The law by which slaves are governed in the Carolinas, is a provincial law as old as 1740, but made perpetual in 1783. By this law it is enacted, that every negro shall be presumed a slave unless the contrary appear. The 9th clause allows two justices of the peace, and three freeholders, power to put them to any manner of death; the evidence against them may be without oath.-No slave is to traffic on his own ac

wickedness.

Let

I had hardly got upon the steps to look in, when my ears That such feelings and such practices should exist were assailed by the voice of singing; and turning round among men who know the value of liberty, and profess to discover from what quarter it came, I saw a group of to understand its principles, is the consummation of about thirty negroes, of different sizes and ages, following a rough-looking white man, who sat carelessly lolling in his Every American who loves his country, sulky. They had just turned round the corner, and were should dedicate his whole life, and every faculty of coming up the main street to pass by the spot where I stood, his soul, to efface this foul stain from its character. on their way out of town. As they came nearer, I saw some If nations rank according to their wisdom and their of them loaded with chains to prevent their escape; while virtue, what right has the American, a scourger and others had hold of each other's hands, strongly grasped, as murderer of slaves, to compare himself with the it to support themselves in their affliction. particularly noticed a poor mother, with an infant sucking at her breast least and lowest of the European nations?-much as she walked along, while two small children had hold of more with this great and humane country, where the her apron on either side, almost running to keep up with greatest lord dare not lay a finger upon the meanest the rest. They came along singing a little wild hymn, of peasant? What is freedom, where all are not free? sweet and mournful melody, flying, by a divine in-tinct of where the greatest of God's blessings is limited, with the heart, to the consolation of religion, the last refuge of impious caprice, to the colour of the body? And these the unhappy, to support them in their distress. The sulky are the men who taunt the English with their corrupt now stopped before the tavern, at a little distance beyond Parliament, with their buying and selling votes. the court-house, and the driver got out. "My dear sir,' said I to a person who stood near me, "can you tell me the world judge which is the most liable to censurewhat these poor people have been doing? What is their we who, in the midst of our rottenness, have torn off crime? and what is to be their punishment?" "O," said the manacles of slaves all over the world;-or they he, "it's nothing at all, but a parcel of negroes sold to who, with their idle purity, and useless perfection, Carolina; and that man is their driver, who has bought have remained mute and careless, while groans echothem." But what have they done, that they should be ed and whips clanked round the very walls of their sold into banishment?" "Done," said he "nothing at all, that I know of; their masters wanted money, I suppose, spotless Congress. We wish well to America-we reand these drivers give good prices." Here the driver hav-joice in her prosperity-and are delighted to resist the ing supplied himself with brandy, and his horse with water absurd impertinence with which the character of her (the poor negroes of course wanted nothing,) stepped into people is often treated in this country; but the exist his chair again, cracked his whip, and drove on, while the ence of slavery in America is an atrocious crime, with miserable exiles followed in funeral procession behind which no measures can be kept-for which her situa him."-Hall, 358-360. tion affords no sort of apology-which makes liberty itself distrusted, and the boast of it disgusting. termine for himself. A carpenter under thirty years As for emigration, every man, of course, must deof age, who finds himself at Cincinnati with an axe over his shoulder, and ten pounds in his pocket, will get rich in America, if the change of climate does not kill him. So will a farmer who emigrates early with some capital. But any person with tolerable prosperity here had better remain where he is. There are be madness not to admit, that it is, upon the whole, a considerable evils, no doubt, in England: but it would very happy country-and we are much mistaken if the next twenty years will not bring with it a great deal of internal improvement. The country has long been groaning under the evils of the greatest foreign war we were ever engaged in; and we are just beginning to look again into our home affairs. Political economy has made an astonishing progress since they were last investigated; and every session of Parliament brushes off some of the cobwebs and dust of our ancestors.* The Apprentice Laws have been swept away; the absurd nonsense of the Usury Laws will probably soon follow, Public Education and Saving Banks have been the invention of these last ten years: and the strong fortress of bigotry has been rudely as sailed. Then, with all its defects, we have a Parliament of inestimable value. If there be a place in any country where 500 well educated men can meet together and talk with impunity of public affairs, and if what they say is published, that country must improve. It is not pleasant to emigrate into a country of changes and revolution, the size and integrity of whose empire no man can predict. The Americans are a very sensible, reflecting people, and have con ducted their affairs extremely well; but it is scarcely possible to conceive that such an empire should very long remain undivided, or that the dwellers on the Columbia should have common interest with the navigators of the Hudson and the Delaware.

