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GAME LAWS.
(E. REVIEW, 1823.)

A Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
of the House of Commons, on the Game
Lates. By the Hon. and Rev. William
Herbert. Ridgway. 1823.

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dealers and the mail-guards, and coachmen,
to produce a quantity; and I should send to
my own connections in one or two manors
where I have the privilege of selling for
those gentlemen; and should send to Scot-
land to say, that every week the largest
quantity they could produce was to be sent.
small quantity; but I have had about 4000
Being but a petty salesman, I sell a very
head direct from one man.-Can you state
the quantity of game which has been sent
to you during the year? No: I may say,
perhaps, 10,000 head; mine is a limited
trade; I speak comparatively to that of
(Report, p. 20.)
others; I only supply private families."-

Poachers who go out at night cannot, of course, like regular tradesmen, proportion the supply to the demand, but having once made a contract, they kill all they can; and hence it happens that the game market is sometimes very much overstocked, and great quantities of game either thrown away, or disposed of by Irish hawkers to the. common people at very inferior prices.

ABOUT the time of the publication of this little pamphlet of Mr. Herbert, a Committee of the House of Commons published a Report on the Game Laws, containing a great deal of very curious information respecting the sale of game, an epitome of which we shall now lay before our readers. The country higglers who collect poultry, gather up the game from the depôts of the poachers, and transmit it in the same manner as poultry, and in the same packages, to the London poulterers, by whom it is distributed to the public; and this traffic is carried on (as far as game is concerned) even from the distance of Scotland. The same business is carried on by the porters of stage coaches; and a great deal of game is "Does it ever happen to you to be obliged sold clandestinely by lords of manors, to dispose of poultry at the same low prices or by gamekeepers, without the know-you are obliged to dispose of game? ledge of lords of manors; and principally, as the evidence states, from Norfolk and Suffolk, the great schools of steel traps and spring guns. The supply of game, too, is proved to be quite as regular as the supply of poultry; the number of hares and partridges supplied rather exceeds that of pheasants; but any description of game may be had to any amount. Here is a part of the evidence.

"Can you at any time procure any quantity of game? I have no doubt of it.If you were to receive almost an unlimited order, could you execute it? Yes; I would supply the whole city of London, any fixed day once a week, all the year through, so that every individual inhabitant should have game for his table.- Do you think you could procure a thousand pheasants? Yes; I would be bound to produce ten thousand a week.-You would be bound to provide every family in London with a dish of ame? Yes; a partridge, or a pheasant, or a hare, or a grouse, or something or other. -How would you set about doing it? I should, of course, request the persons with whom I am in the habit of dealing, to use their influence to bring me what they could by a certain day; I should speak to the

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depends upon the weather; often when there is a considerable quantity on hand, till the following day, I am obliged to take and, owing to the weather, it will not keep any price that is offered; but we can always turn either poultry or game into some price or other; and if it was not for the Irish hawkers, hundreds and hundreds of heads of game would be spoiled and thrown away. It is out of the power of any person to con

ceive for one moment the quantity of game that is hawked in the streets. I have had opportunity more than other persons of knowing this; for I have sold, I may say, more game than any other person in the city; and we serve hawkers indiscriminately, persons who come and purchase probably six fowls or turkeys and geese, and they will buy heads of game with them."— (Report, p. 22.)

Live birds are sent up as well as dead; eggs as well as birds. The price of pheasants' eggs last year was 8s. per dozen; of partridges' eggs, 28. The price of hares was from 3s. to 5s. 6d. ; of partridges, from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. ; of pheasants, from 5s. to 5s. 6d. each, and sometimes as low as 1s. 6d.

"What have you given for game this

was no man of sense and reflection who did not anticipate the following consequences of the measure:

year? It is very low indeed; I am sick of it; I do not think I shall ever deal again. We have got game this season as low as half-a-crown a brace (birds), and pheasants as low as 78. a brace. It is so plentiful, there has been no end to spoiling it this season. It is so plentiful, it is of no use. In war time it was worth having; then they fetched 78. and 8s. a brace." (Report, p. 33.)

All the poulterers, too, even the most respectable, state, that it is absolutely necessary they should carry on this illegal traffic in the present state of the game laws; because their regular customers for poultry would infallibly leave any poulterer's shop from whence they could not be supplied with game.

