguments upon which this depends are so contrary to the notions of the poor-so repugnant to their passions, and, perhaps, so much above their comprehension, that they are totally unavailing. The same man who would respect an orchard, a garden, or an hen-roost, scarcely thinks he is committing any fault at all in invading the game-covers of his richer neighbour; and as soon as he becomes wearied of honest industry, his first resource is in plundering the rich magazine of hares, pheasants, and partridgesthe top and bottom dishes, which on every side of his village are running and fiying before his eyes. As these things cannot be done with safety in the day, they must be done in the night;-and in this manner a lawless marauder is often formed, who proceeds from one infringement of law and property to another, till he becomes a thoroughly bad and corrupted member of society. We thoroughly acquiesce in the importance of encouraging those field sports which are so congenial to the habits of Englishmen, and which, in the present state of society, afford the only effectual counterbalance to the allurements of great towns. We cannot conceive a more pernicious condition for a great nation, than that its aristocracy should be shut up from one year's end to another in a metropolis, while the mass of its rural inhabitants are left to its factors and agents. A great man returning from London to spend his summer in the country, diffuses intelligence, improves manners, communicates pleasure, restrains the extreme violence of subordinate politicians, and makes the middling and lower classes better acquainted with, and more attached to their natural leaders, At the same time a residence in the country gives to the makers of laws an opportunity of studying those interests which they may afterwards be called upon to protect and arrange. Nor is it unimportant to the character of the higher orders themselves, that they should pass a considerable part of the year in the midst of these their larger families; that they should occasionally be thrown among simple, laborious, frugal people, and be stimulated to resist the prodigality of courts, by viewing with their own eyes the merits and the wretchedness of the poor. Laws for the preservation of game are not only of importance, as they increase the amusements of the country, but they may be so constructed as to be perfectly just. The game which my land feeds is certainly mine; or, in other words, the game which all the land feeds certainly belongs to all the owners of the land; and the only practical way of dividing it is, to give to each proprieter what he can take on his own ground. Those who contribute nothing to the support of the animal, can have no possible right to a share in the distribution. To say of animals, that they are fera Natura, means only, that the precise place of their birth and nurture is not known. How they shall be divided, is a matter of arrangement among those whose collected property certainly has produced and fed them; but the case is completely made out against those who have no land at all, and who cannot therefore have been in the slightest degree instrumental to their production. If a large pond were divided by certain marks into four parts, and allotted to that number of proprietors, the fish contained in that pond would be in the same sense, fera Natura. Nobody could tell in which particular division each carp had been born and bred. The owners would arrange their respective These few preliminary observations lead naturally to the two principal considerations which are to be kept in view, in reforming the game laws-to preserve, as far as is consistent with justice, the amusements of the rich, and to diminish, as much as possible, the temptations of the poor. And these ends, it seems to us, will be best answered, 1. By abolishing qualifications. 2. By giving to every man a property in the game upon his land. 3. By allowing game to be bought by any body, and sold by its lawful possessors.* Nothing can be more grossly absurd than the present state of the game laws, as far as they concern the qualification for shooting. In England, no man can possibly have a legal right to kill game, who has not 1001. a-year in land rent. With us, in Scotland, the rule is not quite so inflexible, though in principle not very different.-But we shall speak to the case which concerns by far the greatest number; and certainly it is scarcely possible to imagine a more absurd and capricious limitation. For what possible reason is a man, who has only 901. per annum in land, not to kill the game which his own land nourishes? If the legislature really conceives, as we have heard surmised by certain learned squires, that a person of such a degree of fortune should be confined to profitable pursuits, and debarred from that pernicious idleness into which he would be betrayed by field sports, it would then be expedient to make a qualification for bowls or skittles to prevent landowners from going *All this has since been established. to races, or following a pack of hounds-and to pro- | at the expense of the neighbour who surrounded him. hibit to men of a certain income, every other species of amusement as well as this. The only instance, however, in which this paternal care is exercised, is that in which the amusement of the smaller landowner is supposed to interfere with those of his richer neighbour. He may do what he pleases, and elect any other species of ruinous idleness but that in which the upper classes of society are his rivals. But, under the present game laws, if the smaller pos session belongs to a qualified person, the danger of intrusion is equally great as it would be under the proposed alteration; and the danger from the poacher would be the same in both cases. But if it is of such great consequence to keep clear from all interference, may not such a piece of land be rented or bought?