count.-Any person murdering a slave is to pay 1001. or141. if he cuts out the tongue of a slave.-Any white man meeting seven slaves together on an high road, may give them twenty lashes each.-No man must teach a slave to write, under penalty of 1007. currency. We have Mr. Hall's authority for the existence and enforcement of this law at the present day. Mr. Fearon has recorded some facts still more instructive.

'Observing a great many coloured people, particularly females, in these boats, I concluded that they were emigrants, who had proceeded thus far on their route towards a settlement. The fact proved to be, that fourteen of the flats were freighted with human beings for sale. They had been collected in the several states by slave dealers, and shipped from Kentucky for a market. They were dressed up to the best advantage, on the same principle that jockeys do horses upon sale. The following is a specimen of advertisements on this subject.

"TWENTY DOLLARS REWARD

"Will be paid for apprehending and lodging in jail, or delivering to the subscriber, the following slaves, belonging to JOSEPH IRVIN, of Iberville.-TOM, a very light mulatto, blue eyes, 5 feet 10 inches high, appears to be about 35 years of age; an artful fellow-can read and write, and preaches occasionally. -CHARLOTTE, a black wench, round and full faced, tall, straight, and likely-about 25 years of age, and wife of the above named Tom. These slaves decamped from their owner's plantation on the night of the 14th September instant."-Fearon, p. 270.

"The three African churches," as they are called, are for all those native Americans who are black, or have any shade of colour darker than white. These persons, though many of them are possessed of the rights of citizenship, are not admitted into the churches which are visited by whites. There exists a penal law, deeply written in the mind of the whole white population, which subjects their coloured fellow-citizens to unconditional contuinely and never-ceasing insult.

No respectability, however unquestionable, no property, however large,-no character, however unblemished, will gain a man, whose body is (in American estimation) cursed with even a twentieth portion of the blood of his African ancestry, admission into society!!! They are considered as mere Pariahs-as outcasts and vagrants upon the face of the earth! I make no reflection upon these things, but leave the facts for your consideration."Ibid. p. 168, 169.

England is, to be sure, a very expensive country; but a million of millions has been expended in making it habitable and comfortable; and this is a constant source of revenue, or what is the same thing, a constant diminution of expense to every man living in it. The price an Englishman pays for a turnpike road is not equal to the tenth part of what the delay

* In a scarcity which occurred little more than twenty years ago, every judge, (except the Lord Chancellor, then Justice of the Common Pleas, and Serjeant Remington.) when they charged the grand jury, attributed the scarcity to the combinations of the farmers; and complained of it as a very serious evil. Such doctrines would not now be tele rated in the mouth of a schoolboy.

would cost him without a turnpike. The New River Company brings water to every inhabitant of London at an infinitely less price than he could dip for it out of the Thames. No country, in fact, is so expensive as one which human beings are just beginning to inhabit; -where there are no roads, no bridges, no skill, no combination of powers, and no force of capital.

|

rights and pretensions in the best way they could; but the clearest of all propositions would be, that the four proprietors, among them made a complete title of all the fish; and that nobody but them had the smallest title to the smallest share. This we say, in answer to those who contend that there is no foundation for any system of game laws; that animals born wild are the property of the public; and that their appropria tion is nothing but tyranny and usurpation.

