The Sun.
London, England, 1827-01-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Country Papers for a week or two past are loud
in their expressions of indignation against the Game Laws,
to which a great number of individuals have lately fallen
a sacrifice. The number of deaths of game-preservers,
game-keepers, and poachers, recorded in a single news-
paper, received by us yesterday, is equal to the number of
Peers of many a modern Legislative Assembly. We are
bound to obey the laws, but not to praise them. We
should think the Devil alone would have the audacity to
praise the English Game Laws. Human nature is full of
contradictions. Thus, for instance, we knoW, that the
English Country Gentlemen are the most humane and
considerate beings in human shape ; for did not Sir Fran-
cis Burdett tell us so—and who would not take Sir
Francis's word for it? Now, if so many demons were
to lay their heads together, how they could devise a
law, to produce results the most revolting to humanity,
the most calculated to demoralize a people, and the most
effectually to cover a land with bloodshed and depravity,
we would defy them to hit on any thing equal to the laws
which are upholden by the class of men-whom Sir Fran-
cis has held up as the most kind, considerate, and virtuous
of their kind throughout the world. This is singular, but
it is true. Other countries as well as England have had
Game Laws, but in no country hare Game Laws been exe-
cuted with a hundredth part of the severity with which they
arc executed in England, and in no country can the attempt
to execute Game Laws be attended with the horrible con-
sequences which must take place-here. We are not fond
enteling on abstract inquiries; but we cannot help here
observing, that land is allowed to become the property of
siitli% Mite's on the implied condition that all its produce
aiiailbe distributed among the different members of so-
ciety. The owner of the soil is, in fact, merely the trustee
charged with the distribution, who receives a greater or
less share himself, and parts with the residue for equiva-
lents. But the principle of the Game Laws is at variance
with the object fot which property is constituted. It says
there is a certain description of animal produce, which
:hall be enjoyed exclusively by the owners of the soil.—
Though the owners of the soil, with respect to wealth, are
tar outweighed by the rest of society, they have still the
audatity to declare, to the inhabitants of towns, you shall
`eel: receive the share accruing to your wealth of the pro-
duce of the soil. We allow you to share in the fruits of the
Myth and the domestic animals ; but the more delicious
animals, the ferw nature, called by way of distinction
Game, we shall monopolize for our own tables; and
if - yeti ever partake of them, you shall be indebted for
the enjoyment to our bounty or hospitality. But to
this arrangement the moneyed Aristocracy of this Coun-
try will not submit. They say the law is indeed
against our enjoying game except on the. above hunailia-
tio terms, but the law is oppressive, and though we will
that violate it ourselves, we will procure the enjoyment
through the instrumentality of others. Leaving it to '
casuists, whether those who avail themselves of their Le-
gislative power to force an unjust law on their country-
men,
.which they know from the very nature of things,
cannot he executed, but at the expence of an enormous
sacrifice of lives, the demoralizing nearly the whole of
the peasantry, by arraying them against that law, and
leading them, step by step, to every description of crime,
—at the expence of long lists of culprits crowding our
gaols, and adding to the number of our convict s,—or those
who are instrumental in purchasing the crimes and misery
for the sake of their tulles, are the most culpable, we
shall only say, that there is a heavy amount of guilt some-
where, of which an account must some day be rendered.
-The people of this country are constantly dwelling on
the tyranny and oppression to which the people of
other. countries are subject. They have no idea of the
horror which the bare mention of some of the fruits
of the Game Laws excites abroad.—" Before the Re-
volution (says a French writer), there were a few
abuses connected with the Game Laws, but they were
/Tither so frequent nor so enormous as those which
take place at this moment in England. No French Proprie-
t or ever had the horrid idea of setting on his lands spring-
pins to wound or kill poachers, or traps, such as are set
In some countries for beasts of prey, in order to catch
t hem alive." In the " Memoirs of Madame de Geniis,"
f.he, mentions a failing of the Prince of Conti, that he wish-
ed to be thought more cruel than he was, and she tells us,
hat he excited abhorrence in a large company, by giiing
orders, in their hearing, that a poacher shotild be sentenced
io " a hundred blows and three months' imprisonment."
1.70 r an act like this, a many tiader the old tyrannical Go-
vernment of France, would have been execrated ; but one
of our humane, considerate Aristocracy, who should con-
sent to let a poacher escape with three months' imprison-
ment, would be considered as having taken leave of his
senses. When we hear in story-books that the Emperors
of Morocco used to amuse themselves occasionally by
taking aim at their subjects, and killing a few of them, by
way of giving a proof of their skill, we think these Erepe-
rot s strange wretches; and yet we think it all as it should
be, when we hear of human lives being sacrificed every
year,. and every week, and every day, and misery and
crime being carried into every village in the king-
dome merely to procure amusement for the humane
and tender-hearted Aristocracy of our own country. Tile
monster, perhaps, killed a dozen individuals in the year;
the other amusement is the cause of losses of numberless
lives; and, what is worse, the eternal perdition of thou-
sands
of our fellow men.—]]]oaring Chronicle.
It is impossible for any man with moderate powers of
reflection to pass along St. James's-'street, and view the
costly piles of building which are being erected there,
coupling that view with a knowledge of the purposes to
which they are to be devoted, and not look upon them as
furnishing some of the most fearful among the signs of the
times. It is in no puritanical light that we use that ex-
pression, nor have we any disposition to see the Press op-
posed to the rational associations or amusements of any class
of the community; but no man can move in the world, and
not perceive that the-vice of gaming—the most atrocious
of all moral evils—which used to shrink appalled both from
the terrors of the law and from open observation—has of
late years thrown off all sense of shame, and actually braves
both law and public opinion. One of these pkiks of in-
famy is to cost, we hear, from 50,000/. to flO,OOO/., a sum
looked upon as quite unimportant by its projectors, but not
ultimately unimportant, we should imagine, to the wives,
the sons and daughters, the sisters, and other connections, as
..eell as to the honest creditors, of the weak, the vain, the
dishonest, .and infatuated people, out of whose fortunes
t his Temple of Plunder is to be first erected, and afterwards
Maintained. We say, that the institution of such hells as
these is not unimportant to the honest creditors of those
who frequent them, as it is quite notorious that it is one
peculiar feature in the character of modern honour to pay
none but debts of honour, leaving the tradesman, the me-
chanic, the legatee, the annuitant, and other persons,
whose demands are just, to pine in wretchedness and want,
while these Pandemoniums swallow up the fortunes,. and
with them all that was once honourable and just in the
characters of their possessors. If it were permitted us, we
coUld; in proof of this assertion, adduce instances of very
recent date, of persons of this description, who have made
a vast vapouring about their character, and have actually
published certificates of having paid their gaming debts,
whose debts to tradesmen amount to more than their actual
means could ever pay, and who only escape incarceration
by a privilege, obtained for the purpose, and which every
honest, man must-regret to km' so much abused. Some
hopes have been, and still are entertained, that Parliament
%yill be induced, by means of the present upright Secretary
of State for the Home Department, to adopt some method
of putting a stop to, or at least of controlling, this increas-
, iag evil ; that a country like this, which has hitherto laid
claim to a moral distinction in the world, may not be-
come only noted for its opposite qualities. What these
measures might or ought to be, we cannot precisely de-
fine ; but, among others, we should think that a regulation
which would. impose a heavy revenue upon every species of
gamine, and which Would lay open all public subscription-
houses to the perpetual inspection of the Magistracy, would
be among the most effectual means of discouraging and

