The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-21 00:00:00

THE GAME-LAWS.
(From the Times.)
In the worst confusions of action and debate there
arise, every now and then, hold and clear-headed men,
whose merit it i.. to marshal the sides, and show each
what it is driving at. Through the misty twilight
of half measures and undeveloFed views tticy reveal
the final questions at issue. Such a man is the Hon.
G. F. Berkeley, and such his function. When he
writes a pamphlet on the game-laws, he knows ;shat
he is talking about. lie sets before you v.hat you
must have, or nothing. lle does not maintaintlie
existing practice. That is absolutely indefensible—
the ruin both of morals and of game. He gives it up
entirely. The subject of his scientific admiration
is a certain conceivable perfection of the sport,
of which there are at present only a few splendid
and encouraging examples. lle is an Englishman
and a sportsman. His plan is to identify these
characters, to make the Englishman a sportsman,
and England a well-stocked manor, and her laws
strictly and simply those of the chase. Some talk
of corn, and some of cotton, and respectively stake
the national welfare on the abundance of these se-
veral commo,lities. In that same sense, with even
more of that totality of devotion, Mr. Berkeley is
for game. A good head of game is prosperity. A
favourable breeding time is a good harvest, and a
brisk export trade as well. With plenty of hares
and pheasants, what more can you possibly desire ?
Without pledging ourselves to entire agreement, we
are bound to add that he has a good deal to say for
himself.
But then the screw must be applied to every part
of the present tax system ; and it is the writer s
numerous bold and vivid illustrations of the game-
law screw which gives the practical character to
his pamphlet. We will begin with the Crown. " The
keeping and preservation of the Royal chase is now
a farce, regarding it as a general system; whereas,
if properly done by, in the New Forest, the Crown
might always have it at its disposal to afford nearly
as wild and beautiful a ground for the stalking of
the stag and fallow buck, within an easy distance of
London, as in any part of Scotland." The rangers
are easy old drones : fellows " who don't pay one
sixpence to the preservation of a head of game," get
the run of the forest by a license which costs 51. the
first year, and a sovereign annually thereafter; these
" pot-hunters," without land or conscience, kill hen
pheasants and gray hens ; " Londoners" turn out
their horses and cows " on the open lawns and sweet
interstices of turf by the sides of the little streams, on
which almost alone should feed the deer. The amount
has generally been upwards of a hundred head of
cattle and horses to every eight or ten head of deer."
" Demoralisation" exists to a great extent in the
other royal forests. The Forest of Dean, particularly,
knows neither the rewards nor the punishments of the
chase. nere then is work cut out for the Prince
Consort. If he has not yet read, or forgotten the un-
quiet sepulture, and fatal legacies of the Conqueror,
he can complete or restore his great work. The mud-
larking capitalists of Lincolnshire are winning a
" Victoria county" from the sea; why should we not
balance with nature by giving back an Albert county
to the forest ?
From the Sovereign to the people. In Mr. Berke-
ley's magic mirror, every estate becomes a New
Forest in miniature. Every parish he supposes to be
blessed with at least the occasional presence of the
manorial lord, the centre of his social system. Only
provide game in every parish, and you are sure to
have a resident gentleman, if not for the season, yet
for an occasional battue. For two or three times, at
the lowest estimate, half a dozen gentlemen, with
servants to load their pieces, carts and sacks to carry
their game, dogs of the best training, will descend,
so to speak, from some higher sphere, some still more
esoteric region of sport. The rural multitude will
assemble to honour the forestian divinities. Then
is held the court of gamekeepers and assistants ;
then watchers report the haunts of the game,
and the counter machinations of poachers.
That reprobate race receives then its proper penalties
and discouragements, and flies abashed from the light
of day. The progress begins. Scores of beaters sur-
round the covers, guard the belts, clear the planta-
tions. Proud are they to minister in ever so humble
a capacity ; proud as the little fag" is to " stop" for
the sixth form cricketer ; though for the tedious hours
all his sport is to smother the ball in a jacket, or re-
ceive the swifter ones on his face, or not less suscepti-
ble shins. What if the rustic underlings don't even
see a single head of game, but only hear the volleys,
and see the loaded carts return home ; yet this is
enough for them. For this annual treat they will
not disturb the hare on its form, or wire its track, or
touch the pheasant roosting in the copse almost within
reach of their hands. They will be content with
their place in the system, and learn the deep morals
of sport.
Only, says Mr. Berkeley—only do the thing with
a high hand. Make it everything. Make it your
world—ay, your world to come. Reward and punish.
If the labourer brings en egg, a leveret, or a young
bird, let him see he has brought it to the best market.
" A labourer in the harvest-field never marked a bird
for me while shooting, but that I gave him in his
hour of toil wherewith to slake his thirst. The farm-
ing men are an observant and thinking class; they
soon discover that they can take an honest as well as
a dishonest interest in the game, and become aware
that that which keeps a resident gentleman among
them, must be for their good." But pints of beer are
only the first elements of the system. From these
preliminary seductions, you must raise the poor la-
bourer up the golden road of actual promotion
A labourer, with a large family, at Harrold, entered
my service; he is now a head-keeper in Gloucestershire.
From the little villages of Teffont and Chicksgrove and
their vicinity, in Wiltshire, though I was at the Manor-
house but two years, I first employed, and then removed
and promoted, no less than ten men; some of them, of
course, with families; and when I first knew them they
were earning a hard subsistence of from 6s. to 7s. a-week.
I recur to this fact with heartfelt satisfaction; for I feel
that in following my sports and pleasures I have not
done so with a selfish desire that led to no one's benefit
but my own; and, besides, it gives me an opportunity
of proving that the game-laws are beneficial. In those
two years of my residence at Teffont the two worst
characters of the village, whose presence and habits
corrupted others, were obliged to fly the country, and
the fathers of several large families, with their sons,
have been advanced from poverty to comparative
affluence for, -their lives; and this solely and entirely
arising under the laws for the preservation of game.
" One of these men is the present head-keeper under
Mr. Bailey, the Member for Worcester ; another, his
father, was lately one of the head-keepers at Char-
borough-park ; another con is under keeper at Sir
Edward Butler's near Southampton ; another son is
under-keeper at Mr. Frogley's, in Surrey; and a fourth
son is at present in my service. The head-keeper at
Mr. Frogley's came from Teffont. The head-keeper at
Holnest-house, in Dorsetshire, came from the vicinity of
Teffont; and the head-keeper and the footman at present
in my service came from the same place.
" Now here is a practical result, and that, too, arising
from very small means : let us proceed with it.. Here,
in the vicinity of Beacon lodge, much the same circum•
stances have been enacted over again, with this differ-
ence, that from the lamentable state of demoralisation to
which I have before alluded, from the non- enforcement
of the Game laws, in which I found the labouring po-
pulation; though my residence here has been about six
years instead of two, the promotions I have been able to
effect from this vicinity have been far less. Since I
have been here I have placed out three men ; one of
them is the head-keeper at Sir Edward Buller's, the
other is one of the head-keepers at Berkeley Castle, and
the other an under-keeper at Charborough Park."
Here is indeed " a practical result." Virtue be-
comes its own reward. What other system can
boast such certain advancement ? But if Mr.
Berkeley can produce these " facts," these few facts,
out of his own limited experience, what must follow
if every country gentleman did the same ? " You
cannot rob me of such facts as these," he exclaims in
answer to speculative cavillers. What is the prospe-
rity of some must be the prosperity of all, as far as
the system is carried. Here is the true path of
England's greatness. There remain some few consi-
derations—minor ones in Mr. Berkeley's eyes—the
subsidiary means and ways of the system—how it is
to be carried out, and how the various parts of the
social fabric must be brought to bear.

BATHS AT CREWE.—The Grand Junction Com-
pany have erected baths near their works for the use of
their workmen. We highly approve of this, as there is
nothing so conducive to health and comfort as cleanliness
of person. Nine-tenths of the diseases to which Eng-
lishmen are at present subject, " would take their wings
and fly away," if our countrymen would only.
e habituate a
week.
e
themselves to general ablution at least t
'Vat c relit
the
far
The Grand Junction Company deserves
having constructed the baths, which areg opp
doors of their extensive workshops, and we have no
doubt their intelligent workmen w themselves of
the convenience. The proverb that
osite
places cleanliness
next to godliness is a good one, and would be very ap-
propriate over every entrance to a
t,) hear that there are n
Railway Chronicle.
A NEW TRICK.—During one of the late fogs, a
gentleman was
passing down Lord-street at an early hour
of the evening, and was knocked against, no doubt
de-
signedly, by a fellow who came rushing towards him,
and whose hat fell off at the instant. The gentleman,
supposing that the collision was pardy acciden-
tal, and occasioned by the extreme deu-,ity of the
fog. begged the fellow's pardon for having been
unable to get out of his way in sufficient time, and then
kindly began to search about the footpath for his hat,
which was nowhere discernable. " Ohl" said the fellow,
in the coolest manner possible, after having waited a
few moments, "it makes no matter ; this will do as
well;" and immediately he seized the gentleman's hat,
darted off through the thickest of the fog, and was wholly
out of sight before he had gone six paces. The gentle-
man, after a diligent search, discovered the fellow's hat
In the middle of the street, and found that it was a
shocking bad" one, with a large hole in the crown, with
the leaf shorn of half its original proportions, and worth,
altogether, about twopence. The gentleman's hat, which
had so taken its departure, was a new one, of the best
description.—Liverpool Albion.