How, too, can any man take upon himself to say, that he is so indifferent to his country that he will not begin to love it intensely, when he is 5000 or 6000 miles from it? And what a dreadful disease Nostal-ly necessary to add, that nothing which is worth hav gia must be on the banks of the Missouri! Severe and painful poverty will drive us all anywhere but a wise man should be quite sure he has so irresistible a plea, before he ventures on the Great or the Little Wabash. He should be quite sure that he does not go there from ill temper-or to be pitied-or to be regretted or from ignorance of what is to happen to him-or because he is a poet-but because he has not enough to eat here, and is sure of abundance where he is going.

GAME LAWS. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1819.) Three Letters on the Game Laws. Rest Fenner, Black & Co. London, 1818.

In addition to these arguments, it is perhaps scarceing, which is accessible, and supplied only in limited quantities, could exist at all, if it was not considered as the property of some individual. If every body might take game wherever they found it, there would soon be an end to every species of game. The advan tage would not be extended to fresh classes, but be annihilated for all classes. Besides all this, the privil ege of killing game could not be granted without the privilege of trespassing on landed property; —an intolerable evil, which would entirely destroy the comfort and privacy of a country life.

But though a system of game laws is of great use in promoting country amusements, and may, in itself, be placed on a footing of justice, its effects, we are sorry to say, are by no means favourable to the morals of the poor.

THE evil of the Game Laws, in their present state. has It is impossible to make an uneducated man underlong been felt, and of late years has certainly rather stand in what manner a bird hatched nobody knows increased than diminished. We believe that they can- where,-to-day living in my field, to morrow in yours, not long remain in their present state; and we are anx--should be as strictly property as the goose whose ious to express our opinion of those changes which whole history can be traced in the most authentic they ought to experience. and satisfactory manner, from the egg to the spit. The arguments upon which this depends are so contrary to the notions of the poor-so repugnant to their passions, and, perhaps, so much above their com prehension, that they are totally unavailing. The same man who would respect an orchard, a garden, or an hen-roost, scarcely thinks he is committing any fault at all in invading the game-covers of his richer neighbour; and as soon as he becomes wearied of honest industry, his first resource is in plundering the rich magazine of hares, pheasants, and partridgesthe top and bottom dishes, which on every side of his village are running and flying before his eyes. these things cannot be done with safety in the day, they must be done in the night;-and in this manner a lawless marauder is often formed, who proceeds from one infringement of law and property to another, till he becomes a thoroughly bad and corrupted mem ber of society.

We thoroughly acquiesce in the importance of encouraging those field sports which are so congenial to the habits of Englishmen, and which, in the present state of society, afford the only effectual counterbalance to the allurements of great towns. We cannot conceive a more pernicious condition for a great nation, than that its aristocracy should be shut up from one year's end to another in a metropolis, while the mass of its rural inhabitants are left to its factors and agents. A great man returning from London to spend his summer in the country, diffuses intelligence, improves manners, communicates pleasure, restrains the extreme violence of subordinate politicians, and makes the middling and lower classes better acquainted with, and more attached to their natural leaders. At the same time a residence in the country gives to the makers of laws an opportunity of studying those interests which they may afterwards be called upon to protect and arrange. Nor is it unimportant to the character of the higher orders themselves, that they should pass a considerable part of the year in the midst of these their larger families; that they should occasionally be thrown among simple, laborious, frugal people, and be stimulated to resist the prodigality of courts, by viewing with their own eyes the merits and the wretchedness of the poor.

