vided grounds for subsequent litigation. It informs us that, whereas great mischiefs did ensue by inferior tradesmen, apprentices, and other dissolute persons neglecting their trades and employments, in order to follow hunting, fishing, and other game, to the ruin of themselves and damage of their neighbours, it was enacted that, if any such person as aforesaid should presume to hunt, hawk, fish, or fowl on his own account, he should be sued for trespass and mulcted in damages. There is a smack of robust commonsense about this statute, in spite of its somewhat pompous phraseology. As to what should constitute 'a dissolute person' the lawyers disagreed; even the judges were divided as to whether a sporting village surgeon and apothecary was or was not a dissolute person within the meaning of the Act.
There is a certain fatherliness about the statutes of the Hanoverian period which is amusing to contemplate. The legislators of that era were practical men, and believed firmly in the medicinal virtues of the lash. They kept their private opinions in the background, and dealt mildly with first offenders. In the reign of George III., first and second offences of night poaching (alas, poor Puss!) were followed by fines not exceeding 20l. and 30l. A third conviction was a very serious matter. The transgressor was