— Or, may not the food which tempts game, be sown in Nay, the law is so excessively ridiculous in the case the same abundance in the surrounding as in the inof small landed proprietors, that on a property of less closed land? After all, it is only common justice, that than 1007. per annum, no human being has the right of he whose property is surrounded on every side by a shooting. It is not confined, but annihilated. The preserver of game, whose corn and turnips are demollord of the manor may be warned off by the proprie-ished by animals preserved for the amusement of his tor; and the proprietor may be informed against by neighbour, should himself be entitled to that share of any body who sees him sporting. The case is still game which plunders upon his land. The complaint stronger in the instance of large farms. In Northum- which the landed grandee makes is this. Here is a berland, and on the borders of Scotland, there are large man who has only a twenty-fourth part of the land, capitalists who farm to the amount of two or three and he expects a twenty-fourth part of the game. He thousand per annum, who have the permission of their is so captíous and litigious, that he will not be contentdistant non-resident landlords to do what they please ed to supply his share of the food without requiring with the game, and yet who dare not fire off a gun his share of what the food produces. I want neighupon their own land. Can any thing be more utterly bour who has talents only for suffering, not one who absurd and preposterous, than that the landlord and evinces such a fatal disposition for enjoying. Upon the wealthy tenant together cannot make up a title to such principles as these, many of the game laws have the hare which is fattened upon the choicest produce been constructed, and are preserved. The interference of their land? That the landlord, who can let to farm of a very small property with a very large one; the the fertility of the land for growing wheat, cannot let critical position of one or two fields, is a very serious to farm its power of growing partridges? That he source of vexation on many other occasions besides may reap by deputy, but cannot on that manor shoot those of game. He who possesses a field in the midby deputy? Is it possible that any respectable ma- dle of my premises, may build so as to obstruct my gistrate could fine a farmer for killing a hare upon his view; and may present to me the hinder part of a own grounds with his landlord's consent, without feel- barn, instead of one of the finest landscapes in nature. ing that he was violating every feeling of common Nay, he may turn his field into tea-gardens, and desense and justice? stroy my privacy by the introduction of every species Since the enactment of the game laws, there has of vulgar company. The legislature, in all these in sprung up an entirely new species of property, which stanees, has provided no remedy for the inconvenienof course is completely overlooked by their provis- ces which a small property, by such intermixture, ions. An Englishman may possess a million of money may inflict upon a large one, but has secured the same in funds, or merchandize-may be the Baring or the rights to unequal proportions. It is very difficult to Hope of Europe-provide to government the sudden conceive why these equitable principles are to be viomeans of equipping fleets and armies, and yet be with-lated in the case of game alone. out the power of smiting a single partridge, though in- Our securities against that rabble of sportsmen vited by the owner of the game to participate in his which the abolition of qualifications might be supamusement. It is idle to say that the difficulty may posed to produce, are, the consent of the owner of the be got over, by purchasing land: the question is, upon soil as an indispensable preliminary, guarded by heavy what principle of justice can the existence of the diffi- penalties and the price of a certificate, rendered, culty be defended! If the right of keeping men- perhaps, greater than it is at present. It is impossiservants was confined to persons who had more than ble to conceive why the owner of the soil, if the right 1001. a-year in the funds, the difficulty might be got of game is secured to him, has not a right to sell, or over by every man who would change his landed prop-grant the right of killing it to whom he pleases-just erty to that extent. But what could justify so capri- as much as he has the power of appointing whom he cious a partiality to one species of property? There pleases to kill his ducks, pigeon's, and chickens. The might be some apology for such laws at the time they were made; but there can be none for their not being now accommodated to the changes which time has introduced. If you choose to exclude poverty from this species of amusement, and to open it to wealth, why is it not opened to every species of wealth? What amusement can there be morally lawful to an holder of turnip land, and criminal in a possessor of exchequer bills? What delights ought to be tolerated to long annuities, from which wheat and beans should be excluded? What matters whether it is scrip or short-horned cattle? If the locus quo is conceded-if the trespass is waived-and if the qualification for any amusement is wealth, let it be any provable wealth Dives agris, dives positis in fœnore nummis. It will be very easy for any country