"I have no doubt that it is the general wish at present of the trade not to deal in the article; but they are all, of course, compelled from their connections. If they can. not get game from one person they can from another.

"Do you find that less game has been sold in consequence of the bill rendering it penal to sell game? Upon my word, it did not make the slightest difference in the world. Not immediately after it was made? No; I do not think it made the slightest difference. - It did not make the No; I never sold a slightest sensation? bird less.-Was not there a resolution of

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the poulterers not to sell game? I was
secretary to that committee.- What was
the consequence of that resolution?
great deal of ill blood in the trade. One
gentleman who just left the room did not
come in to my ideas. I never had a head
of game in my house; all my neighbours
sold it; and as we had people on the watch,
who were ready to watch it into the houses,
it came to this, we were prepared to bring
our actions against certain individuals,
after sitting, perhaps, from three to four
months, every week, which we did at the
Crown and Anchor in the Strand; but we
did not proceed with our actions, to prevent
ill blood in the trade. We regularly met,
and, as we conceived at the time, formed a
committee of the most respectable of the
trade. I was secretary of that committee.
The game was sold in the city, in the
vicinity of the Royal Exchange, cheaper
than ever was known, because the people
at our end of the town were afraid. I, as a
point of honour, never had it in my house.
never had a head of game in my house
that season.-What was the consequence
I lost my trade, and gave offence to gentle
men: a nobleman's steward, or butler, or
cook, treated it as contumely; 'Good God!
what is the use of your running your head
against the wall?'-You were obliged to
begin the trade again? Yes, and sold more
than ever."-(Report, p. 18.)

"Do you believe that poulterers are not to be found who would take out licences, and would deal with those very persons, for the purposes of obtaining a greater profit than they would have dealing as you would do? I think the poulterers in general are a respectable set of men, and would not countenance such a thing; they feel now that they are driven into a corner; that there may be men who would countenance irregular proceedings, I have no doubt.-I Would it be their interest to do so, consider ing the penalty? No, I think not. The poulterers are perfectly well aware that they are committing a breach of the law at present. Do you suppose that those persons, respectable as they are, who are now committing a breach of the law, would not equally commit that breach if the law were altered? No, certainly not; at present it is so connected with their business that

they cannot help it.-You said just now, that they were driven into a corner; what did you mean by that? We are obliged to aid and abet those men who commit those depredations, because of the constant demand for game, from different customers whom we supply with poultry.-Could you carry on your business as a poulterer, if you refused to supply game? By no means; because some of the first people in the land require it of me."-(Report, p. 15.)

When that worthy Errorist, Mr. Bankes, brought in his bill of additional severities against poachers, there

These consequences are confirmed by the evidence of every person before the Committee.

All the evidence is very strong as to the fact, that dealing in game is not discreditable; that there are a great number of respectable persons, and, among the rest, the first poulterers in London, who buy game knowing it to have been illegally procured, but who would never dream of purchasing any other article procured by dishonesty.

"Are there not, to your knowledge, a great many people in this town who deal in

rame, by buying or selling it, that would have detected more persons this season not on any account buy or sell stolen pro- than in any former one? perty? Certainly; there are many capital think within four months there have Yes; I tradesmen, poulterers, who deal in game, been twenty-one transported that I that would have nothing to do with stolen property; and yet I do not think there is a have been at the taking of, and through poulterer's shop in London, where they one man turning evidence in each case, could not get game, if they wanted it.-Do and without that they could not have you think any discredit attaches to any been identified; the gamekeepers man in this town for buying or selling could not, or would not, identify them. game? I think none at all; and I do not The poachers go to the public-house think that the men to whom I have just and spend their money; if they have referred would have anything to do with stolen goods.—Would it not, in the opinion a good night's work, they will go and of the inhabitants of London, be considered get drunk with the money. The gangs a very different thing dealing in stolen are connected together at different game or stolen poultry? Certainly. The public-houses, just like a club at a one would be considered disgraceful, and public-house; they are all sworn the other not? Certainly; they think no- together. If the keeper took one of thing of dealing in game; and the farmers them, they would go and attack him in the country will not give information: for so doing." they will have a hare or two of the very men who work for them; and they are afraid to give information." - (Report,

p. 31.)