Laws for the preservation of game are not only of importance, as they increase the amusements of the country, but they may be so constructed as to be perfectly just. The game which my land feeds is certainly mine; or, in other words, the game which all the land feeds certainly belongs to all the owners of the land; and the only practical way of dividing it is, to give to each proprieter what he can take on his own ground. Those who contribute nothing to the support of the animal, can have no possible right to a share in the distribution. To say of animals, that they are fera Natura, means only, that the precise place of their birth and nurture is not known. How they shall be divided, is a matter of arrangement among those whose collected property certainly has produced and fed them; but the case is completely made out against those who have no land at all, and who cannot therefore have been in the slightest degree instrumental to their production. If a large pond were divided by certain marks into four parts, and allotted to that number of proprietors, the fish contained in that pond would be in the same sense, fera Natura. Nobody could tell in which particular division each carp had been born and bred. The owners would arrange their respective

As

These few preliminary observations lead naturally to the two principal considerations which are to be kept in view, in reforming the game laws-to preserve, as far as is consistent with justice, the amuse ments of the rich, and to diminish, as much as possi ble, the temptations of the poor. And these ends, it seems to us, will be best answered,

1. By abolishing qualifications. 2. By giving to every man a property in the game upon his land. 3. By allowing game to be bought by any body, and sold by its lawful possessors.*

Nothing can be more grossly absurd than the present state of the game laws, as far as they concern the qualification for shooting. In Englaud, no man can possibly have a legal right to kill game, who has not 1001. a-year in land rent. With us, in Scotland, the rule is not quite so inflexible, though in principle not very different.-But we shall speak to the case which concerns by far the greatest number; and certainly it is scarcely possible to imagine a more absurd and capricious limitation. For what possible reason is a man, who has only 907. per annum in land, not to kill the game which his own land nourishes? legislature really conceives, as we have heard surmised by certain learned squires, that a person of such a degree of fortune should be confined to profitable pursuits, and debarred from that pernicious idleness into which he would be betrayed by field sports, it would then be expedient to make a qualification for bowls or skittles-to prevent landowners from going

* All this has since been established.

If the

to races, or following a pack of hounds-and to pro- | at the expense of the neighbour who surrounded him. hibit to men of a certain income, every other species of amusement as well as this. The only instance, however, in which this paternal care is exercised, is that in which the amusement of the smaller landowner is supposed to interfere with those of his richer neighbour. He may do what he pleases, and elect any other species of ruinous idleness but that in which the upper classes of society are his rivals.

But, under the present game laws, if the smaller pos session belongs to a qualified person, the danger of intrusion is equally great as it would be under the proposed alteration; and the danger from the poacher would be the same in both cases. But if it is of such great consequence to keep clear from all interference, may not such a piece of land be rented or bought ?Or, may not the food which tempts game, be sown in Nay, the law is so excessively ridiculous in the case the same abundance in the surrounding as in the inof small landed proprietors, that on a property of less closed land? After all, it is only common justice, that than 1007. per annum, no human being has the right of he whose property is surrounded on every side by a shooting. It is not confined, but annihilated. The preserver of game, whose corn and turnips are demol lord of the manor may be warned off by the propric-ished by animals preserved for the amusement of his tor; and the proprietor may be informed against by neighbour, should himself be entitled to that share of any body who sees him sporting. The case is still game which plunders upon his land. The complaint stronger in the instance of large farms. In Northum- which the landed grandee makes is this. Here is a berland, and on the borders of Scotland, there are large man who has only a twenty-fourth part of the land, capitalists who farm to the amount of two or three and he expects a twenty-fourth part of the game. He thousand per annum, who have the permission of their is so captious and litigious, that he will not be contentdistant non-resident landlords to do what they please ed to supply his share of the food without requiring with the game, and yet who dare not fire off a gun his share of what the food produces. I want a neighupon their own land. Can any thing be more utterly bour who has talents only for suffering, not one who absurd and preposterous, than that the landlord and evinces such a fatal disposition for enjoying.' Upon the wealthy tenant together cannot make up a title to such principles as these, many of the game laws have the hare which is fattened upon the choicest produce been constructed, and are preserved. The interference of their land? That the landlord, who can let to farm of a very small property with a very large one; the the fertility of the land for growing wheat, cannot let critical position of one or two fields, is a very serious to farm its power of growing partridges? That he source of vexation on many other occasions besides may reap by deputy, but cannot on that manor shoot those of game. He who possesses a field in the midby deputy? Is it possible that any respectable ma- dle of my premises, may build so as to obstruct my gistrate could fine a farmer for killing a hare upon his view; and may present to me the hinder part of a own grounds with his landlord's consent, without feel-barn, instead of one of the finest landscapes in nature. ing that he was violating every feeling of common Nay, he may turn his field into tea-gardens, and desense and justice? stroy my privacy by the introduction of every species

