feeling of humanity, and every principle of justice, to deal out one measure of punishment to all. We strongly suspect that this is the root of the evil. We want new gradations of guilt to be established by law-new names for those gradations-and a different measure of good and evil treatment attached to those denominations. In this manner, the mere convict, the rogue and convict, and the incorrigi ble convict, would expect, upon their landing, to be treated with very different degrees of se

serve upon the jury-the waters of the Hawks- | bury are out, and I have a mile to swim--the kangaroos will break into my corn-the convicts have robbed me-my little boy has been bitten by an ornithorynchus paradoxus-I have sent a man fifty miles with a sack of flour to buy a pair of breeches for the assizes, and he is not returned." These are the excuses which, in new colonies, always prevent trial by jury; and make it desirable for the first half century of their existence, that they should live under the simplicity and convenience of despotism-verity. The first might be merely detained in such modified despotism (we mean) as a British House of Commons (always containing men as bold and honest as the member for Shrewsbury) will permit, in the governors of their distant colonies.

New South Wales without labour or coercion; the second compelled, at all events, to work out two-thirds of his time, without the possibility of remission; and the third be destined at once for the Coal River. If these consequences steadily followed these gradations of conviction, they would soon be understood by the felonious world at home. At present, the prosperity of the best convicts is considered to be attainable by all; and transportation to another hemisphere is looked upon as the renovation of fallen fortunes, and the passport to wealth and power.

Such are the opinions formed of the conduct of Governor Macquarrie by Mr. Bigge. Not the slightest insinuation is made against the integrity of his character. Though almost every body else has a job, we do not perceive that any is imputed to this gentleman; but he is negligent, expensive, arbitrary, ignorant, and clearly deficient in abilities for the task committed to his charge. It is our decided Another circumstance, which destroys all opinion, therefore, that Mr. Bennet has ren- idea of punishment in transportation to New dered a valuable service to the public, in at- South Wales, is the enormous expense which tacking and exposing his conduct. As a gen- that settlement would occasion, if it really tleman and an honest man, there is not the was made a place of punishment. A little smallest charge against the governor; but a wicked tailor arrives, of no use to the argentleman, and a very honest man, may very chitectural projects of the governor. He is easily ruin a very fine colony. The colony turned over to a settler, who leases this sartoitself, disencumbered of Colonel Lachlan Mac- rial Borgia his liberty for five shillings per quarrie, will probably become a very fine em- week, and allows him to steal and snip, what, pire; but we can scarcely believe it is of any when, and where he can. The excuse for all present utility as a place of punishment. The this mockery of law and justice is, that the history of emancipated convicts, who have expense of his maintenance is saved to the made a great deal of money by their industry government at home. But the expense is not and their speculations, necessarily reaches saved to the country at large. The nefarious this country, and prevents men who are goad-needleman writes home, that he is as comed by want, and hovering between vice and fortable as a finger in a thimble! that though virtue, from looking upon it as a place of suf- a fraction only of humanity, he has several fering-perhaps leads them to consider it as wives, and is filled every day with rum and the land of hope and refuge, to them unattain-kangaroo. This, of course, is not lost upon able, except by the commission of crime. And the shop-board; and, for the saving of fifteen so they lift up their heads at the bar, hoping pence per day, the foundation of many crimito be transported,nal tailors is laid. What is true of tailors, is true of tinkers and all other trades. The chances of escape from labour, and of manumission in the Bay, we may depend upon it, are accurately reported, and perfectly understood in the flash-houses of St. Giles; and, while Earl Bathurst is full of jokes and joy, public morals are thus sapped to their foun

"Stabant orantes primi transmittere cursum Tendebantque manus, ripæ ulterioris amore."

It is not possible, in the present state of the law, that these enticing histories of convict prosperity should be prevented, by one uniform system of severity exercised in New South Wales, upon all transported persons. Such different degrees of guilt are included under the term of convict, that it would violate every

dation.

This practice is now resorted to.

GAME LAW S.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1823.]

ABOUT the time of the publication of this little pamphlet of Mr. Herbert, a committee of the House of Commons published a Report on the Game Laws, containing a great deal of very curious information respecting the sale of game, an epitome of which we shall now lay before our readers. The country higglers who collect poultry, gather up the game from the depots of the poachers, and transmit it in the same manner as poultry, and in the same packages, to the London poulterers, by whom it is distributed to the public; and this traffic is carried on (as far as game is concerned) even from the distance of Scotland. The same business is carried on by the porters of stage coaches; and a great deal of game is sold clandestinely by lords of manors, or by gamekeepers, without the knowledge of lords of manors; and principally, as the evidence states, from Norfolk and Suffolk, the great schools of steel traps and spring guns. The supply of game, too, is proved to be quite as regular as the supply of poultry; the number of hares and partridges supplied rather exceeds that of pheasants; but any description of game may be had to any amount. Here is a part of the evidence.