Mr. Stafford, chief-clerk of Bow Street, says, "All the offences against the game laws which are of an atroThe evidence of Daniel Bishop, one reported to the public office in Bow cious description I think are generally of the Bow Street officers, who has Street, more especially in cases where been a good deal employed in the ap- the keepers have either been killed, or prehension of poachers, is curious and dangerously wounded, and the asimportant, as it shows the enormous sistance of an officer from Bow Street extent of the evil, and the ferocious is required. The applications have spirit which the game laws engender been much more numerous of late in the common people. "The poach-years* than they were formerly. Some ers," he says, "came sixteen miles. The of them have been cases of murder; whole of the village from which they but I do not think many have amounted were taken were poachers; the consta- to murder. There are many instances ble of the village, and the shoemaker, in which keepers have been very illand other inhabitants of the village. I treated-they have been wounded, fetched one man twenty-two miles. There skulls have been fractured, and bones was the son of a respectable gardener; broken; and they have been shot at. one of these was a sawyer, and another A man takes a hare, or a pheasant, a baker, who kept a good shop there. with a very different feeling from that If the village had been alarmed, we with which he would take a pigeon or should have had some mischief; but a fowl out of a farm-yard. we were all prepared with fire-arms. number of persons that assemble `toIf poachers have a spite with the game gether is more for the purpose of keeper, that would induce them to go protecting themselves against those out in numbers to resist him. This that may apprehend them, than from party I speak of had something in any idea that they are actually comtheir hats to distinguish them. They take a delight in setting-to with the been transported for shooting at night. It is only of late years that men have gamekeepers; and talk it over after-There are instances of men who have been wards how they served so and so. They fought with the butt-ends of their guns at Lord Howe's; they beat the gamekeepers shockingly."-"Does it occur to you (Bishop is asked) to have had more applications, and to

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transported at the Sessions for night poaching, who made no resistance at all when poachers weighed against them-characters taken; but then their characters as old estimated probably by the very lords of graceful law is the occasion of all the murmanors who had lost their game. This disders committed for game.

mitting depredation upon the property | with another man, who has more

of another person; they do not consider it as property. I think there is a sense of morality and a distinction of crime existing in the men's minds, although they are mistaken about it. Men feel that if they go in a great body together, to break into a house, or to rob a person, or to steal his poultry, or his sheep, they are committing a crime against that man's property; but I think with respect to the game, they do not feel that they are doing anything which is wrong but think they have committed no crime when they have done the thing, and their only anxiety is to escape detection." In addition, Mr. Stafford states that he remembers not one single conviction under Mr. Bankes's Act against buying game; and not one conviction for buying or selling game within the last year has been made at Bow Street.

The inferences from these facts are exactly as we predicted, and as every man of common sense must have predicted that to prevent the sale of game is absolutely impossible. If game be plentiful, and cannot be obtained at any lawful market, an illicit trade will be established, which it is utterly impossible to prevent by any increased severity of the laws. There never was a more striking illustration of the necessity of attending to public opinion in all penal enactments. Mr. Bankes (a perfect representative of all the ordinary notions about forcing mankind by pains and penalties) took the floor. To buy a partridge (though still considered as inferior to murder) was visited with the very heaviest infliction of the law; and yet, though game is sold as openly in London as apples and oranges, though three years have elapsed since this legislative mistake, the officers of the police can hardly recollect a single instance where the information has been laid, or the penalty levied and why? because every man's feelings and every man's understanding tell him, that it is a most absurd and ridiculous tyranny to prevent one man, who has more game than he wants, from exchanging it

money than he wants-because magistrates will not (if they can avoid it) inflict such absurd penalties- because even common informers know enough of the honest indignation of mankind, and are too well aware of the coldness of pump and pond, to act under the bill of the Lycurgus of Corfe Castle.

