Gamekeeping is an occupation peculiarly favourable to loafing if a man is inclined that way. He can sit on the rails and gates, lounge about the preserves, go to sleep on the sward in the shade; call at the roadside inn, and, leaning his gun against the tree from which the sign hangs, quaff his quart in indolent dignity. By degrees he easily falls into bad habits, takes too much liquor, finds his hands unsteady, becomes too lazy to repress poaching (which is a weed that must be constantly pulled up, or it will grow with amazing rapidity), and finally is corrupted, and shares the proceeds of bolder rascals. His assistants do as they please. He has no control over them: they know too much about him.
It is a curious fact that there are poaching villages and non-poaching villages. Out of a dozen or more parishes forming a petty sessional district one or two will become notorious for this propensity. The bench never meet without a case from them, either for actual poaching or some cognate offence. The drinking, fighting, dishonesty, low gambling, seem ceaseless—like breeding like—till the place becomes a nest of rascality. Men hang about the public-houses all day, betting on horses, loitering; a blight seems to fall upon them, and a bad repute clings to the spot for years after the evil itself has been eradicated.
If a weak keeper gets among such a set as this he succumbs; and the same cause hastens the moral decay of the constable. The latter has a most difficult part to maintain. If he is disposed to carry out the strict letter of his instructions, that does not do—there is a prejudice against too much severity. English feeling is anti-Draconian; and even the respectable inhabitants would rather endure some little rowdyism than witness an over interference with liberty. If the constable is good-natured, and loth to take strong measures, he either becomes a semi-accomplice or sinks to a nonentity. It is difficult to find a man capable of controlling such a class; it requires tact, and something of the gift of governing men.
By contact with bad characters a weak keeper may be contaminated without volition of his own at first: for we know the truthful saying about touching pitch. The misfortune is that the guilty when at last exposed become notorious; and their infamy spreads abroad, smirching the whole class to which they belong. The honest conscientious men remain in obscurity and get no public credit, though they may far outnumber the evil-disposed.
To make a good keeper it requires not only honesty and skill, but a considerable amount of ‘backbone’ in the character to resist temptation and to control subordinates. The keeper who has gone to the bad becomes one of the most mischievous members of the community: the faithful and upright keeper is not only a valuable servant but a protection to all kinds of property.