The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-12-05
GAME in GREAT BRITAIN.

| The subject OF game has always been one OF
great importance in England and Scotland,
and the recent report OF the Parliamentary
Committee on Game Laws may naturally be
| looked to for some interesting facts This ex-
pectation is realized in the details and es-
Inmates contained in the report, which place
| the wild animals OF Great Britain III new
| light, as ministers to the wants OF the poor,
and contributors to the wealth of the country.
! These facts were elected by very careful
examination of various classes OF people con-
nected with the retail distribution Of game
game-keepers turriers, and the representa-
tives Of various industries into which the four
footed animals enter in one way or another.
The most valuable animal running wild
among the turnip fields and meadows is the
rabbit, whom the committee has condemned
to death as common vermin. This verdict APP
peals to be based upon its reproductive tertll-
itv and general usefulness. The first claim
the little rabbit makes is his excellence and
cheapness as an article of food. His flesh is
preferred to butchers meat, not only by poor
people, but as change Of diet by the more
fortunate. pair of rabbits weighing four
pounds would cost two shillings, and would
thus be obtained for about half the cost Of
butchers meat. The popularity Of the animal
for the dinner table may be assumed from
the circumstance that it brings a higher
price on Fridays and Sundays when the poor
people are paid their weeks wages. The flesh
Of the English rabbit is more delicate and
palatable than that OF the American variety,
and deserves the high esteem in which it has
been held. The committee estimate that
27,0O00O0 rabbits are annually bred in Great
Britain and Ireland, which are equivalent to
"a, 900 tons OF animal food, representing at
low estimate II, $50, 900. In addition to the
value of the rabbit as flood, his skin is an
article of merchandise. The average value OF
a rabbit-skin is two pence, which would
amount to f225, 600 for the number above
stated, and would increase the value OF the
English rabbit-crop to the astounding sum of
81, $4,000.
The hare is a scarcer animal than the rab-
Bit and more expensive. 1t is an article of
luxury entirely out Of reach of the poor man.
The annual cropof hare is estimated at 2,OO0,-
600. The brown hare is the more valuable,
being worth 3 shillings, while his skin sells
for pence. The average price Of the hare
is about 2 shilling and pence. Thus the
hare would represent some e275,O0 About
O,OOO, 900 rabbit-skins are annually exported
bringing in exchange some fS3, 900. The
silver-gray rabbit skin is sent to Russia there
dressed and returned to England under an
other name. In England the pelts are made
into mutfs, boas, and such things of a
cheap description, the down combed from
them being used principally for stutting bed
ticks The preparation OF the skins tor va
rious uses gives employment to 5000 people,
men, women and children, who earn in the
aggregate something like c14o, 900 during the
season. Some of tie fur is mixed with Or
binary wool in the manufacture OF hats, the
expectation OF which to the United States and
France, in spite OF the 80 per cent ad valorem
duty imposed b. our Government and II per
celt by the French, realized in 1872 not less
than e642, SO2.
As an offset against the commercial value of
these mischievous animals is the injury they
infict upon the agriculturalist. It is this
which has induced the committee to declare
war upon them by designating them vermin.
By excluding them from the protection Of the
game laws, the farmer who suffers by their
depredations is permitted to make what COM
pensatory profit he can out of their bodies.
There is little danger of their becoming ex-
tinct, for it requires bit a year or two c. I'M
molested happiness to people common with
rabbits innumerable
The feathered game IS more carefully pro-
tected. No alterations are recommended in
the laws regarding partridges and pheasants,
and those precious birds are still IS sGcred to
the lind owner Us the ibis Of Egypt, the vul-
ture of Hindostan, or the wren of the Emerald
Isle. The came ruadrupeds of England are
a democratic institution the fcathered game
"a patrician luxury. The former are a source
OF profit, and relief to the poor the latter
merely an object OF cruel, If healthy, amase-
ment to the wealthy.-st Louis Rss NJieen.
4 "a How @oeI, e.: