"The great evil is, that a culprit of this class, feeling no compunction in the early stage of his guilt, proceeds carelessly to a state of the most complete degeneracy. GAME is a species of property of which he has so indistinct a conception, that he scarcely thinks he has committed a moral injustice in the various stratagems by which he has contrived to obtain it; he sees not that the claim of a stranger is better than his; he knows not whence that absolute right in another to that which he has taken is derived; his companions, to whom he recounts his manœuvres, are more likely to applaud his cunning than to reprove his crime. Thus the remorse of conscience being but slight and feeble in the outset, the wretch is encouraged by degrees to trample on the laws with greater boldness, and at last suffers as a FELON."
That these facts are fairly stated, and the natural inferences judiciously drawn, must be candidly and universally admitted. Previous, however, to the conclusive remarks requisite under this head, it becomes directly applicable to introduce a few passages from another writer of equal eminence, who, in his animadversion upon the well-founded principle of the GAME LAWS, observes, "that, in a highly cultivated, well-peopled country, no animal can properly be considered as wild; all are supported by the property and labour of those who cultivate the soil. Some, from their peculiar instincts, are, indeed, less capable than others of being appropriated, and therefore, like lands uninclosed, are held as a joint property. But he who has no land, and consequently contributes nothing to their maintenance, is no more entitled to any use of them, than the inhabitant of one parish is to a right of commonage on the waste lands of another; and he who chuses to reside in a town, and to keep his property in money, has no more a pretence to seize to his own use a HARE, or a PARTRIDGE, than a sheep or a goose, from him who has chosen to vest his property in land. In the former, as in the latter case, he ought to tempt the owner to sell what is wanted."
Thus much is introduced from the speculative opinions of respectable writers upon the political and equitable basis of the GAME LAWS, which every rational observer, and good subject, will probably admit _ought to be obeyed_; although the great and infinite body of POACHERS, and that much greater infinity their ABETTORS, seem to be of a direct opposite opinion. However just, proper, and political, such laws may have been in their formation, and laudable in their continuance, little reliance can be placed upon the _deceptive_ expectation of a reduction in the number of POACHERS, sanctioned and supported, as they are, by _thousands_ in the METROPOLIS, and the middle classes of people in every CITY, TOWN, and VILLAGE, from one extremity of the Island to the other. If there is one of his Majesty's subjects so weak or inexperienced, as to suppose any one species of game is _difficult_ to be obtained, he must be deplorably ignorant in the common occurrences of life, and requires to be informed, that the wholesale _art_ and _trade_ of poaching is carried on almost "as public as the noonday sun" during the whole of the season; and no one of that commercial and opulent body in the city, or epicure in the suburbs, sits down without game at his table whenever he pleases to order it: it is not the business of a steward, butler, or housekeeper, to expostulate upon what may be immediately obtained for MONEY, with a consolatory verification of the school-boy's well-known adage, that "one good turn deserves another;" and money in one hand can invariably procure game for the other.