Since the enactment of the game laws, there has of vulgar company. The legislature, in all these insprung up an entirely new species of property, which stances, has provided no remedy for the inconvenienof course is completely overlooked by their provis-ces which a small property, by such intermixture, ions. An Englishman may possess a million of money may inflict upon a large one, but has secured the same in funds, or merchandize-may be the Baring or the rights to unequal proportions. It is very difficult to Hope of Europe-provide to government the sudden conceive why these equitable principles are to be viomeans of equipping fleets and armies, and yet be with-lated in the case of game alone. out the power of smiting a single partridge, though in- Our securities against that rabble of sportsmen vited by the owner of the game to participate in his which the abolition of qualifications might be supamusement. It is idle to say that the difficulty may posed to produce, are, the consent of the owner of the be got over, by purchasing land: the question is, upon soil as an indispensable preliminary, guarded by heavy what principle of justice can the existence of the diffi- penalties-and the price of a certificate, rendered, culty be defended! If the right of keeping men- perhaps, greater than it is at present. It is impossi servants was confined to persons who had more than ble to conceive why the owner of the soil, if the right 1001. a-year in the funds, the difficulty might be got of game is secured to him, has not a right to sell, or over by every man who would change his landed prop-grant the right of killing it to whom he pleases-just erty to that extent. But what could justify so capri- as much as he has the power of appointing whom he cious a partiality to one species of property? There pleases to kill his ducks, pigeons, and chickens. The might be some apology for such laws at the time they were made; but there can be none for their not being now accommodated to the changes which time has introduced. If you choose to exclude poverty from this species of amusement, and to open it to wealth, why is it not opened to every species of wealth? What amusement can there be morally lawful to an holder of turnip land, and criminal in a possessor of exchequer bills? What delights ought to be tolerated to long annuities, from which wheat and beans should be excluded? What matters whether it is scrip or short-horned cattle? If the locus quo is conceded-if the trespass is waived-and if the qualification for any amusement is wealth, let it be any provable wealth

Dives agris, dives positis in fœnore nummis.

danger of making the poor idle, is a mere pretence. It is monopoly calling in the aid of hypocrisy, and tyranny veiling itself in the garb of philosophical humanity. A poor man goes to wakes, fairs, and horse-races, without pain and penalty; a little shopkeeper, when his work is over, may go to a bull-bait, or to the cockpit; but the idea of his pursuing an hare, even with the consent of the land-owner, fills the Bucolic senator with the most lively apprehensions of relaxed indus try and ruinous dissipation. The truth is, if a poor man does not offend against morals or religion, and supports himself and his family without assistance the law has nothing to do with his amusements. The real barriers against increase of sportsmen (if the pro posed alteration were admitted), are, as we have be fore said, the prohibition of the landowner; the tax to the state for a certificate; the necessity of labouring for support.-Whoever violates none of these rights, and neglects none of these duties in his sporting, sports without crime; and to punish him would be gross and scandalous tyranny.

It will be very easy for any country gentleman who wishes to monopolize to himself the pleasure of shooting, to let to his tenant every other right attached to the land, except the right of killing game; and it will be equally easy, in the formation of a new game act, The next alteration which we would propose is, that to give to the landlord a summary process against his game should be made property; that is, that every tenant, if such tenant fraudulently exercises the privi-man should have a right to the game found upon his leges he has agreed to surrender. land-and that the violation of it should be punished as The case which seems most to alarm country gen-poaching now is, by pecuniary penalties, and summatlemen, is that of a person possessing a few acres in ry conviction before magistrates. This change in the the very heart of a manor, who might, by planting food of which they are fond, allure the game into his own little domain, and thus reap an harvest prepared