Poachers who go out at night cannot, of course, like regular tradesmen, proportion the supply to the demand, but having once made a contract, they kill all they can; and hence it happens that the game market is sometimes very much overstocked, and great quantities of game either thrown away, or disposed of by Irish hawkers to the common people at very inferior prices.

"Does it ever happen to you to be obliged to dispose of poultry at the same low prices you are obliged to dispose of game? It depends upon the weather; often, when there is a considerable quantity on hand, and owing to the weather, it will not keep till the following day, I am obliged to take any price that is offered; but we can always turn either poultry or game into some price or other; and if it was not for the Irish hawkers, hundreds and hundreds of heads of game would be spoiled and thrown away. It is out of the power of any person to conceive for one moment the quantity of game that is hawked in the streets. I have had opportunity more than other persons of knowing this; for I have sold, I may say, more game than any other person in the city; and we serve hawkers indiscriminately, persons who come and purchase probably six fowls or turkeys and geese, and they will buy heads of game with them."-Report, p. 22.

Live birds are sent up as well as dead; eggs as well as birds. The price of pheasants' eggs last year was 88. per dozen; of partridges' 5s. 6d.; of partridges, from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d.; of eggs, 28. The price of hares was from 3s. to times as low as 1s. 6d. pheasants, from 5s. to 5s. 6d. each, and some

"What have you given for game this year? It is very low indeed; I am sick of it; I do not think I shall ever deal again. We have got game this season as low as half-a-crown a brace (birds), and pheasants as low as 7s. a brace. It is so plentiful there has been no end to spoiling it this season. It is so plentiful, it is of no use.

"Can you at any time procure any quantity of game? I have no doubt of it.-If you were to receive almost an unlimited order, could you execute it? Yes, I would supply the whole city of London, any fixed day once a week, all the year through, so that every individual inhabitant should have game for his table.-Do you think you could procure a thousand pheasants? Yes; I would be bound to produce ten thousand a week.-You would be bound to provide every family in London with a dish of game? Yes; a partridge, or a pheasant, or a hare, or a grouse, or something or other.-How would you set about doing it? I should, of course, request the persons with whom I am in the habit of dealing, to use their influence to bring me what they could by a certain day; I should speak to the dealers and the mail-guards, and coachmen, to produce a quantity; and I should send to my own connections in one or two manors where I have the privilege of selling for those gentlemen: and should send to All the poulterers, too, even the most reScotland to say, that every week the largest spectable, state that it is absolutely necessary quantity they could produce was to be sent.-they should carry on this illegal traffic in the Being but a petty salesman, I sell a very small quantity; but I have had about 4000 head direct from one man.-Can you state the quantity of game which has been sent to you during the year? No; I may say, perhaps, 10,000 head; mine is a limited trade; I speak comparatively to that of others; I only supply private families."-Report, p. 20.

A Letter to the Chairman of the Committee of the House of Commons, on the Game Laws. By the Hon. and Rev. William Herbert. Ridgway, 1823.

In war time it was worth having; then they fetched 7s. and 8s. a brace."Report, p. 33.

present state of the game laws; because their regular customers for poultry would infallibly leave any poulterer's shop from whence they could not be supplied with game.

"I have no doubt that it is the general wish at present of the trade not to deal in the article; but they are all, of course, compelled from their connections. If they cannot get game from one person, they can from another.

"Do you believe that poulterers are not to Je found who would take out licenses, and

would deal with those very persons, for the purposes of obtaining a greater profit than they would have dealing as you would do? I think the poulterers in general are a respectable set of men, and would not countenance such a thing; they feel now that they are driven into a corner; that there may be men who would countenance irregular proceedings, I have no doubt. Would it be their interest to do so, considering the penalty? No, I think not. The poulterers are perfectly well aware that they are committing a breach of the law at present. -Do you suppose that those persons, respectable as they are, who are now committing a breach of the law, would not equally commit that breach if the law were altered? No, certainly not; at present it is so connected with their business that they cannot help it. You said just now, that they were driven into a corner; what did you mean by that? We are obliged to aid and abet those men who commit those depredations, because of the constant demand for game, from different customers whom we supply with poultry.-Could you carry on your business as a poulterer, if you refused to supply game? By no means; because some of the first people in the land require it of me."-Report, p. 15.

