of that of Mr. Brydges, who was one of the Sheriffs of last year: he apologizes for this mistake; but he can say of both the excellent Sheriffs, that he found them often doing their duty and endeavouring to lessen the miseries and relieve the distresses of the wretched prisoners they had in charge.

One capital error the author also must acknowledge: it is to be found in page 311, where he says, that the recommendation" of the Visiting Committee of the City of London, that iron bedsteads be provided, bedding furnished, and the traffic in the hiring of of beds abolished," has not been followed. He was led into this mis-statement because he did not believe it possible that a part of this recommendation should have been adopted and not the whole, or that precisely that part of it should be chosen which aggravated the miseries of the prison. The prisoners have now no beds at all, unless they possess them of their own; for the City magistrates have furnished neither bedsteads nor bedding, and they have pro hibited the letting out bedding altogether,

Feb. 5, 1818.

LETTER I.

&c. &c.

MY DEAR SIR,

THE intimate knowledge I possess of your sincere regard for the moral and political welfare of your country, and the sound and manly judgment you are capable of exercising upon the practical association of morals and politics in affairs of legislation, induce me to address to you the following letter.

It treats upon a subject to which, however important in itself, the habits of your life have never perhaps excited much attention in your mind; but I presume to think that you can scarcely fail to be interested by the extensive mischiefs which it involves ;mischiefs indeed of a magnitude little suspected by many of those who may be said to promote them.

I must nevertheless admit that, notwithstanding my conviction of the extent of your philanthropy, L certainly owe you some apology for wishing to make you a party in a discussion, from which it is no common ground of congratulation to have been hitherto entirely free ;-for there are few subjects on which a contrariety of opinion is maintained with greater violence than on the Game Laws. Both parties argue with the feelings of injured individuals; and, as is usual in such cases, both have some ground of complaint. But public morals, and the peace and good order of the country, present still more serious grounds of objection to those laws, as they now stand on the statute book, than private interests, or the actual condition of society. In such a state of

things it is difficult to take an impartial view of the subject, and still more difficult to impress it upon the minds of others. The feelings, first, of those who suffer from the plunder of what may fairly be considered as their property ;-next, of those who are indignant at being precluded from amusements and enjoyments to which they think that their station in life entitles them ;-and, lastly, of such as look with horror at the long train of vice and immorality which can clearly be traced to its origin in the prohibitions of the Game Laws ;-all these feelings, and their combinations, introduce a degree of blind zeal and ill-humour into any discussion of the subject, which is singularly inimical to a beneficial practical result.

Notwithstanding these difficulties, recent circumstances induce me to make the attempt, in the humble hope of lending some assistance to the cause of good order and morality.

A distressing event, which has lately taken place in my own neighbourhood,' has revived in my mind reflections which have frequently passed through it, on the tendencies of the Game Laws; and I am more than ever convinced that an impartial review of their principle, objects, and effects, should scarcely fail to gain the assent of all parties to considerable alterations. More especially may this result be expected, if, as I think, it can be shown that the alterations proposed would tend to conciliate and to promote the interests of all parties concerned that they would, at one and the same time, increase the quantity of game for the sportsman; extend the enjoyments connected with the possession of game to those whom the progress of society has raised into a station to be entitled to them; and also immediately check, and ultimately annihilate, the moral and political evils resulting from the present prohibitions. I do not, however, wish to disguise my opinion, that it is the extent of these last which imperatively calls for the interference of the legislature, and of all persons who have the least regard for the welfare of their country. The extent and progress of the evil cannot be couceived by those who are not conversant with the lower ranks in the country villages. From extensive observation and inquiry, I believe in my conscience, that

I allude to the recent homicide of a desperate and notorious poacher, who left destitute upon the parish a wife and several children.

it is not too much to assert that three fourths of the crimes which bring so many poor men to the gallows have their first origin in the e evil and irregular habits, necessarily introduced by the almost irresistible temptations held out, in consequence of the prohibitions of the game laws, to a nightly breach of their enactments.

This I can safely declare of my own knowledge, that of the numerous country villages with which I am acquainted, not one exists in which the profligate and licentious characters may not trace the first and early corruption of their habits to this cause." And, I think, it will soon be acknowledged that the wonder is, not that so many are corrupted, but that so many escape the temptations necessarily consequent upon a set of prohibitions, enacted for one state of society, but by the lapse of time, and change of circumstances, rendered perfectly inapplicable to its actual condition. Truly this is no object of petty legislation or insignificant detail. The moral habits of the universal population are deeply implicated in it. The safety of every description of rural property is as much concerned. The peace of society and the security of individuals are no less endangered. We scarcely take up a country newspaper without seeing a long list of proprietors associating for mutual assistance in prosecuting and punishing the depredations of their poorer neighbours. How comes it that it never occurs to these gentlemen, that this general depravation of habits must have some moral cause?—and that they would save themselves much trouble, and do the state good service, if they would associate to prevent the evil rather than to punish it, to weaken or remove the cause rather than vainly to oppose its necessary effect?

I believe it may truly be said that, in a free country, a population, corrupted by temptations necessarily involved in the enactments of the laws themselves, cannot be restrained from offending by any counteracting severity in those same laws; and it is not a little surprising that laws of this Jesuitical character should not be expunged by acclamation from the code of any free state.

The application of the Game Laws to the poor of England is conclusive upon this point. They constitute this point. They constitute one of the few acts

The experience of every impartial magistrate, of every judge of assize, will fortify this assertion-many indeed have openly declared it.