The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-09 00:00:00

Won by three-quarters of a length.

BETTING AT MANCHESTER-YESTERDAY.
The betting here during this week is not of a very impor-
tant character, being generally but a reflex of the doings at
head-quarters. For the City and Suburban Handicap Ad-
venturer was in great force ; and, after the news of his
success, Argonaut was supported at 20 to 1. The only other
thing of importance was the support given to Brick for the
Two Thousand Guineas, who finished at 11 to 1 (taken).
Closing prices :

CITY AND SUBURBAN.
6to 1 aget Adventurer (wanted)
12 to 1 agst Oberon (offered)
20 to 1 agst Argonaut (taken)
25 to 1 agst Weatherspy (taken)

GREAT METROPOLITAN.
10 to 1 agst Citadel (taken and offered)

TWO THOUSAND GUINEAS,
sto 2 aget Hospodar (offered)
7to 2 aget Saccharometer (offered)
11 to 1 aget Brick (taken)
16 to 1 aget Michael Scott (offered)

CHESTER CUP.
20 to 1 agat Stradella (taken)
20 to lag at Amelia (taken)

THE GAME LAWS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

STN—The late discussion on the GAMS Laws, on
Mr. Forster's motion for a committee, presents some
points worthy of note to those who consider the
question, as I do,one of considerable importance. It
has always struck me that if hon. members would
bring forward questions for legislation with a com-
petent knowledge of the subject and adequate re-
search into former proceedings, and if they would
deem it meet and proper to understand the case they
undertake to lay before the house, a great deal of
trouble and some exposure might be saved. Mr.
Forster is a shrewd, able man, and he at once told
the house that he was no sportsman and knew
nothing of sporting matters, but he desired a select
committee to inquire into the operation of the Game
Laws. This the House of Commons, 1 regret to say,
would not accord to him, on the unsatisfactory
ground that the Legislature had lately made an
Act of Parliament the effect of which had not
been tried. Now, it is very evident that Mr.
Forster got up his speech from any materials which
came to hand, and not from those data which had
been furnished to the country by a committee
which investigated every phase of the question, and
which was moved for by Mr. Bright, but which,
instead of eventuating in establishing Mr. Bright's
notions, completely upset them, and presented land-
owners, poachers, gamekeepers, hares, pheasants,
and partridges in exactly a contrary light to that
in which the hon. gentleman, ore rotundo, had so
frequently held them up. Now, there is no doubt
that as the Game Laws stood early in the present
century they were hard and oppressive, and the
demagogue had little trouble in holding them up to
public execration. In the flowing language of these
gentlemen, the pheasant was the sacred bird dedi-
cated to a tyrannic aristocracy and landocracy. No-
body must kill the pheasant unless be were worth
£lOO a year. Mayors and aldermen sighed in vain
for the joys of the pheasant; streams of water
flowed from their longing mouths. In frantic de-
spair these civic dignitaries broke the law, rushed
into the embraces of the poacher, and purchased
birds resembling pheasants under the name of
" longtails," and animals resembling hares under
the name of "lions." The law was altered; con-
tentment rested on the civic stomach; the pheasant,
partridge, and hare were no longer sacred to one
class, but might be purchased by all. This, how-
ever, did not please Mr, Bright, and early in the
present reign and shortly after he had a seat in
Parliament, having inveighed against the Game
Laws out of doors, he brought his opinions to the
test in the house by moving for a committee to in-
quire into the working of those laws. Very wisely,
the house assented. There was an agitation got
up, and a feeling prevalent that Game Laws
were iniquitous. The lower ranks of Mr. Bright's
family had been taught to believe poachers a
virtuous and injured race, country gentlemen a
mixture of Sir Giles Overreach and Squire Western.
Gamekeepers were proud of heart and bloody of
hanc!. Four hares, it was avowed, devoured as much
as one sheep ; pheasants and partridges occupied
themselves from the time they left the egg in either
scratching up the grain or pulling down the ears of
corn. In short, it was a case of prejudice. Lord
George Gordon never got up a stronger against
Papacy, and even now some old men and women
have a kind of belief that the cry against the Pope
of "no wooden shoes nor warming-pans" had some-
thing in it.
The committee sat ; with extraordinary patience,
the habits of game, bird, and beast, were searched
into, the stomachs of sheep produced and compared
with those of hares, the habits and lives of poachers
laid bare. These circumstances, which were fully
known to the denizens of the country, seemed to
strike with astonisment the inhabitants of cities.
The lords of factories were amazed to find that they
knew less of the matter than the lords of manors.
Mr. Forster might well have perused this evi-
dence before he ventured upon some of the asser-
tions of his speech. For instance, he tells us that
the amount of poaching is determined more by the
density of the population, and the amount of the
game preserved, than by any other circumstance.
The evidence shows the reverse, and that it is not
highly preserved and closely watched property
which is mostly visited by poachers, but laxly pre-
served manors, where the proprietors either cannot
afford to, or do not, preserve strictly. On such
estates your sheep and fowl stealers, and even your
burglar, who is more or less connected with your
poacher,are found to luxuriate. The poacher generally
commences as an apple and turnip stealing boy; the
tails of cart-horses are pulled and their hair sold ;
next follows the wire set in the hedge in the field
where he is minding pigs or sheep ; then comes the
beerhouse and its fatal connection, where the pro-
ceeds of the snare is sold, only to be spent in drink-
ing and smoking ; soon the gang is gained, and
murder is the result. I think that Mr. Forster
should have acquainted himself that no farm, even
on highly preserved manors, is without a tenant,
and that the produce of grain is greater than ever it
was. I think a perusal of this evidence would lead
Mr. Forster to the irresistible conclusion that, as
you cannot punish a landlord for turning out a ten-
ant or a customer for getting rid of a tradesman, so
no tyranny of legislation would be tolerated for an
instant which dictated to a man how many phea-
sants, hares, or partridges he should keep on his
own estate. Such legislation is an impossibility.
It can only be matter of arrangement between land-
lord and tenant. I am sorry that Mr. Forster's
motion for a committee of inquiry was not complied
with. It seems to me, if pheasants are worth in the
market just double the price of barn-door fowls, we
should make it as penal to steal one bird as the
other. By inquiry you would meet and upseitetperly
judice. and as Mr. Bright's committee.
tio
tca°mPn , so I
upset for the time his anti-genre law,
7 the law, inagoltion, if
am inclined to imagine Mr. Forster
8
suc-
cessful, would have led to a change o
my humble thinking much needed.—I am, &c.,
M,