When that worthy errorist, Mr. Bankes, brought in his bill of additional severities against poachers, there was no man of sense and reflection who did not anticipate the following consequences of the measure.

"Do you find that less game has been sold in consequence of the bill rendering it penal to sell game? Upon my word, it did not make the slightest difference in the world.-Not immediately after it was made? No; I do not think it made the slightest difference.-It did not make the slightest sensation? No, I never sold a bird less.-Was not there a resolution of the poulterers not to sell game? I was secretary to that committee.-What was the consequence of that resolution? A great deal of ill blood in the trade. One gentleman who just left the room did not come into my ideas. I never had a head of game in my house; all my neighbours sold it; and as we had people on the watch, who were ready to watch it into the houses, it came to this, we were prepared to bring our actions against certain individuals, after sitting, perhaps from three to four months, every week, which we did at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, but we did not proceed with our actions, to prevent ill blood in the trade. We regularly met, and, as we conceived at the time, formed a committee of the most respectable of the trade. I was secretary of that committee. The game was sold in the city, in the vicinity of the Royal Exchange, cheaper than ever was known, because the people at our end of the town were afraid. I, as a point of honour, never had it in my house. I never had a head of game in my house that season. What was the consequence?—I lost my trade, and gave offence to gentlemen; a nobleman's steward, or butler, or cook, treated it as contumely; 'Good God, what is the use of your running your head against the wall?' You were obliged to begin the trade again? Yes, and sold more than ever."-Report, p. 18.

These consequences are confirmed by the evidence of every person before the committee. All the evidence is very strong as to the fact, that dealing in game is not discreditable; that there are a great number of respectable persons, and, among the rest, the first poulterers in London, who buy game knowing it to have been illegally procured, but who would never dream of purchasing any other article procured by dishonesty.

Cer

"Are there not, to your knowledge, a great many people in this town who deal in game, by buying or selling it, that would not on any account buy or sell stolen property? tainly; there are many capital tradesmen, poulterers, who deal in game, that would have nothing to do with stolen property; and yet I do not think there is a poulterer's shop in London where they could not get game, if they wanted it.-Do you think any discredit attaches to any man in this town for buying or selling game? I think none at all: and I do not think that the men to whom I have just referred would have any thing to do with stolen goods. Would it not, in the opinion of the inhabitants of London, be considered a very different thing dealing in stolen game, or stolen poultry? Certainly. The one would be considered disgraceful, and the other not? Certainly; they think nothing of dealing in game; and the farmers in the country will not give informa. tion; they will have a hare or two of the very men who work for them, and they are afraid to give us information."-Report, p. 31.

The evidence of Daniel Bishop, one of the Bow Street officers, who has been a good deal employed in the apprehension of poachers, is curious and important, as it shows the enormous extent of the evil, and the ferocious spirit which the game laws engender in the common people. "The poachers," he says, "came 16 miles. The whole of the village from which they were taken were poachers; the constable of the village, and the shoemaker, and other inhabitants of the village. I fetched one man 22 miles. There was the son of a respectable gardener; one of these was a sawyer, and another a baker, who kept a good shop there. If the village had been alarmed, we should have had some mischief; but we were all prepared with fire-arms. If poachers have a spite with the gamekeeper, that would induce them to go out in numbers to resist him. This party I speak of had something in their hats to distinguish them. They take a delight in setting to with the gamekeepers; and talk it over afterwards how they served so and so. They fought with the butt-ends of their guns at Lord Howe's; they beat the gamekeepers shockingly."-" Does it occur to you (Bishop is asked) to have had more applications, and to have detected more persons this season than in any former one? Yes; I think within four months there have been twenty-one transported that I have been at the taking of, and through one man turning evidence in each case, and without that they could not have been identified; the gamekeepers could not, or would not, identify them. The poachers go to the public house and spend their money; if they have a good night's work, they will go and get drunk with

the money. The gangs are connected together at different public houses, just like a club at a public house; they are all sworn together. If the keeper took one of them, they would go and attack him for so doing."

