Page:The Hare.djvu/108

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86
SHOOTING THE HARE

is difficult to see what good has resulted to anyone from this unfortunate piece of legislation. Never once have we heard a good word spoken for it either by labourer, tenant, or landlord. The shooting tenant—to whom the modern landlord looks for the means to pay the charges on his estate, much as the Irish peasant relies on his pig for the means to pay his rent, or rather did rely when rents were honestly paid in Ireland—is the principal sufferer, because farmers do not care to forego any right they may possess—however useless or unsought it may have been—in order to assist a stranger. On some few estates, within my knowledge, the Act has been a dead letter because the farmers' relations with their landlord were such that they did not desire to vex him or curtail his enjoyment of his own property for the sake of any advantage forced upon them without their request by the Government of the day. Especially do I recall the remark of one of the tenants on Lord Wenlock's Escrick estate, near York, when, a year or so after the passing of the Ground Game Act, a passing stranger in the hunting-field paused to remark to the old farmer, 'Well! you seem to keep plenty of hares in spite of the Act, my friend?' 'Ay!' was the answer, 'and we had need to have plenty when my lord comes shooting, I can tell you.' There was a kindly ring about the tone and an indi-