The Express.
London, England, 1853-01-29 00:00:00

TO TIM 201701 Ot_THl ?SPRITS.

completely are the class feelings of landowners en-
! listed in the support of the game system, and so en-
tirely arc the farmers and country labs/seers under
their control, that the true and full history of
produced mischief is comparaly untold. Some
e
such flagrant case as that of it=Rawki's ones-
sionally arouses an editor to indignant com-
ment, and then the matter Amps. But compara-
tively little is known of the game system,
from the overt instances of mischief which come be-
fore the public, who can form no conception of the
extent of injury to the agriculture and the morals of
the country from game-preserving, by even tho very
worst eases of rural savagery it may be the province
of the press to record. The winter sacrifices of
human life and social morals our game preservers
annually make to the hare and the pheasant, bad as
they are, will be found trifling in comparison with
the constantly operating evils of game and the game
laws. The impediments to good husbandry and the'
improvement ot land, the depression and vexation of
!tenant-farmers, the creation in every rural district of
a nursery for criminals, the more than suspected par-',
tiality of justices' justice in aught that concerns
game, the ill-blood so commonly generated between
Landlords and tenants and between neighbouring
owners of land about game, and a host of other per-
manently
existing economical and social ills
caused by the game system, are amongst the
worst chronic diseases of our community. And
hero let me note an instance of the clear
sound common-sense view which the practical
Duke of Welliogton took of this subject. As a part
of his position, in compliance with tue usages of his
class, the Duke doubtless considered the preservation
of game on his estate to be one of the duties of a
landowner, and as he did everything well, he had
extensive and will-stocked preserves. Why and
wherefore he afterwards abandoned game preserving,
or that he did abandon it, was probably not known
beyond the immediate district in which his estate
was situated ; but on the occasion of the Duke's
death, when all the incidents of his public end pri-
vate Life have an interest for the public, the opinions
of the Duke on tame
.preserves and his prompt re-
duction of such opinions into practice, have been
!strongly brought out. A correspondent of the
Diildirs Evening Mail, affording some reminis-
cences of the private life of the Duke of Welling-
ton, stated that on one occasion " one of his game-
keepers was killed in an affray with poachers, who
were arrested and convicted. He immediately or-
dered his well-stocked preserves to be thrown open,
saying he would not allow his men to be murdered
and other people to be transported for the sake of a
parcel of birds and some paltry game." Let me com-
mend the Duke's conduct as an example to his class,
which, for their own sakes and that of the commu-
nity, they will do well to follow.