game laws would be an additional defence of game; for the landed proprietor has now no other remedy against the qualified intruder upon his game, than an

action at law for a trespass on the land; and if the trespasser has received no notice, this can hardly be called any remedy at all. It is now no uncommon practice for persons who have the exterior, and perhaps the fortunes of gentlemen, as they are travelling from place to place, to shoot over manors where they have no property, and from which, as strangers, they cannot have been warned. In such a case (which we repeat again, is by no means one of rare occurrence), it would, under the reformed system, be no more diffi. cult for the lord of the soi! to protect his game, than it would be to protect his geese and ducks. But though game should be considered as property, it should still be considered as the lowest species of property-because it is in its nature more vague and mutable than other species of property, and because depredations are carried on at a distance from the dwelling, and without personal alarm to the proprietors. It would be very easy to increase the penalties, in proportion to the number of offences committed by the same individual.

"The first and most palpable effect has naturally been an exaltation of all the savage and desperate features in the poacher's character. The war between him and the gamekeeper has necessarily become a “bellum internecivum." A marauder may

hesitate perhaps at killing his fellow man, when the alternative is only six months' imprisonment in the county jail; but when the alternative is to overcome the keeper, or to be torn from his family and connections, and sent to hard labour at the Antipodes we cannot be much surprised that murders and midnight combats have considerably increased this season; or that informa. tion such as the following has frequently enriched the columns of the country newspapers.

"POACHING.-Richard Barnett was on Tuesday convicted before Richard Clutterbuck, Esq., of keeping and using engines or wires for the destruction of game in the parish of Dunkerton, and fined £5. He was taken into custody by C. Coates, keeper to Sir Charles Bamfylde, Bart., who found upon him 17 wiresnares. The new act that has just passed against these illegal practices, seems only to have irritated the offenders, and made them more daring and desperate. The following is a copy of an anonymous circular letter, which has been received by several magistrates, and other eminent characters in this neighborhood.

paper.