gentleman who wishes to monopolize to himself the pleasure of shoot ing, to let to his tenant every other right attached to the land, except the right of killing game; and it will be equally easy, in the formation of a new game act, to give to the landlord a summary process against his tenant, if such tenant fraudulently exercises the privileges he has agreed to surrender. danger of making the poor idle, is a mere pretence. It is monopoly calling in the aid of hypocrisy, and tyranny veiling itself in the garb of philosophical humanity. A poor man goes to wakes, fairs, and horse-races, without pain and penalty; a little shopkeeper, when his work is over, may go to a bull-bait, or to the cockpit; but the idea of his pursuing an hare, even with the consent of the land-owner, fills the Bucolic senator with the most lively apprehensions of relaxed industry and ruinous dissipation. The truth is, if a poor man does not offend against morals or religion, and supports himself and his family without assistance, the law has nothing to do with his amusements. The real barriers against increase of sportsmen (if the proposed alteration were admitted), are, as we have before said, the prohibition of the landowner; the tax to the state for a certificate; the necessity of labouring for support.-Whoever violates none of these rights, and neglects none of these duties in his sporting, sports without crime; and to punish him would be gross and scandalous tyranny. The next alteration which we would propose is, that game should be made property; that is, that every man should have a right to the game found upon his land-and that the violation of it should be punished as The case which seems most to alarm country gen-poaching now is, by pecuniary penalties, and summatlemen, is that of a person possessing a few acres in ry conviction before magistrates. This change in the the very heart of a manor, who might, by planting food of which they are fond, allure the game into his wa little domain, and thus reap an harvest prepared game laws would be an additional defence of game; for the landed proprietor has now no other remedy against the qualified intruder upon his game, than an action at law for a trespass on the land; and if the "The first and most palpable effect has naturally been an trespasser has received no notice, this can hardly be exaltation of all the savage and desperate features in the poachcalled any remedy at all. It is now no uncommon er's character. The war between him and the gamekeeper has practice for persons who have the exterior, and per- hesitate perhaps at killing his fellow man, when the alternative necessarily become a "bellum internecivum." A marauder may haps the fortunes of gentlemen, as they are travelling is only six months' imprisonment in the county jail; but when from place to place, to shoot over manors where they the alternative is to overcome the keeper, or to be torn from his have no property, and from which, as strangers, they family and connections, and sent to hard labour at the Antipodes, cannot have been warned. In such a case (which we we cannot be much surprised that murders and midnight comrepeat again, is by no means one of rare occurrence), bats have considerably increased this season; or that informait would, under the reformed system, be no more diffi. tion such as the following has frequently enriched the columns cult for the lord of the soil to protect his game, than it of the country newspapers. would be to protect his geese and ducks. But though game should be considered as property, it should still be considered as the lowest species of property-because it is in its nature more vague and mutable than other species of property, and because depredations are carried on at a distance from the dwelling, and without personal alarm to the proprietors. It would be very easy to increase the penalties, in proportion to the number of offences committed by the same indi. vidual. The punishments which country gentlemen expect by making game property, are punishments affixed to offences of a much higher order; but country gentle. men must not be allowed to legislate exclusively on this, more than on any other subject. The very men tion of hares and partridges in the country, too often puts an end to common humanity and common sense. Game must be protected; but protected without violating those principles of justice, and that adaptation of punishment to crime, which (incredible as it may appear), are of infinitely greater importance than the amusemements of country gentlemen. before Richard Clutterbuck, Esq., of keeping and using engines "POACHING. Richard Barnett was on Tuesday convicted or wires for the destruction of game in the parish of Dunkerton, and fined £5. He was taken into custody by C. Coates, keeper to Sir Charles Bamfylde, Bart., who found upon him 17 wiresnares. The new act that has just passed against these illegal practices, seems only to have irritated the offenders, and made them more daring and desperate. The following is a copy of an magistrates, and other eminent characters in this neighborhood. anonymous circular letter, which has been received by several 666 "TAKE NOTICE. We have lately heard and seen that there is an act passed, and whatever poacher is caught destroying the game is to be transported for seven years.-This is English liberty! "Now, we do swear to each other, that the first of our com. pany that this law is inflicted on, that there shall not one gentlein number, and we will burn every gentleman's house of note. man's seat in our country escape the rage of fire. We are nine The first that impeaches shall be shot. We have sworn not to impeach. You may think it a threat, but they will find it reality. The game-laws were too severe before. The Lord of all men sent these animals for the peasants as well as for the prince. God will not let his people be oppressed. He will assist us in our undertaking, and we will execute it with caution."-Bath paper. "DEATH OF A POACHER-On the evening of Saturday se’euWe come now to the sale of game.--The foundation night, about eight or nine o'clock, a body of poachers, seven in on which the propriety of allowing this partly rests, is number, assembled by mutual agreement on the estate of the the impossibility of preventing it. There exists, and Hon. John Dutton, at Sherborne, Gloucestershire, for the purhas sprung up since the game laws, an enormous mass pose of taking hares and other game. With the assistance of two of wealth, which has nothing to do with land. Do the dogs, and some nets and snares which they had brought with country gentlemen imagine that it is in the power of them, they had succeeded in catching nine hares, and were carhuman laws to deprive the three per cents of phea-keeper and seven others who were engaged with him in patrol rying them away, when they were discovered by the gamesants? That there is upon earth, air, or sea, a single ing the different covers, in order to protect the game from flavour (cost what crime it may to procure it), that nightly depredators. Immediately on perceiving the poachers, mercantile opulence will not procure? Increase the the keeper summoned them in a civil and peaceable manner to difficulty, and you enlist vanity on the side of luxury; give up their names, dogs, implements, &c. they had with them, and make that to be sought for as a display of wealth, and the game they had taken; at the same time assuring them which was before valued only for the gratification of that his party had fire-arms (which were produced for the purpose of convincing and alarming them), and representing to appetite. The law may multiply penalties by reams. them the folly of resistance, as, in the event of an affray, they Squires may fret and justices may commit, and game- must inevitably be overpowered by superior numbers, even keepers and poachers continue their nocturnal wars. without fire-arms, which they were determined not to resort to There must be game on Lord Mayor's day, do what unless compelled in self-defence. Notwithstanding this remon you will. You may multiply the crimes by which it strance of the keeper, the men unanimously refused to give up is procured; but nothing can arrest its inevitable pro- on any terms, declaring that if they were followed, they would gress, from the wood of the esquire to the spit of the give them a "brush," and would repel force by force. The citizen. The late law for preventing the sale of game down with the game, &c., behind them, and approached the poachers then directly took off their great coats, threw them produced some little temporary difficulty in London keepers in an attitude of attack. A smart contest instantly enat the beginning of the season. The poulterers were sued, both parties using only the sticks or bludgeons they caralarmed and came to some resolutions, but the alarm ried and such was the confusion during the battle, that some of soon began to subside, and the difficulties to vanish. the keepers were occasionally struck by their own comrades in In another season the law will be entirely nugatory manner about eight or ten minutes, one of the poachers, named mistake for their opponents. After they had fought in this and forgotten. The experiment was tried of increased Robert Simmons, received a violent blow upou his left temple, severity; and a law passed to punish poachers with which felled him to the ground, where he lay, crying out murtransportation who were caught poaching in the night der, and asking for mercy. The keepers very humanely desired time with arms. What has the consequence been? that all violence might cease on both sides: upon which three of Not a cessation of poaching, but a succession of vil- the poachers took to flight and escaped, and the remaining lage guerillas; an internecive war between gamekeep-three, together with Simmons, were secured by the keepers. ers and marauders of game-the whole country flung Simmons, by the assistance of the other men, walked to the into brawls and convulsions, for the unjust and exorbi-keeper's house, where he was placed in a chair: but he soon after died. His death was no doubt caused by the pressure of tant pleasures of country gentlemen. The poacher blood upon the brain, occasioned by the rupture of a vessel from hardly believes he is doing any wrong in taking par- the blow he had received. The three poachers who had been tridges and pheasants. He would admit the justice of being transported for stealing sheep; and his courage in such a transaction would be impaired by a consciousness he was doing wrong: but he has no such feeling in taking game; and the preposterous punish ment of transportation makes him desperate, and not timid. Single poachers are gathered into large companies for their mutual protection; and go out, not only with the intention of taking game, but of defending what they take with their lives. Such feelings soon produce a rivalry of personal courage, and the thirst of revenge between the villagers and the agents of power. We extract the following passages on this subject from the Three Letters on the Game Laws: taken were committed to Northleach prison. The inquest upon have existed between them; and as it appeared to the jury, after 'But then, in order to secure a sufficient breed of game for the supply of the