Mr. Stafford, chief clerk of Bow Street, says, "All the offences against the game laws which are of an atrocious description I think are generally reported to the public office in Bow Street, more especially in cases where the keepers have either been killed, or dangerously wounded, and the assistance of an officer from Bow Street is required. The applications have been much more numerous of late years than they were formerly. Some of them have been cases of murder; but I do not think many have amounted to murder. There are many instances in which keepers have been very ill treated-they have been wounded, skulls have been fractured, and bones broken; and they have been shot at. A man takes an hare, or a pheasant, with a very different feeling from that with which he would take a pigeon or a fowl out of a farm-yard. The number of persons that assemble together is more for the purpose of protecting themselves against those that may apprehend them, than from any idea that they are actually committing depredation upon the property of another person; they do not consider it as property. I think there is a sense of morality and a distinction of crime existing in the men's minds, although they are mistaken about it. Men feel that if they go in a great body together, to break into a house, or to rob a person, or to steal his poultry, or his sheep, they are committing a crime against that man's property; but I think with respect to the game, they do not feel that they are doing any thing which is wrong; but think they have committed no crime when they have done the thing, and their only anxiety is to escape detection." In addition, Mr. Stafford states that he remembers not one single conviction under Mr. Bankes's Act against buying game; and not one conviction for buying or selling game within the last year has been made at Bow Street.

since this legislative mistake, the officers of the police can hardly recollect a single instance where the information has been laid, or the penalty levied : and why? because every man's feelings and every man's understanding tell him, that it is a most absurd and ridiculous tyranny to prevent one man, who has more game than he wants, frem exchanging it with another man, who has more money than he wants-because magistrates will not (if they can avoid it) inflict such absurd penalties-because even common informers know enough of the honest indignation of mankind, and are too well aware of the coldness of pump and pond to act under the bill of the Lycurgus of Corfe Castle.

The plan now proposed is, to undersell the poacher, which may be successful or unsuc cessful; but the threat is, if you attempt this plan there will be no game-and if there is no game there will be no country gentlemen. We deny every part of this enthymeme-the last proposition as well as the first. We really cannot believe that all our rural mansions would be deserted, although no game was to be found in their neighbourhood. Some come into the country for health, some for quiet, for agriculture, for economy, from attachment to family estates, from love of retirement, from the neces sity of keeping up provincial interests, and from a vast variety of causes. Partridges and pheasants, though they form nine-tenths of human motives, still leave a small residue, which may be classed under some other head. Neither is a great proportion of those whom the love of shooting brings into the country of the smallest value or importance to the country. A colonel of the Guards, the second son just entered at Oxford, three diners out from Piccadilly-Major Rock, Lord John, Lord Charles, the colonel of the regiment quartered at the neighbouring town, two Irish peers, and a German baron;-if all this honourable company proceed with fustian jackets, dog-whistles, and chemical inventions, to a solemn destruction of pheasants, how is the country benefited by The inferences from these facts are exactly their presence? or how would earth, air, or as we predicted, and as every man of common sea, be injured by their annihilation? There sense must have predicted-that to prevent the are certainly many valuable men brought into sale of game is absolutely impossible. If game the country by a love of shooting, who, coming is plentiful, and cannot be obtained at any law- there for that purpose, are useful for many betful market, an illicit trade will be established, ter purposes; but a vast multitude of shooters which it is utterty impossible to prevent by any are of no more service to the country than the increased severity of the laws. There never was ramrod which condenses the charge, or the a more striking illustration of the necessity of barrel which contains it. We do not deny that attending to public opinion in all penal enact- the annihilation of the game laws would thin ments. Mr. Bankes (a perfect representative the aristocratical population of the country; but of all the ordinary notions about forcing man- it would not thin that population so much as is kind by pains and penalties) took the floor. To contended; and the loss of many of the persons buy a partridge (though still considered as in- so banished would be a good rather than a ferior to murder) was visited with the very misfortune. At all events, we cannot at all heaviest infliction of the law; and yet, though comprehend the policy of alluring the better game is sold as openly in London as apples classes of society into the country, by the and oranges, though three years have elapsed temptation of petty tyranny and injustice, or of It is only of late years that men have been trans-monopoly in sports. How absurd it would be ported for shooting at night. There are instances of to offer to the higher orders the exclusive use men who have been transported at the Sessions for night poaching, who made no resistance at all when taken; but then their characters as old poachers weighed against them-characters estimated probably by the very lords of manors who had lost their game. This disgraceful law is the occasion of all the murders

committed for game.

of peaches, nectarines, and apricots, as the premium of rustication-to put vast quantities of men into prison as apricot eaters, apricot buyers, and apricot sellers-to appoint a regular day for beginning to eat, and another for leav

poachers will not submit to be sent to Botany Bay without a battle-blood is shed for pheasants-the public attention is called to this preposterous state of the law-and even ministers

