The Sun. — 1844-10-22 (London, England)

LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1844.  At a late meeting of the Bucks magistrates, at which the demoralizing Game-laws were made the subject of discussion, Sir H. VERNEY boldly stated a, a fact which could not be gainsayed—and to which no one present ventured to offer the slightest contradiction—that one-fourth of the Buckinghamshire crops was annually destroyed by game ; and that o, five hundred and thirty individuals committed to the county gaol, one hundred and sixty-nine were for offences against the Game-laws ! The worthy Baronet concluded by proposing that Government should be memorialised on the subject, but the pro. posal was rejected by a large majority. This is no more than we should have anticipated, for it is astonishing with what tenacity the aristo cracy—and more especially the squirearchy— of England, cling to those injurious laws, which are among the last remains of the oppressive feudal system. In their partial eyes they are everythiny that is just and beneficent in legislation, happily adapted to the tastes of the age in general, and t, their own special interests in particular; consequently whoever offends against them must be the mos, egregious and inexcusable of criminals. We really believe there is no offence—not even arson or murder —of which our provincial magistrates entertain s& great a horror, or which they punish with such re morseless severity, as an offence against the Gamelaws. A poacher is, in their estimation, s. miracle of depravity—a species of vermb, which deserves to be exterminated without mercy. 11 they could have their own will in Parliament, they would make the laws against him more strip. gent than ever, and banish him for life to one of our penal settlements, there to meditate in anguish and solitude, on the atrocity of the crime he had perpetrated in snaring one of the 'Squire's superfluous hares, or making free with one of the hundreds of pheasants to be found in his well-stocked preserves Of course the majority of our readers are well aware of the causes of the antipathy which our rural magistracy entertain towards poaching. Most of them are themselves keen sportsmen—preservers of game with the utmost strictness ; consequently their sense of justice is wondrously sharpened by their sense of self-interest. Generally speaking, we do not accuse them of undue severity in the administration of the laws entrusted to them ; they are considerate, tolerant—we wish we could add that they are remarkable for sagacity—and by no means indisposed to visit with lenity such offenders as they may be called on to punish ; but let an unhappy poacher once be brought before them, and away goes all their toleration—all their forbearance— all their lenity ; the frown deepens on their brow, and Justice pits on her most inexorable expression of countenance,_to mark her sense of the atrocious act committed by the criminal on whom she is called to adjudicate. This undue severity is deeply to be lamented, for it is productive of the most injurious consequences by tending to widen the breach—already quite wide enough—between the labouring classes and their superiors; but still more to be lamented is the existence of the Game-laws in their present tyrannical form. With all their harshness they fail of putting a stop to the offence of poaching—and they would fail to do so, were they ten times as stringent as they are—while they compel the humbler orders to regard those who support th as legal despots and oppressors of the most petty and, vexatious character. It must ever be a difficult-almost, indeed, an impossible—task to' convince the destitute labourer who may not be furnished with means enough to provide himself and his family with the day's meal, and who, moreover, from scarcity of work, may have more time on his hands than he  knows how to employ ;—it must always, we say, be a difficult task to convince such a man, who -is, not unfrequently, among the most ignorant of the corn inunity, that in taking a hare or a pheasant, or a  ""144% Me . • At .` 4, 7 , ,or, 0111 • 7 • • 4,411,17 LA e• 'f 4 v..— • •Al 0 ~.11ZrEEVI T4V--EV ',h.- R.. 00 As.. „.7 •