market, in fair and open competition, it will be necessary to authorize a certain number of persons, likely to breed game for sale, to take and dispose of it when reared at their expense. For this purpose, I would suggest the propriety of permitting by law occupiers of land to take and kill game, for sale or otherwise, on their own occupations only, unless, (if tenants) they are specifically prohibited by agreement with their landlord; reserving the game and the power of taking it to himself, (as is now frequently done in leases.) This permission should not, of course, operate during the current leases, unless by agreement. With this precaution, nothing could be fairer than such an enactment; for it is certainly at the expense of the occupier that the game is raised and mainabatement of rent upon agreement, or by permission to take tained and unless he receive an equivalent for it, either by and dispose of it, he is certainly an injured man. Whereas it is perfectly just that the owner of the land should have the option either to increase his rent by leaving the disposal of his game to his tenant, or vice versa. Game would be held to be (as in fact it is) an outgoing from the land, like tithe and other burdens, and therefore to be considered in a bargain; and the land would either be let game-free, or a special reservation of it made by agreement. 'Moreover, since the breed of game must always depend upon the occupier of the land, who may, and frequently does, destroy every head of it, or prevent its coming to maturity, unless it is considered in his rent; the license for which I am now contending, by affording an inducement to preserve the effect in increasing the stock of game in other parts, and in the breed in particular spots, would evidently have a considerable country at large. There would be introduced a general system of protection depending upon individual interest, instead of a general system of destruction. I have, therefore, very little doubt that the provision here recommended would, upon the whole, add facilities to the amusements of the sportsman, rather than subtract from them. A sportsman without land might also hire from the occupier of a large tract of land the privilege of shooting over it, which would answer to the latter as well as sending his game to the market. In short, he might in various ways get a return, to which he is well entitled for the expense and trouble incurred in rearing and preserving that particular species of stock upon his land.'-(p. 337-339.) Poaching will exist in some degree, let the laws be what they may; but the most certain method of checking the poacher seems to be by underselling him. If game can be lawfully sold, the quantity sent to market will be increased, the price lowered, and, with that, the profits and temptations of the poacher. Not only would the prices of the poacher be lowered, but we much doubt if he would find any sale at all. Licenses to sell game might be confined to real poulterers, and real occupiers of a certain portion of land. It might be rendered penal to purchase it from any but licensed persons; and in this way the facility of the lawful, and the danger of the unlawful trade, would either annihilate the poacher's trade, or reduce his prices so much, that it would be hardly worth his while to carry it on. What poulterer in London, or in any of the large towns, would deal with poachers, and expose himself to indictment for receiving stolen goods, when he might supply his customers at fair prices by dealing with the lawful proprietor of game? Opinion is of more power than law. Such conduct would soon become infamous; and every respectable tradesman would be shamed out of it. The consumer himself would rather buy his game of a poulterer at an increase of price, than pick it up clandestinely, and at a great risk, though a somewhat smaller price, from porters and booth-keepers. Give them a chance of getting it fairly, and they will not get it unfairly. At present, no one has the slightest shame at violating a law which every body feels to be absurd and unjust. Poultry-houses are sometimes robbed ;-but stolen poultry is rarely offered to sale;—at least, nobody pretends that the shops of poulterers, and the tables of moneyed gentlemen, are supplied by these means. Out of one hundred geese that are consumed at Michaelmas, ninety-nine come into the jaws of the consumer by honest means; and yet, if it had pleased The smuggler can compete with the spirit-merchant, the country gentlemen to have goose laws as well as game laws;-if goose-keepers had been appointed, but where there is no duty to be saved, the mere thief on account of the great duty imposed by the revenue; and the sale and purchase of this savoury bird pro- the man who brings the article to market with an hibited, the same enjoyments would have been procured by the crimes and convictions of the poor; and the periodical gluttony of Michaelmas have been rendered as guilty and criminal, as it is indigestible and unwholesome. Upon this subject we shall quote a passage from the very sensible and spirited letters before us. preser in great manors on a single day. We think it highly There are sometimes 400 or 500 head of game killed probable, the greater part of this harvest (if the game laws were altered) would go to the poulterer, to purNobody is so poor and so distressed as men of very chase poultry or fish for the ensuing London season. large fortunes, who are fond of making an unwise display to the world; and if they had recourse to these that the occupation of the poacher could be contínued. means of supplying game, it is impossible to suppose halter round his neck-the man of whom it is disreputable and penal to buy-who hazards life, liberty, and property, to procure the articles which he sells; such an adventurer can never be long the rival of him who honestly and fairly produces the articles in which he deals.