"TAKE NOTICE.-We have lately heard and seen that there is an act passed, and whatever poacher is caught destroying the The punishments which country gentlemen expect game is to be transported for seven years.-This is English by making game property, are punishments affixed to liberty! Now, we do swear to each other, that the first of our comoffences of a much higher order; but country gentlemen must not be allowed to legislate exclusively on Pany that this law is inflicted on, that there shall not one gentleman's seat in our country escape the rage of fire. We are nine this, more than on any other subject. The very men-in number, and we will burn every gentleman's house of note. tion of hares and partridges in the country, too often The first that impeaches shall be shot. We have sworn not to puts an end to common humanity and common sense impeach. You may think it a threat, but they will find it reaGame must be protected; but protected without vio- lity. The game-laws were too severe before. The Lord of all lating those principles of justice, and that adaptation men sent these animals for the peasants as well as for the prince. of punishment to crime, which (incredible as it may God will not let his people be oppressed. He will assist us in appear), are of infinitely greater importance than the our undertaking, and we will execute it with caution."-Bath amusemements of country gentlemen. DEATH OF A POACHER.-On the evening of Saturday se'euWe come now to the sale of game.-The foundation night, about eight or nine o'clock, a body of poachers, seven in on which the propriety of allowing this partly rests, is number, assembled by mutual agreement on the estate of the the impossibility of preventing it. There exists, and Hon. John Dutton, at Sherborne, Gloucestershire, for the purhas sprung up since the game laws, an enormous mass pose of taking hares and other game. With the assistance of two of wealth, which has nothing to do with land. Do the dogs, and some nets and snares which they had brought with country gentlemen imagine that it is in the power of them, they had succeeded in catching nine hares, and were carrying them away, when they were discovered by the gamehuman laws to deprive the three per cents of phea keeper and seven others who were engaged with him in patr 1 sants? That there is upon earth, air, or sea, a single ing the different covers, in order to protect the game from flavour (cost what crime it may to procure it), that nightly depredators. Immediately on perceiving the poachers, mercantile opulence will not procure? Increase the the keeper summoned them in a civil and peaceable manner to difficulty, and you enlist vanity on the side of luxury; give up their names, dogs, implements, &c. they had with them, and make that to be sought for as a display of wealth, and the game they had taken; at the same time assuring them which was before valued only for the gratification of that his party had fire-arms (which were produced for the purpose of convincing and alarming them), and representing to appetite The law may multiply penalties by reams. them the folly of resistance, as, in the event of an affray, they Squires may tret and justices may commit, and game- must inevitably be overpowered by superior numbers, even keepers and poachers continue their nocturnal wars without fire-arms, which they were determined not to resort to There must be game on Lord Mayor's day, do what unless compelled in self-defence. Notwithstanding this remonyou will. You may multiply the crimes by which it strance of the keeper, the men unanimously refused to give up on any terms, declaring that if they were followed, they would is procured; but nothing can arrest its inevitable pro. gress, from the wood of the esquire to the spit of the give them a "brush," and would repel force by force. The poachers then directly took off their great coats, threw them citizen The late law for preventing the sale of game down with the game, &c., behind them, and approached the produced some little temporary difficulty in London keepers in an attitude of attack. A smart contest instantly enat the beginning of the season. The poulterers were sued, both parties using only the sticks or bludgeons they caralarmed and came to some resolutions, but the alarm ried and such was the confusion during the battle, that some of soen began to subside, and the difficulties to vanish. the keepers were occasionally struck by their own comrades in mistake for their opponents. After they had fought in this In another season the law will be entirely nugatory and forgotten. The experiment was tried of increased manner about eight or ten minutes, one of the poachers, named Robert Simmons, received a violent blow upon his left temple, severity; and a law passed to punish poachers with which felled him to the ground, where he lay, crying out murtransportation who were caught poaching in the night der, and asking for mercy. The keepers very humanely desired time with arms. What has the consequence been?- that all violence might cease on both sides: upon which three of Not a cessation of poaching, but a succession of vil- the poachers took to flight and escaped, and the remaining lage guerillas; an internecive war between gamekeep. three, together with Simmons, were secured by the keepers. Simmons, by the assistance of the other men, walked to the ers and marauders of game-the whole country flung keeper's house, where he was placed in a chair: but he soon into brawls and convulsions, for the unjust and exorbi- after died. His death was no doubt caused by the pressure of tant pleasures of country gentlemen. The poacher blood upon the brain, occasioned by the rupture of a vessel from hardly believes he is doing any wrong in taking par- the blow he had received. The three poachers who had been tridges and pheasants. He would admit the justice of taken were committed to Northleach prison. The inquest upou being transported for stealing sheep; and his courage the body of Simmons was taken on Monday, before W. Trigge, in such a transaction would be impaired by a con- Gent., Coroner; and the above account is extracted from the The poachers were all sciousness he was doing wrong: but he has no such armed with bludgeons, except the deceased, who had provided evidence given upon that occasion. feeling in taking game; and the preposterous punish-himself with the thick part of a flail, made of firm, knotted crabment of transportation makes him desperate, and not tree, and pointed at the extremity, in order to thrust with, if timid. Single poachers are gathered into large compa- occasion required. The deceased was an athletic, muscular nies for their mutual protection; and go out, not only man, very active, and about twenty-eight years of age. He re with the intention of taking game, but of defending sided at Bowle, in Oxfordshire, and has left a wife, but no child what they take with their lives. Such feelings soon produce a rivalry of personal courage, and the thirst of revenge between the villagers and the agents of power. We extract the following passages on this subject from the Three Letters on the Game Laws:

F

The three prisoners were heard in evidence; and all concurred in stating that the keepers were in no way blameable, and attributed their disaster to their own indiscretion and imprudence. Several of the keepers' party were so much beat as to be Low confined to their beds. The two parties are said to be total strangers to each other, consequently no malice prepense could