(whom nothing pesters so much as the interests of humanity) are at least compelled to come forward and do what is right. Apply this to the game laws. It was before penal to sell game: within these few years it has been made penal to buy it. From the scandalous cruelty of the law, night poachers are transported for seven years. And yet, never was so much game sold, or such a spirit of ferocious resistance excited to the laws. One-fourth of all the commitments in Great Britain are for

ing off to have a lord of the manor for green gages-and to rage with a penalty of five pounds against the unqualified eater of the gage! And yet the privilege of shooting a set of wild poultry is stated to be the bonus for the residence of country gentlemen. As far as this immense advantage can be obtained without the sacrifice of justice and reason, well and good-but we would not oppress any order of Society, or violate right and wrong, to obtain any population of squires, however dense. It is the grossest of all absurdities to say the present state of the law is absurd and unjust; but it must not be altered, because the alteration would drive gentlemen out of the country! If gentlemen cannot breathe fresh air without in-offences against the game laws. There is a justice, let them putrefy in Cranborne Alley. Make just laws, and let squires live and die where they please.

general feeling that some alteration must take place-a feeling not only among Reviewers, who never see nor eat game, but among the double-barreled, shot-belted members of the House of Commons, who are either alarmed or disgusted by the vice and misery which their cruel laws and childish passion for amusement are spreading among the lower orders of mankind.

It is said, "In spite of all the game sold, there is game enough left; let the laws therefore remain as they are;" and so it was said formerly, "There is sugar enough; let the slave trade remain as it is." But at what ex

The evidence collected in the House of Commons respecting the game laws is so striking and so decisive against the gentlemen of the trigger, that their only resource is to represent it as not worthy of belief. But why not worthy of belief? It is not stated what part of it is incredible. Is it the plenty of game in London for sale? the unfrequency of convictions? the occasional but frequent excess of supply above demand in an article supplied by stealing? or its destruction when the sale is not without risk, and the price extremely low? or the readi-pense of human happiness is this quantity of ness of grandees to turn the excess of their game into fish or poultry? All these circumstances appear to us so natural and so likely, that we should, without any evidence, have but little doubt of their existence. There are a few absurdities in the evidence of one of the poulterers; but, with this exception, we see no reason whatever for impugning the credibility and exactness of the mass of testimony prepared by the committee.

It is utterly impossible to teach the common people to respect property in animals bred the possessor knows not where-which he cannot recognize by any mark, which may leave him the next moment, which are kept, not for his profit, but for his amusement. Opinion never will be in favour of such property; if the animus furandi exists, the propensity will be gratified by poaching. It is in vain to increase the severity of the protecting laws. They make the case weaker, instead of stronger; and are more resisted and worse executed, exactly in proportion as they are contrary to public opinion-the case of the game laws is a memorable lesson upon the philosophy of legislation. If a certain degree of punishment does not cure the offence, it is supposed, by the Bankes School, that there is nothing to be done but to multiply this punishment by two, and then again and again, till the object is accomplished. The efficient maximum of punishment, however, is not what the legislature chooses to enact, but what the great mass of mankind think the maximum ought to be. The moment the punishment passes this Rubicon, it becomes less and less, instead of greater and greater. Juries and magistrates will not commit-informers are afraid of public indignation

There is a remarkable instance of this in the new Turnpike Act. The penalty for taking more than the

game or of sugar, and this state of poacher law and slave law, to remain ! The first object of a good government is, not that rich men should have their pleasures in perfection, but that all orders of men should be good and happy; and if crowded covies and chuckling cock-pheasants are only to be procured by encouraging the common people in vice, and leading them into cruel and disproportionate punishment, it is the duty of the government to restrain the cruelties which the country members, in reward for their assiduous loyalty, have been allowed to introduce into the game laws.

The plan of the new bill (long since anticipated, in all its provisions, by the acute author of the pamphlet before us,) is, that the public at large should be supplied by persons licensed by magistrates, and that all qualified persons should be permitted to sell their game to these licensed distributors; and there seems a fair chance that such a plan would succeed. The questions are, Would sufficient game come into the hands of the licensed salesman? Would the licensed salesman confine himself to the purchase of game from qualified persons?— Would buyers of game purchase elsewhere than from the licensed salesman? Would the poacher be under-sold by the honest dealer?— Would game remain in the same plenty as before? It is understood that the game laws are to remain as they are; with this only differ

legal number of outside passengers is ten pounds per head, if the coachman is in part or wholly the owner. This will rarely be levied; because it is too much. A penalty of 1007. would produce perfect impunity. The maximum of practical severity would have been about five pounds. Any magistrate would cheerfully levy this sum; while doubling it will produce reluctance in the judge, resistance in the culprit, and unwillingness in the informer.