I Hitherto the landowners have resolutely shut their
I eyes to the evils of game preserving, and probably
would still continue to do so, had not low prices
compelled farmers to examine very closely into the
causes which render it so difficult to find the means
of paying their stipulated rents. The shrewder land-
lords begin to perceive that something must be done, or
pretended to be done, about the game to satisfy their
tenants, but instead of inquiring into the subject
fully and fairly, and then frankly affording the only
relief the case admits of by abandoning game, they
resort to all sorts of shifts and devices. Some give
up the rabbits to their tenants, others resign the
hares also; but of all the cool attempts to throw dust
in the eyes of tenants about game, the manifesto of
Sir James Graham, which has appeared in your
columns, was about the most mischievous I have met
with. By that circular, "Sir James Graham, unso-
licited, has pleasure in notifying to his tenantry that
they have his permission to hunt and kill hares and
rabbits on their several and respective farms, be-
tween the hours of sunrise and sunset—the time for
killing hares being limited to the usual period, from
27th September to 27th February. Neither guns
nor snares to be used." Now, mark the value of this
permission. Hares may be hunted—that is, coursed
with greyhounds during the season they
are strongest, and during which it is next
to impossible to kill them down so u to
prevent a great number remaining to breed
between February and September. And it is
just in the spring and summer that hares do the
most harm ; they eat down the wheat and other
crops day by day, so as to render a thoroughly good
I crop of any absolutely impossible. They eat roads
1 through the grain crops almost up to harvest, de-
vouring much but destroying still more than they
devour, by nibbling the straw at the joints for the
sake of the saccharine matter those joints contain.
And Sir James Graham's permission to his tenants
to " hunt and kill" hares is just that a keen pre-
server would give to a sporting friend, the limita-
tions imposed being such as are necessary to main-
tain a "good head of game." If the complaint of
farmers about game was that the landlords take all
the "sport" and that they get none, then Sir
James's proprio mots might be well enough ; but the
complaint is that hares damage the crops. It is not
a question of sport but of money, of a living or a loss
from their business, with the farmers, and unless
they can destroy, extirpate the hares, they have
gained nothing Then the permission to hunt and
kill rabbits is a still more ludicrous mockery,
for unless " hunting" these vermin includes the
catching them with nets and ferrets, which seems
scarcely possible, I know not how they are to be
destroyed at all. I can only say that notwith-
standing the utmost vigilance on the part of my
men, and the constant use, throughout the year, of
guns, snares, traps, and other means of destruction,
I cannot keep my farm free from the pest of hares
and rabbits, several of my neighbours preserving
them during the spring and summer months. Then
what is expected from the tenants in gratitude for a
permission to kill hares and rabbits, I have shown to
be altogether illusory. "This permission will be con-
tinued until further notice. During its continuance
Sir James Graham confidently expects and trusts"—
what a delicate hint from a landlord !—" that such a
concession on his part will induce all his tenants, by
themselves and their servants, to preserve the winged
game on their respective farms, to the utmost of their
power for the amusement of himself, his family, and
friends. He hopes that they will cordially co-
operate with him in putting down the baneful prac-
tics of poaching, and would suggest that every te-
nant, acting up to the spirit of the obligation con-
tained in his agreement, should, when engaging his
servants, make it &condition that any unfaithfulness
discovered on their part, in respect to the preser ration
of game, will be considered sufficient ground for im-
mediate dismissal." A more ingenious attempt to
convert tenants and farm servants into auxiliary
game-watchers, I have never met with. By putting
forth such a command, for such it is intended to be,
Sir James Graham exhibits far less knowledge of
men and things in rural affairs, than, judging from
what I have heard and read of his improvements and
his speeches on agriculture, I should have expected.
And it is mainly because Sir James professes to be,
and to some extent I believe is, an improving land-
lord, that I notice his very nonsensical and impracti-
cable circular about game preserving. His tenants
have leases, but from the reference he makes " to the
spirit of the obligation contained" in the tenants
agreements to preserve the game, farmers may judge
of the position they place themselves in when they
consent to the insertion in their leases of any reser-
vation of the game to their landlords, and covenants
to preserve and protect it. If a landlord means
honestly to defer to his tenants' wishes, aye, and to
act up to the spirit of the contract he has made with
them, let him discharge his gamekeepers and give
up the game at once and for all to his tenants. 'I hen
he will have, with their hearty goodwill, a certain
stock of partridges on his farms which his tenants
will be able and willing to protect for his amuse-
ment. But I say advisedly, that on the cultivated
l lands of this populous country no wild beast,
I or bird larger than a partridge, can be pre-
served without such an excess of restriction
and watching, as must offer immense impediments
to huabandry,and cause much demoralisation amongst
the labourers. Farmers must not, and will not, any ,
longer undertake to do that which is practically ice-1
possible, to cultivate land on which some other per-
son and his servants have the right to rear and pre-
serve, and the exclusive right to destroy, wild crea- ,
tures. Hares, pheasants, rabbits, cannot be kept on
highly farmed land without doing the most serious
injury—so much, in fact, as to render the results of
the farming certainly unprofitable ; and partridges,
if kept at all, must be kept in strict subordination
to agricultural objects, of which the farmer is the
only proper judge. Hence any reservation of game
limited solely to partridges, with power to the land-
lord to send his keepers over the land, and with co-

Jill,—Aiii sure to be the case at this season,
during the long nights of winter, your columns dis-
close from time to time some of the lamentable results
which arise from the existing system of game pre-
set-Nation. Yon recently reported the confession of
a suspected poacher, which discloses the extent of
demoralisation caused by game, setting oar working
classes fighting man to man like savages for the sake
of a few paltry birds. I see and hear on all sides
declared wishes for the elevation of the working
classes, which doul;tless are sincere and well in-
tended ; and until recently, since free trade has
enabled all who are willing and able to work to help
themselves, there were not a few schemes of philan-
throphy and benevolence afloat, on which many per-
sons placed some reliance for popular improvement.
I know nothing to which a clear headed sod resolute
philanthropist could more usefully devote himself
than to inquire into and elucidate the direct and in-
cidental operation on the morals of our rural districts.
He would be astonished at the extent and the in-
veteracy of the evils dependent on game preserve,.
lion, and nearly all the influential persons of those
districts are more or leas implicated in its perpetus-
tion. But for the press the influences of game laws
and game preserves in producing disorder would re-
ceive even less attention than they now do, but so

