[5] Ibid.

[6] Address in Mr Welford's Influences of the Game Laws.

[7] The statute of 1600, prohibiting hunting and hawking to those who had not "the revenues requisit in sik pastimes," is plainly one of a sumptuary tenor, and not properly a game law.

[8] It is right to mention, that there is some discrepancy in the estimates of Mr Bright's authorities on this point, of whom Mr Gayford is comparatively moderate; for we have others who, (upon, no doubt, equally sound data,) think two hares is the proper equivalent; and Mr Back of Norfolk is convinced that one hare is worse than a sheep; in other words, that one hare will eat up a statute acre. On the other hand, Mr Berkeley weighed the full stomachs of a large hare, and an average Southdown sheep, and found them as one to fifty-five. So that, if the accounts of Mr Gayford and his confrères are right, we have arrived at a law in physiological science equally new and surprising—that the digestive powers of animals increase in a compound inverse ratio to the capacity of the digestive organs!

[9] Scotsman, February 12, 1848.

[10]

Counties.1846.1847.Per cent.
(both years.)
Total cases.Game cases.Total cases.Game cases.
Aberdeen,683280050.4
Berwick,31710342163.9
Edinburgh,33612475143.2
Haddington,45633572336.4
Fife,8621381961.1
Total,2654703008742.5

Compare these facts with the preposterous statements which the latest orator of the league, Mr M. Crichton, has been repeating to listening zanies at Greenock, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, that "the commitments arising from game laws amount to ONE-FOURTH of the whole crime of the country."

[11] Return of game-law offences during the years 1843-7

Counties.1843.1844.1845.1846.1847.
Berwick,148141016
Edinburgh,4148211214
Haddington,3555233333
Fife,302519136
Total,120136776869