-Fines, imprisonments, concealment, loss of character, are great deductions from the profits of any trade to which they attach, and great discouragements to its pursuit. It is not the custom at present for gentlemen to sell their game; but the custom would soon begin, and public opinion soon change. It is not unusual for men of fortune to contract with their gardeners to supply their own table, and to send the residue to market, or to sell their venison; and the same thing might be done with the manor. If game could be bought, it would not be sent in presents :-barn-door fowls are never so sent, precisely for this reason. 'In favourable situations, game would be reared and ved for the express purpose of regularly supplying the market in fair and open competition; which would so reduce its price, that I see no reason why a partridge should be dearer than a rabbit, or a hare and pheasant than a duck or goose. This is about the proportion of price which the animals bear to each other in France, where game can be legally sold, and is regularly brought to market; and where, by the way, game is as plentiful as in any cultivated country in Europe. The price so reduced would never be enough to compensate the risk and penalties of the unlawful poacher, who must therefore be driven out of the market. Doubtless, the great poulterers of London and the commercial towns, who are the principal insti- The price of game would, under the system of laws gators of poaching, would cease to have any temptation to of which we are speaking, be further lowered by the continue so, as they would fairly and lawfully procure game introduction of foreign game, the sale of which, at for their customers at a cheaper rate from the regular breeders. They would, as they now do for rabbits and wild fowl, present prohibited, would tend very much to the precontract with persons to rear and preserve them for the regu-servation of English game by underselling the poacher. lar supply of their shops, which would be a much more commo- It would not be just, if it were possible, to confine dious and satifactory, and less hazardous way for them, than any of the valuable productions of nature to the use of the irregular and dishonest and corrupting methods now pur- one class of men, and to prevent them from becoming sued. It is not saying very much in favour of human nature the subject of barter, when the proprietor wished so to assert, that men in respectable stations of society had rather to exchange them. It would be just as reasonable procure the same ends by honest than dishonest means. Thus would all the temptations to offend against the game-laws, that the consumption of salmon should be confined to arising from the change of society, together with the long the proprietors of that sort of fishery-that the use of chain of moral and political mischiefs, at once disappear. charr should be limited to the inhabitants of the lakes -that maritime Englishmen should alone eat oysters and lobsters, as that every other class of the community than landowners should be prohibited from the acquisition of game. 1. BOTANY BAY. (EDINBURGH LEVIEW, 1810.) 4 Statistical, Historical, and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales, and its dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land: with a particular Enumeration of the Advantages which these Colonies offer for Emigration, and their Superiority in many respects over those possessed by the United States of America. By W. C. Wentworth, Esq., a Native of the Colony. Whittaker. London, 1819. Letter to Viscount Sidmouth, Secretary of State for the Home Department, on the Transportation Laws, the State of the Hulks, and of the Colonies in New South Wales. By the Hon. Henry Grey Bennet, M. P. Ridgway. London, 1819. 3. O'Hara's History of New South Wales. Hatchard. London, 2. 1818. It will be necessary, whenever the game laws are revised, that some of the worst punishments now inflicted for an infringement of these laws should be repealed. To transport a man for seven years, on account of partridges, and to harass a poor wretched peasant in the Crown Office, are very preposterous punishments for such offences; humanity revolts against them-they are grossly tyrannical-and it is disgraceful that they should be suffered to remain on our statute books. But the most singular of all abuses, is the new class of punishments which the squirarchy THIS land of convicts and kangaroos is beginning to have themselves enacted against depredations on rise into a very fine and flourishing settlement:-And game. The law says, that an unqualified man who great indeed must be the natural resources, and splenkills a pheasant, shall pay five pounds; but the squire did the endowments of that land that has been able to says he shall be shot;-and accordingly he places a survive the system of neglect and oppression expe spring-gun in the path of the poacher, and does all he rienced from the mother country, and the series of ig can to take away his life. The more humane and norant and absurd governors that have been selected mitigated squire mangles him with traps; and the for the administration of its affairs. But mankind supra-fine country gentleman only detains him in ma- live and flourish not only in spite of storms and temchines, which prevent his escape, but do not lacerate pests, but (which could not have been anticipated pretheir