'TEE JIMMIES, SATURDAY EVENING, JANUARY 29, 1853.

cements by the tenant to protect them, would be
nearly as much open to objection as the usual reserva-
tion of all game, for the landlord and his gamekeepers
that arc constituted the judges of the question whe-
ther the game be or be not too numerous, and all the
interference with farm management caused by pas
reservations will exist in full force. The farmer must
not trim his hedge rows, he must not cut or plough
up his stubble' till late in the year, he and his per-
vents must be harassed with a set of gamekeepers,
his fields will be stuck all over with bushes
to prevent netting the partridges, and guns, clop,
and eats being prohibited, other wild animals, rooks,
wood-pigeons, and the like, are sure to become nu-
merous and destructive. On land, therefore, let for
agricultural purposes, landlords cannot have fairly,
and ought not to expect, any other amusement in the
way of sporting than the tenants, as matter of cour-
tesy, can afford to offer them. This will be limited
to a moderate stock of partridges; and over that the
legal right of the tenant must be abeolute. Where
they want more they must keep their farms in hand,
and make the use of the land for husbandry se-
condary to its use for preserving game. Possibly
this may be more expensive than preserving game at
the cost of the tenants, who have been so unwise as
to consent to the reservation of game ; but landlords,
more than other people, have no right to indulge in
recreations they cannot afford. Let this truth—viz.,
that on farms let for agricultural purposes no wild
animals larger than partridges can be kept—be un-
derstood by both landlords and tenants ; for mode-
rate prices at home and foreign competition will
soon force it upon their attention, whether they like
it or not, and it will then be seen that the proprietor
who indulges in the noxious luxury of game pre-
serving must keep his preserved lands in his own
occupation.
A curious illustration of what I have said, that
game preserving and farming cannot go on together
successfully on the same laud, is to be found in the
evidence given by Colonel Challoner before the Game
Law Committee. He offered himself as a witness in
defence of the game laws, and stated in great detail
his own practice of preserving game on a thousand
acres of his own land and farmed by himself ; the
object being to show that good farming and game
preserving are not incompatible. But it came out on
cross-examination that Mr. Challoner's own bailiff
and gamekeeper could not agree. He said, "I found
there was always a difficulty between my bailiff and
my keeper; that the two things did not go on well ,
together; inasmuch, if the crops wero not good, I I
found fault with the keeper, and if the game was not
plentiful I found fault with the bailiff; therefore, I
have united the person of keeper and bailiff." Can
anything be more significant or conclusive ?
The gradual extinction of wild animals as popula-
tion and cultivation advance is a law of universal
operation, and the system of game preserving in this
country is an attempt to interrupt that natural and
necessary law.
Even in the Highlands of Scotland deer and black
game can only be preserved in land cleared for the
purpose of all more useful occupants. For in-
stance, I found recently, in the Inverness Adver-
tiser, a notice of a "rumour" current in that
district that the Duke of Richmond intends to nuke
Glenmore a deer forest. In that project I trace the
frame of mind and temper which led him so
strenuously to defend the artificial scarcity of human
food produced by the corn-laws, that he might keep
up his own rents. It is true that the land on which
these deer forests are formed belongs to the aristo-
cratic proprietors, who prefer deer and blackcocks to
industrious men or profitable sheep, and " may they
not do what they like with their own ?" And in
their own circles doubtless such an argument is
deemed to be unanswerable ; but when I hear these
men talk so loud about the necessity of protecting
property, and of their apprehensions of admitting
their humbler fellow-countrymen to political power,
and see them thus desolating whole districts for the
promotion of their own "sports," I cannot avoid
thinking that our aristocrats are so intent on enforc-
ing the strictest rights of property that they are apt
to forget its duties.
A MIDLAND COUNTIES FARMER.

INDIA.