The Sun.
London, England, 1828-02-21 00:00:00

serious attention of Parliament. To prevelit the
destruction of game by poachers the experimrnt of
excessive severity has already been tried, and has
signally faded. It is time to adopt another course,
and try whether reconciling this part of our legis-
lation mote with reason and natural right tnay not
have a better result than the most rigorous, or ra-
ther vindictive enactments. Nor have those enact-
ments failed on account of any neglect or remissness
in carrying them into effect—for never Were laws of
so harsh a nature more harshly executed. Of late
years, especially, the proceedings at Quarter Ses-
sions throughout the kingdom afford abundant
evidence cf the extreme severity with which Ma-
gistrates deal out the full rricasiire of punishment
which those laws allow them to inflict upon the
class of offender; to which they apply ; and yet the
offence: instead of being abated, is considerably on
the increase. The boldness of action and reckless-
ness of life which poachers now display exceed
all that was ever known before. The desperate and
tco often fatal affrays between numerous and or-
ganized bands of these depredators and game-
keeper are becoming more frequent in propor-
tion as more veheMent measures of • intimidation
are pursued: It is vain to suppose that poach-
ing can be repressed while the sale of game is pro-
hibited, and while there is a constant demand 'for it
in the market, and, consequently, a high premium
upon poaching. Let the sale of game be once le-
galized, and this premium will be diminished, just
as smuggling any prohibited article of foreign mer-
chandize declines when that article is allowed 'to be
imported at a moderate duty. We therefore ap-
prove of Lord Salisbury's. Bill, as far as it recog-
nizes the principle of legalizing the sale of game;
but we object to it the confining the operation of
that principle under too narrow restrictions. The
Bill does not allow game to be killed or sold by per-
sons who are not qualified by a property of at least
1001. a year. This is to erect a monopoly in place
of a prohibition ; we would rather that the Bill was
grounded on the principle proposed by Lord Wham-
cliffe—namely, that the right to game should be co-
existent with the right to land—for can there be any
thing more against reason or natural justice than that
a person occupying and cultivating land shall be
liable to be treated as a criminal if he should kill or
make profit of any wild animal that lives upon the
produce of his land? But Lord Salisbury's Bill
will not relieve persons so circumstanced from the
penalties of the Game Laws unless they happen to
have 100/. a year—an invidious distinction between
the richer and poorer farMers. still we think the
measure ought to be supported, as the beginning of
nip! ovement.—Morning Herald.
A Morning Contemporary put forth a statement
yesterday relative to an impression having gone
abroad in the. City that " the accession of the Duke
of Welliogton to the Ministry is far from being sa-
tisfactory to the Russian Government." In answer
to this truly-ridiculous assertion, we shall only ob-
serve that it is absolutely untrue. Nosuch impression
has gone abroad, but, on the contrary, it is gene-
rally believed that the Noble Duke's accession to
power will be peculiarly acceptable to the Emperor
of Russia, and to the Continental Powers in gene-
ral. It is quite impossible that the story of the
accession of the Duke of Wellington to the Ministry
hieing unsatisfactory to the Emperor of Russia,
should be entertained by any man of common sense,
for this single reason—namely, 110 intelligence can
have been received from St. Petersburgh in reply to
the announcement of his Grace's appointment. We
have noticed this silly invention for no other pur-;
pose than to show the shifts which a certain disap-
pointed party bare 'recourse to in order to run down
the Duke of Wellington.. But it will not do--all
their efforts will prove abortive ; and we have no
hesitation in saying, that, if ,hiS‘ Grace pursues the
sane straight-forward course lie did in the Array,
and that he has hitherto done in the Government,
he will be one of the most popular Ministers that.
ever directed the Councils of Great Britain.—lbid.