captive. Of the gross illegality of such proceed-vious to experience) in spite of colonial secretaries exings, there can be no reasonable doubt. Their immo- pressly paid to watch over their interests. The supinerality and cruelty are equally clear. If they are not ness and profligacy of public officers cannot always put down by some declaratory law, it will be absolute- overcome the amazing energy with which human be ly necessary that the judges, in their invaluable cir- ings pursue their happiness, nor the sagacity with cuits of Oyer and Terminer, should leave two or three which they determine on the means by which that of his majesty's squires to a fate too vulgar and in- end is to be promoted. Be it our care, however, to redelicate to be alluded to in this journal. cord for the future inhabitants of Australasia, the poMen have certainly a clear right to defend their pro-litical sufferings of their larcenous forefathers; and let perty; but then it must be by such means as the law them appreciate, as they ought, that energy which allows: their houses by pistols, their fields by actions founded a mighty empire in spite of the afflicting blum. for trespass, their game by information. There is anders and marvellous cacœconomy of their governend of law, if every man is to measure out his punishment. ment for his own wrong. Nor are we able to distin- Botany Bay is situated in a fine climate, rather Asiguish between the guilt of two persons, the one of atic than European, with a great variety of temperwhom deliberately shoots a man whom he sees in ature,-but favourable on the whole to health and life. his fields the other of whom purposely places such It, conjointly with Van Diemen's Land, produces instruments as he knows will shoot trespassers upon coal in great abundance, fossil salt, slate, lime, plumhis fields. Better that it should be lawful to kill a bago, potter's clay; iron; white, yellow, and brilliant trespasser face to face, than to place engines which topazes; alum and copper. These are all the impor will kill him. The trespasser may be a child-a wo-tant fossil productions which have been hitherto disman-a son or friend. The spring-gun cannot ac- covered: but the epidermis of the country has hardly commodate itself to circumstances,-the squire or the as yet been scratched; and it is most probable that game-keeper may. the immense mountains which divide the eastern and These, then, are our opinions respecting the altera- western settlements, Bathurst and Sydney, must tions in the game laws, which, as they now stand, are abound with every species of mineral wealth. The perhaps the only system which could possibly render harbours are admirable; and the whole world, perthe possession of game so very insecure as it now is. haps, cannot produce two such as those of Port JackWe would give to every man an absolute property in son and Derwent. The former of these is land-locked the game upon his land, with full power to kill-to for fourteen miles in length, and of the most irregular permit others to kill-and to sell ;-we would punish form: its soundings are more than sufficient for the any violation of that property by summary conviction, largest ships; and all the navies of the world might and pecuniary penalties rising in value according to ride in safety within it. In the harbour of Derwent the number of offences. This would of course abolish there is a road-stead forty-eight miles in length, comall qualifications; and we sincerely believe it would pletely land-locked ;-varying in breadth from eight lessen the profits of selling game illegally, so as very to two miles,-in depth from thirty to four fathoms,materially to lessen the number of poachers. It would and affording the best anchorage the whole way. make game, as an article of food, accessible to all The mean heat, during the three summer months, classes, without infringing the laws. It would limit December, January, and February, is about 80° at the amusement of country gentlemen within the noon. The heat which such a degree of the thermoboundaries of justice-and would enable the magis-meter would seem to indicate, is considerably tempertrate cheerfully and conscientiously to execute laws, ed by the sea-breeze, which blows with considerable of the moderation and justice of which he must be tho- force from nine in the morning till seven in the everoughly convinced. To this conclusion, too, we have ning. The three autumn months are March, April, no doubt we shall come at the last. After many years and May, in which the thermometer varies from 55° of scutigeral folly-loaded prisons*-nightly battles at night to 75° at noon. The three winter months are poachers tempted-and families ruined, these princi- June, July, and August. During this interval, the ples will finally prevail, and make law once more co-mornings and evenings are very chilly, and the nights incident with reason and justice. * In the course of the last year, no fewer than twelve hundred persons were committed for offences against the game; besides those who ran away from their families for the fear of commitment. This is no slight quantity of misery. excessively cold; hoar-frosts are frequent; ice, half an inch thick, is found twenty miles from the coast; the mean temperature, at daylight, is from 40° to 45°, and at noon from 55° to 60°. In the three months of * One and no small excuse for the misconduct of colonial secretaries is, the enormous quantity of business by which they are distracted. There should be two or three colonial secretaries instead of one: the office is dreadfully overweighted. The government of the colonies is commonly a series of blundera. |