The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-08-12 00:00:00

THE NIGHT-POACHING PREVENTION
BILL

The Night-Poaching Prevention Bill, as
amended by the Commons, has struggled into
existence as an Act. Some of its objectionable
features have been struck out of the Bill,
and it may not be uninteresting to our
readers to inquire, what, in its new shape,
it may be expected to do, and on whom its
operation is likely to fall. In the first place,
then, its whole substance is comprised in the
enactment that a constable may, in any highway
or public place, "Search any person whom lie
may have good reason to suspect of coming from
any land where he shall have been unlawfully in
search or pursuit of game,"—any game or game-
implements found to be forfeited on conviction.
Supposing that this power is not abused or nut-
applied, it will obviously fall on persons carrying
on poaching as a trade—not on the occasional or
accidental transgressorof the game-laws, but on
the person who makes a trade of an unlawful, to
the neglect of his lawful, occupation. Now,
there certainly ought to be no sympathy with
that class—a class which, as a general rule, is
composed of the idle and the dissolute, who are
commonly known as the blackguards of the dis-
trict, and who as habitually break other laws as
the game laws. No clearer illustration is needed
of this than in the lives of the Preston and
Yosdingbridge murderers. We heartily wish
that the trade of that class were not rendered
femunerative by the tendency of some gentle-
men for over-preserving—a system at once
destructive both of crops and sport • but it is,
nevertheless, out of the question that such a
class should receive encouragement by any law
of immunity. Whatever may be the evils of
k game preserving, they have neither the right
nor the fitness to redress those evils. To whom-
soever the game belongs by natural right, it
does not belong to the poacher. It was not fed
at his coat, and he suffered nothing by its wan-
derings. We have heard it sometimes said that
the poachers are the beat friends of the farmers,.
We very much doubt whether that is true in any
sense—certainly it is not true in any general
and effective sense, even supposing the poacher
confines himself e capture of wild animals
only. On pr d, no less game is bred
end fed because , acher, and it is difficult
to see how, afte genie has been bred And
efilii,to
fed, the farmer is beifitted by its being taken
by the poacher instead of the landowner. But,
In truth, where the object is to get up a certain
"head" of game, that object in most cases will
be, and is accomplished,in spite of the poacher—
s° that the poacher causes more game to be bred
'aud fed—game for him as well as the sportsman.
There are, however, objections to the Bill, one
tot which is, it employs the police in a duty
Aseoessarily unpopular as being connected with
.the preservation of game. He is authorised to
search any person whom he has "good cause to
rsiTeczt ;" and here seems to be the great evil or
of the Bill. For whom may not a police-
Mall sect? Anyone who has rendered him-
'self obnoxious to him in any way whatever.
, While the Bill was under discussion, those
, members who opposed it spoke as if they were
In the interest of the poachers. Scarcely any-
one referred to the danger of innocent people
being more or less culpably mistaken as poachers.
If the Bill should really hit, as of course it was
only designed to hit, nobodt but trading
poachers, we should care little how hard it hit;
but there is an entire absence of all reasonable
precautions against its hitting other people.
Suppose some stupid or malicious policeman were
te atop and search an innocent and respectable
person, where is the remedy? It is true any
person convicted may appeal to the Quarter
Sessions; but what is wanted is some redress for
persona not convicted but wrongfully accused.
And the redress ought to be in the power of
some less implicated tribunal than the Quarter
Sessions. There ought to have been a clause
entitling any person thus wronged to compel
the constable to prove before a Court of Law
that he had "good cease to suspect," and to
grant redress where that proof was not forth-
coming. For the honour of our Legislature, as
well as for our desire for the preservation of the
liberty of the subject, we trust some such
amendment will be introduced during the next
Session, and then no honest and rational mind
will have aright against the Night Poaching
Prevention Bill.