The Sun.
London, England, 1827-09-07 00:00:00

THE GAME LAWS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sut—LAnother Session of Parliament has
closed, and the just expectations of the people
have been disappointed, by no effectual steps
having been taken to amend or alter the Game
Laws,—while Europe, and England in particu-
lar, have made such gigantic strides in the ame-
lioration of suffering and of crime, the Game Laws
still stand in all their feudal, odious, and cruel
magnitude in the path of human right and jus-
tice,—complaints are continually made against
the undue power of the " unpaid " magistracy ;
but what is it that gives this unconstitutional pre-
ponderance, this more than judicial influence, an
influence which defeats the wisdom ofour ancestors,
violates our charters,and makes the boasted trial by
Jury a mockery and a bye word ? the Game
Laws :—their operation is a libel upon humanity,
and a disgrace to a free country. It is a no.'
torious fact, that a man has more chances of
escape when he slays his fellow-man, than when
he incautiously destroys a bare or a pheasant !
The Game Laws stand upon a principle of feu-
dal separation ; a combination of the powerful
and rich against the helpless and poor. The
laws which are in force for the preservation of
Game admit of no excuse, they are justly
charged as the cause by which the taste and
morals of the people are corrupted, their lives
sacrificed, their persons imprisoned; and by the
operation of these odious laws, the property of
the inhabitants of this country is trampled on by
the' insolence of barefaced power, without a
single pretext for the general good, and for no
other purpose than this most laudable one, that
certain individuals may indulge themselves. It has
been adopted as part of a considerate and hu-
mane system, that some certain men shall not
sit in judgment upon the lies of their fellow-
men;
butchers, for instance; anti these men who
kill an ox or a sheep, from necessity, are consi-
dered- too " familiar, with blood" to sit on a Jury,
whilst others, who -go forth in sport, and not
from necessity, are deemed more eligible, and
act as magistrates and jurors ! That the Game
Laws cannot be too much reprobated, or too se-
riously investigated, will be acknowledged by every
considerate mind, and we are gratified to see the
subject so ably handled in a Pamphlet, written
by Philanthropos, and published by Ridgway,
who has likewise written a most excellent and
popular pamphlet on the public right of Fishing
by angle or by nets ; and it is on the principles
laid down in this work, that Colonel Maceroni
intends trying the right of the public to Ash in
navigable rivers. The work on the Game Laws
is divided into 12 chapters. In the Ist chapter
the principles of the Game Laws are considered,
and their impolicy pointed out by reference to
facts and history ; the author observes, that these
" exclusive rights sapped the foundations of the
Throne in France, annihilated the aristocracy,
and gave the democracy an ascendancy at once
bloody and fatal." The' 2d and 3d chapters
are on the origin and policy of the Game Laws:
here it is admirably defined by the clearest de-
ductions of reason and common sense, that
the Game Laws are a violation of natural,
political, and civil liberty, that they are " un-
necessary and inexpedient, and instead of
operating for the general advantage, they are
a nursery for crime ; that every year they
reduce 3 or 400 persons to beggary, by fill-
ing our prisons and burthening our parishes."
In the 4th chapter the Statutes are considered.
By the Saxon law, it appears " every man had a
right to take to his own use the game found on
his own land." Then came the Conqueror and
the feudal system, and deprived the people of
their rights and dearest privileges. The Game
Laws, at the present time, retain the principles
and practices of that period of feudal vassalage.
In this and some of the succeeding chapters, the
author most forcibly marks the encroachments of
power, and observes that in Statutes, so
tex-
tremely penal, the language is scarcely intelligi-
ble, and yet by the operation of such loose,
vague, and indefinite expressions, as "the game,"
and " any other game," the privation of the
Blackstone
liberty of
is
quotedpeople in proof of
England
of the
is
charge
Int
af
gr ce e do
f.
intricacy and obscurity in the Statutes on the
Game Laws. Philanthropos observes, in chap.
7, that property cannot exist in wild animals.
In case of stealing them in their wild state,
whose property would they be laid in the indict-
ment to be,? Such an indictment could not be
supported. The remaining chapters contain
much acute observation, excellent reasoning, and
judicious reference, and the author concludes in
the hope that his discussion will procure a re-
sell favourable to the general principles of con-
stitutional freedom, and to the increasing the
happiness of his fellow-creatures and brother
Englishmen. Sept. 5, 1827.

and where
some,
who,
Bertrand de la I3rocquiere, Counsellor and
First Esquire, Carver to Philip le Bon, Duke of Burgundy,
in his Travels to Jerusalem," in 1432, says, In out
conversations, I frequently questioned enegado slave about
me it way at Mecca ;4that the shrine containing the body
having seen it, had theit
was in a circular chapel, open at the top, and that it was
through this opening the pilgrims saw the shrine ; that
where his body was interred. He told
eyes thrust out, hecaus.e they said, after what they had just
seen, the world could no longer offer them any thing wort]
looking at. There were, in fact, in this caravan, two per-
sons, the one of 16 and the other of 22 or 23 years old,
I:looltnagnuntheedm,
who had thus male themselves blind."