The Sun. — 1860-04-19 (London, England)

SHOULD WELCOME THE MILITARY DESPOTISM THAT SHOULD RELIEVE US." The expressions we have here taken the liberty of emphasing with italics, and especially the closing sentence, which we could only fitly quote in small capitals, will be accepted by our readers—cannot fail to be so accepted by them—as ample justification of every phrase above applied by us to this astounding denunciation of Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S " Poor Little Bill" by the Quarterly. Epithets so applied, are, surely, something equivalent to the discharge of a park of artillery at a cock sparrow ; or to adopt the famous metaphor in POPE'S Satire, he breaking upon the wheel of a butterfly.  Every now and then the subject of game preservation is forced on public attention. Sometimes it is by the terrible monition of a horrible murder, as  it is termed, and horrible enough it is, yet wanting after all in the worst incidents of a murder—the waylaying with intent to kill. Game murders, which so awfully remind us of the existence of game laws, are rather duels between persons whose occupations make them bitter enemie's to each other. Occasionally, also, a pamphlet, like the one now before us,' serves to keep the subject before the public. Mr. CORBET'S essay was originally read at a meeting of the " Central Farmers' Club " this spring, and is very properly printed in this form, being too long to appear fully in the daily press. It specially invites attention to the evils of the " over preservation of game," and takes a view of the fair use of game which ought to content any reasonable man.  Amongst Mr. GLADSTONE'S money-squeezing tricks, one is a modification of the game licenses, in which he proposes to cancel one of the most practically useful of the gamo preservers' concessions, by making rabbits game again ! Probably this illadvised proposal may have suggested to Mr. CORDET taking up the subject just now. And,  though to townsmen the rabbit-killing license may not seem much worse than a stamp on every letter which is to make a bargain binding, it will prove, in the country, a cause of the most wanton annoyance. To the farmer all the furred game are the most odious of ♦ermin. Hares do an incalculable amount of damage. They cannot, like a flock of sheep, be penned and required to consume an assigned portion of food—they roam over a field of turnips, bite far more than they eat, and thus  * Over Preservation of Game. By Henry Corbel London : J, Ridgway,  expose to the rotting effects of frost, perhaps twenty times the weight of, mrooroetosr, eequaitsite to sustain them. Hares, Ter, the young grain crops which sheep are, of course, never allowed to do ; they also, being rodentia, seem to take a pleasure in nibbling off the blades for the pleasure of nibbling. Worse vermin on his farm than hares the farmer cannot have. But next to these come Mr. GLADSTONE'S rabbits. They too are great eaters of green crops, but they do not ramble so far as hares. They keep in the neighbourhood of their burrows. In their vicinity they are as mischievous vermin as hares themselves. But, as if to compensate for moving in a smaller circle, they do far more damage within it. They destroy banks and hedges by their burrows, and have been known to cause endless trouble by stopping up costly under-drains. To the farmer both hares and rabbits are as great a Nuisance as rats and mice. The charge against Mr.GLADSTONE i 3 that one of these pests having been degraded from the rank of game, Mr. GLADSTONE, for the sake of thumb-screwing a trifle out of the farmer, proposes to make them game again. We hope some independent member will notice this shabby little trick. Will not some of our county members do it ? They retain, we suppose, as their motto—" Farmers' Friends"—will they not look out for the farmers ? If they consult their gamekeepers, the latter, who always regard the rabbits as their perquisite, will give declared t he in twenty reasons why rabbits should be game ; but if they ask their tenants they will bid them declare rats game next, and Mr.