teasing out this profligate mania. But what say the
horde of gamblers ?—" Expose subscription-houses to the
police ! Is this liberty ? Is this the way in which you would
restore the character of free and happy England ?" Si-
lence, babblers ! and know that liberty from your lips is a
mere senseless sound ; or, if it means any thing, means the
very reverse of what honest men mean when they use it.
Liberty must cease to exist where public virtue is extin-
guished; and for you to talk of liberty, who are every
day, by your own conduct, undermining the basis on which
alone it can ever stand, is a mockery of terms too palpable
and barefaced to be worthy of parleying with. But the
laws of England arc supposed to be equal; and if so, we
would ask where would be the injustice of dealing with the
vicious haunts and mischievous games of the higher orders
in the same summary way that we deal with those of the
lower ? Where, we would ask, is the difference between E 0
and Hazard—betweenßlindHookey andßouge et Noir—be-
tween Put and Ecarte—except that the one are played by
thieves and swindlers of a lower grade—at races, fairs,
and in public-houses—and the others by persons not a whit
more honourable in reality, at the place to which we have,
in the outset of this article, alluded ? To put the one,
therefore, upon the same footing as the'other, would be no
violation either of liberty or justice. But if, after all, vice
is to be allowed to triumph and defy the law in one place,
the Legislature, to be consistent, should repeal it, and the
Government set its face against those constant (and as we
believe, useful and salutary) interferences, which are daily
taking place with the games of the lower classes in public-
houses and in other places. Do not let us be guilty of the
base hypocrisy comprised in the well-known lines of the
Poet—

" That in the Captain's but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy."
(Morning Herald. j

Most men are aware of the power of first impressions.
First love is generally the most ardent and sincere and
lasting; and early habits, opinions, and attachments, are
those which not only never are eradicated, but which,
however stifled or subdued for a time, show themselves
through life, whenever opportunity offers. It is stated,
and indeed pretty well known of Mr. Canning, that the po-
litical attachment and opinions by which he is known
to the public, are not those of his earliest choice and in-
clination., His talents, it is catain, were first destined to
come out under Whig patronage; and there are those
who very well remember when Mr. Fox boasted of him
as the promising orator, who was to adorn the then
almost deserted Opposition Benches. The change which
took place was attributed to the prudent advice of Mr.
Sheridan, who is said to have pointed out to his young
friend the side of the Minister, as one better calculated
to encourage rising talents, than the barren ranks of a
consistent but despairing Opposition. By this advice, it
is said the die was cast; and the youthful orator, who
was on the eve of joining the apologists of the Jaeobins,
became hiinself the founder of the Anti-Jacobin school.—
We do not mention these circumstances as any disparage-
ment of Mr. Canning; for the real difference between the
various shades in party politics is not much wider, perhaps
than thatwhichßonaparte allotted to the sublimetand the ri-
diculous ; but rather with a view of accounting for the
apparent inconsistency ip some parts of Mr. Canning's con-
duct of late years, which have been, in fact, only a return
to first impressions. As long as Mr. Pitt lived—as long
as Lord Londonderry lived—in fact, as long as others
maintained the ascendant, so long was Mr. Canning com-
pelled to conform (though restlessly enough in the case
of Lord Sidmouth and Mr. Perceval, as well as of Lord
Castlereagh) to the opinions, the principle=, and the po-
licy of his leader. But left without a rival, his mind has
since become unshackled, and returns, by a natural im-
pulse, to some, at least, of the impressions and inclina-
tions, under the influence of which it first started into life.
—lbid.