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 100%. 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 907. 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 small landowners from going to races, or following a pack of hounds-and to prohibit 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.

Nay, the law is so excessively ridiculous in the case of small landed proprietors, that on a property of less than 1007. per annum, no human being has the right of shooting. It is not confined, but annihilated. The lord of

* All this has since been done.

the manor may be warned off by the proprietor; and the proprietor may be informed against by any body who sees him sporting. The case is still stronger in the instance of large farms. In Northumberland, and on the borders of Scotland, there are large capitalists, who farm to the amount of two or three thousand per annum, who have the permission of their distant non-resident landlords to do what they please with the game, and yet who dare not fire off a gun upon their own land. Can any thing be more utterly absurd and preposterous, than that the landlord and the wealthy tenant together cannot make up a title to the hare which is fattened upon the choicest produce of their land? That the landlord, who can let to farm the fertility of the land for growing wheat cannot let to farm its power of growing partridges ? That he may reap by deputy, but cannot on that manor shoot by deputy? Is it possible that any respectable magistrate could fine a farmer for killing a hare upon his own grounds with his landlord's consent, without feeling that he was violating every feeling of common sense and justice?

Since the enactment of the Game Laws, there has sprung up an entirely new species of property, which of course is completely overlooked by their provisions. An Englishman may possess a million of money in funds, or merchandise-may be the Baring or the Hope of Europe -provide to Government the sudden means of equipping fleets and armies, and yet be without the power of smiting a single partridge, though invited by the owner of the game to participate in his amusement. It is idle to say that the difficulty may be got over, by purchasing land: the question is, upon what principle of justice can the existence of the difficulty be defended? If the right of keeping men-servants were confined to persons who had more than 100l. a year in the funds, the difficulty might be got over by every man who could change his landed property to that extent. But what could justify so capricious a partiality to one species of property? There 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 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 a 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 it whether it is scrip or short-horned cattle? If the locus quo is conceded-if the trespass is waivedand if the qualification for any amusement is wealth, let it be any proveable wealth

Dives agris, dives positis in fœnore nummis.

It will be very easy for any country gentleman who wishes to monopolise to himself the pleasures of shooting, 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 exercise the privileges he has agreed to surrender.

The case which seems most to alarm country gentlemen, is that of a person possessing a few acres in the heart of a manor, who might, by planting food of which they are fond, allure the game into his own little domain, and thus reap a harvest prepared at the expense of the neighbour who surrounded him. But, under the present Game Laws, if the smaller possession belong 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 be 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 the same abundance in the surrounding as in the enclosed land? After all, it is only common justice, that he whose property is surrounded on every side by a preserver of game,-whose corn and turnips are demolished by animals preserved for the amusement of his

neighbour, should himself be entitled to that share of game which plunders upon his land. The complaint which the landed grandee makes is this. Here is a man who has only a twenty-fourth part of the land, and he expects a twenty-fourth part of the game. He is so captious and litigious, that he will not be contented to supply his share of the food, without requiring his share of what the food produces. I want a neighbour who has talents only for suffering, not one who evinces such a fatal disposition for enjoying.' Upon such principles as these, many of the Game Laws have been constructed, and are preserved. The interference of a very small property with a very large one; the critical position of one or two fields, is a very serious source of vexation on many other occasions besides those of game. He who possesses a field in the middle of my premises may build so as to obstruct my view, and may present to me the hinder parts of a barn, instead of one of the finest landscapes in nature. Nay, he may turn his fields into teagardens, and destroy my privacy by the introduction of every species of vulgar company. The Legislature, in all these instances, has provided no remedy for the inconveniences which a small property, by such intermixture, may inflict upon a large one, but has secured the same rights to unequal proportions. It is very difficult to conceive why these equitable principles are to be violated in the case of game alone.

Our securities against that rabble of sportsmen which the abolition of qualifications might be supposed to produce, are, the consent of the owner of the soil as an indispensable preliminary, guarded by heavy penalties— and the price of a certificate, rendered perhaps greater than it is at present. It is impossible to conceive why the owner of the soil, if the right of game be secured to him, has not a right to sell, or grant the right of killing it to whom he pleases-just as much as he has the power of appointing whom he pleases to kill his ducks, pigeons, and chickens. The 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 philo

sophical 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 cock-pit; but the idea of his pursuing a hare, even with the consent of the landowner, 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 poaching now is, by pecuniary penalties, and summary conviction before magistrates. This change in the 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 trespasser have received no notice, this can hardly be called any remedy at all. It is now no uncommon practice for persons who have the exterior, and perhaps the fortunes of gentlemen, as they are travelling from place to place, to shoot over manors where they have no property, and from which, as strangers, they cannot have been warned. In such case (which, we repeat again, is by no means one of rare occurrence), it would, under the reformed system, be no more difficult for the lord of the soil to protect his game, than it 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 any other species of property, and because