The plan now proposed is, to undersell the poacher, which may be successful or unsuccessful; but the threat is, if you attempt this plan there will be no game-and if there is no game there will be no country gentlemen. We deny every part of this enthymeme-the last proposition as well as the first. We really cannot believe that all our rural mansions would be deserted, although no game was to be found in their neighbourhood. Some come into the country for health, some for quiet, for agricul ture, for economy, from attachment to family estates, from love of retirement, from the necessity of keeping up provincial interests, and from a vast variety of causes. Partridges and pheasants, though they form ninetenths of human motives, still leave a small residue, which may be classed under some other head. Neither are a great proportion of those whom the love of shooting brings into the country of the smallest value or importance to the country. A Colonel of the Guards, the second son just entered at Oxford, three diners out from PiccadillyMajor Rock, Lord John, Lord Charles, the Colonel of the regiment quartered at the neighbouring town, two Irish Peers, and a German Baron ;-if all this honourable company proceed with fustian jackets, dog-whistles, and chemical inventions, to a solemn destruction of pheasants, how is the country benefited by their presence? or how would earth, air, or sea, be injured by their annihilation? There are certainly many valuable men brought into the country by a love of shooting, who, coming there for that purpose, are useful for many better purposes; but a vast multitude of shooters are of no more service to the country than the ramrod which condenses the charge, or

stealing; or its destruction when the sale is not without risk, and the price extremely low? or the readiness of grandees to turn the excess of their game into fish or poultry? All these circumstances appear to us so natural and so likely, that we should, without any evidence, have had little doubt of are a few absurdities in the evidence of one of the poulterers; but, with this exception, we see no reason whatever for impugning the credibility and exactness of the mass of testimony prepared by the Committee.

the barrel which contains it. We do not deny that the annihilation of the game laws would thin the aristocratical population of the country; but it would not thin that population so much as is contended; and the loss of many of the persons so banished would be a good rather than a misfortune. At all events, we cannot at all comprehend their existence. There the policy of alluring the better classes of society into the country, by the temptation of petty tyranny and injustice, or of monopoly in sports. How absurd it would be to offer to the higher orders the exclusive use of peaches, nectarines, and apricots, as It is utterly impossible to teach the the premium of rustication-to put common people to respect property in vast quantities of men into prison as animals bred the possessor knows not apricot eaters, apricot buyers, and where-which he cannot recognise by apricot sellers-to appoint a regular any mark, which may leave him the day for beginning to eat, and another next moment, which are kept, not for for leaving off-to have a lord of the his profit, but for his amusement. manor for green gages--and to rage Opinion never will be in favour of such with a penalty of five pounds against property: if the animus furandi exists, the unqualified eater of the gage! And the propensity will be gratified by yet the privilege of shooting a set of poaching. It is in vain to increase the wild poultry is stated to be the bonus severity of the protecting laws. They for the residence of country gentlemen. make the case weaker instead of As far as this immense advantage can stronger; and are more resisted and be obtained without the sacrifice of worse executed, exactly in proportion justice and reason, well and good as they are contrary to public opinion: but we would not oppress any order-the case of the game laws is a memoof society, or violate right and wrong, rable lesson upon the philosophy of to obtain any population of squires, legislation. If a certain degree of however dense. It is the grossest of punishment does not cure the offence, all absurdities to say the present state it is supposed by the Bankes' School, of the law is absurd and unjust, but it that there is nothing to be done but must not be altered, because the altera- to multiply this punishment by two, tion would drive gentlemen out of the and then again and again, till the Country! If gentlemen cannot breathe object is accomplished. The efficient fresh air without injustice, let them maximum of punishment, however, is putrefy in Cranborne Alley. Make not what the Legislature chooses to just laws, and let squires live and die enact, but what the great mass of manwhere they please. kind think the maximum ought to be. The moment the punishment passes this Rubicon, it becomes less and less, instead of greater and greater. Juries and Magistrates will not commit informers are afraid of public indig

The evidence collected in the House of Commons respecting the Game Laws is so striking and so decisive against the gentlemen of the trigger, that their only resource is to represent it as not worthy of belief. But why not worthy of belief? It is not stated what part of it is incredible. Is it the plenty of game in London for sale? the infrequency of convictions? the occasional but frequent excess of supply above demand in an article supplied by

in the new Turnpike Act. The penalty for taking more than the legal number of outside passengers is ten pounds per head, if the coachman is in part or wholly the owner. much. A penalty of 100l. would produce perfect impunity. The maximum of prac

There is a remarkable instance of this

This will rarely be levied; because it is too

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