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THE SPORTS AND RECREATIONS OF THE PEOPLE, AND THEIR MORAL EFFECTS.

BY THE HON. GRANTLEY F. BERKELEY, M.P.

(Continued from page 334.)

HAVING declared, in the two preceding numbers of the SPORTING REVIEW, and, I trust, not without good and sufficient reasons, that the sporting amusements of the poor, though not one jot more cruel or demoralizing in their effects upon society than those of the rich, are, for the purposes of a false humanity, decried and rendered illegal, while the affluent classes are left unassailed to enjoy similar recreations, simply because they are more able to defend them, let us proceed to other contingencies. Observe, then, the mischief which this constant tampering with the liberty of the subject effects, and how far it interferes with enactments which are known to be of great public utility. Take, for instance, the new police force. I looked upon them, in their first establishment, to be invested with quite as much power as could, by any possibility, be given to any constitutional force in this kingdom. Since they have been on duty, I have watched them with some jealousy, and am bound to admit that their conduct, generally, has been most efficient, and governed, at the same time, by the greatest forbearance. Nevertheless, they go quite as far as that species of discretionary power ought to go in a free country, and any fresh reasons for their interference with the liberty of the subject should be sedulously avoided. They ought not to be brought into contact with the people, when peacefully bent on recreation, for it induces riot instead. of keeping the peace, and renders the force unpopular with all classes. In spite of the dislike which, in some places, existed to this constabulary, I had hoped that they would have been found to be so useful, that opposition to them would have died a natural death; but now I am bound to confess, their firm supporter as I have hitherto been, that I regard, with some suspicion, the frequent grounds for interference with the people added to the discretion of the police, by that body which calls itself an association for the suppression of cruelty. If such enactments as those lately passed, or, in more appropriate phrase, smuggled through the Houses of Parliament, for the suppression of old English games and pastimes, which had long been regarded as national amusements, continue to be thrust upon society by the sickly or designing sentimentalists of the day, why I, for one, will reluctantly be compelled into the opinion, that the police force, which originally was calculated to have worked the greatest benefits for the community, must soon become a tyrannical and unconstitutional bugbear upon the face of society. As I have before remarked, the judge on the bench does not object to the settlement of the village quarrel by the bout at fists; but, let me ask, how can a quarrel be so settled, when almost every field and common contains a constable, whose orders are to interfere with the combat of man or animal?-not the most inefficient and crippled person of his locality, as the constable was of yore, but an active, muscular, young fellow, tired of sauntering about doing

nothing, and anxious to have an opportunity of using his staff. The dog-fight, the cock-fight, the quail-fight, or, in short, any fight at all, however privately arranged and screened from the possibility of offending the public, or being charged with creating a nuisance, through disturbance, are all now made additional reasons for the interference of the police. I may here mention a fact, of which I was an eye-witness. Two young countrymen gathering apples or plums in an orchard, quarrelled: one of them pushed the other, when the one assaulted grasped in his pocket, evidently for a knife, but not finding it, he looked on the ground for some weapon, with which to requite the aggression; none, however, seemed to be at hand, but the pole with which the trees had been beaten. This weapon, in default of a better, he immediately seized, and with it struck the other so severe a blow, as to render him unable, for some time, to move hand or foot. On observing this, I ran up to them, and remonstrated severely with the one who had used the pole on the cowardliness and cruelty of his conduct; urging, at the same time, the fact, that I conceived that, without the pole, he would have been a fair match for his antagonist; and that it would have been much more manly in him to have tested superiority in an upstandding boxing-match.

His reply, though sullen, was somewhat to the purpose: "What's the good of beginning to box?" he said: "before we'd half done we should have had a policeman here." Now this was a remark to which no denial could be given; and encouraged to interfere as the police are on every occasion, on many of which it would be more wholesome to the community were they to turn their backs, and walk to a little distance, I really do not see that the people have left to their choice any way of determining a personal quarrel, save such brief and deadly means as may bereave the life of one, and render the other an everlasting criminal in the eye of the law. An interference by the police with men assembled together in amity, on their own private premises, and whose characters, for honesty and respectability, are above suspicion, to match in combat their cocks or dogs, where they offend not, nor intrude on the notice of the public, and, in their own estimation, are doing no harm, is like legislating for the safety of a man's soul against the dictates of his own conscience, and making him religious by act of parliament.

All amusements calculated to bring the lord of the soil and the tenant together should be countenanced and upheld; the landlord and the labourer should have opportunities of meeting in their sports and pleasures, as well as in the duties of their respective situations. By personal observation into their characters, the peer will have an opportunity of perceiving that the peasant has other qualities than those of a mere slave; and the peasant, in his turn, will learn to love, as well as to obey, the man under whom he may partake of pleasure as well as gain his bread; and, profit too, through an association, brief as it may be, with the better conditioned classes of mankind. Were it not for our field sports, educated abroad, as many of the heads of our best families are, and have been, the future lord of the manor would know no more of the character of the English yeoman, or the labourer, than he would of the qualities of the man in the moon; or, grounding his opinion upon superficial observation in foreign parts, he might form an

erroneous estimation of the masses for whom, on some future day, he would have to legislate. To obviate such an unwholesome state of things, and as scarce anything in this world can be perfect, or free from the spots inculcated by the fallen state of man's nature, slight errors, tending to the establishment of great good, should be forgiven, and their consequences, therefore, favourably regarded. Each sport and recreation that tends to keep back or suppress the great crime of absenteeism, from which our sister country, the Emerald Isle, is at this moment so unhappily suffering, and which induces the great families, who draw their wealth from the English soil, to live upon their estates, and mingle with each more humble class of society, should be upheld, instead of cried down, by every man who really loves his country. If you deny to the rich man the amusement afforded by the sports of the field, or any other pastimes and pleasures arising from the powers of the animal kingdom, and in this country refuse to him gratification and solace, originating from that which may fairly be called a national diversion, why, instead of spending his money upon the land, and in the vicinity whence it was drawn, he will fly to foreign countries, and purchase, with English gold, which ought to have been circulated among his countrymen at home, those delights and recreations, which an injurious spirit of false humanity had denied him in the land of his birth. The head of my own family has ever resided on his estate; let the world judge of how he has lived there, by the political strength of the Castle. We are all attached to the country, and invariably have dwelt in it, and partaken, heart and hand, in every sport the national code admits, save when our professions have called us abroad to fulfil the duties imposed by the army or navy. For myself, highly estimating the French nation as I do, and having the deepest sense of admiration for the gentler sex its brilliant land contains, yet I am disposed to congratulate myself in never having been to Paris. People exclaim with surprise when I state thus much, and there are some men who would almost be ashamed to own that they had not been where all the world has been; but, far from these sensations, I take pleasure in the confession, and even pride myself on the fact, that I never sought a pleasure my native land did not afford, or, in the hours of recreation, wished myself away from its woods and fields.

People who have not remarked on the condition of an estate ruled by a resident landlord, or neglected and abused by the agents of an absentee, would scarce credit the lamentable difference afforded by the two situations. Superficial observers and surface legislators talk of the demoralization effected among the lower orders by large preserves of game (a charge as little founded on truth as anything can possibly be, as already shown in other numbers of this Magazine*): but, at the same time, they overlook the fact of the immense population to whom the maintenance of large sporting establishments in the country, whether of the turf, the hunter, or the gun, and sometimes all three together, give constant employment, and an honest means of earning a comfortable and liberal subsistence. The wrongfully cried down and much abused pastime derived from the gamecock, forms a source of much communication between the landlord and the tenant, whether of the farm or cottage, and is the means of making the resident gentleman who * See the Hon. Grantley Berkeley on the Preservation of Game.

upholds this amusement acquainted with many a necessity of the deserving poor, which would otherwise have escaped his notice. In the breeding of gamecocks, and when the bird arrives at a certain age, he must be removed from his fellows, and given what is termed a master-walk, where he can meet with no other male of his kind. For this purpose, the gamecocks are placed at the [different farm-houses and cottages in the vicinity, to run with the common barn-door hens, where, to see how his favourites thrive, the owner of the birds, in his ride of the day, pays casual visits to the various walks. Many a tale and many a truth have in this way reached the gentleman, at the cottage door; and many an opportunity of doing a kindness to its inmate been given him, which never would have come within his observation but for the wholesome intercourse brought about by the means herein described. More benefits have arisen to this country, and greater good will arise from the maintenance of all old English sports, than can be achieved, either morally or temporally, by all the humane societies in the world. At first, and in its chrysalis state, a Society for the Protection of Animals sounded pleasantly and well. Loving animals as I love them, from the horse down to the tamed mouse, from the eagle down to the educated wren, for I have had them all at different times in my keeping, coupled with the knowledge which I have of the affection, fidelity, and reasoning powers, of that unflinching friend of man, the dog; I declare again, in its chrysalis state, and honest, grub-like capacity, before the warmth of its funds had hatched it into a more gaudy and mischievous insect, I was inclined to have continued a firm supporter of the society; but now, finding that the primitive intention has been lost sight of, and that the powers of a public body may, at times, be wrested and abused for personal and political purposes, as well as put in force in opposition to the amusements and recreations of the people, and against every national sport wherein the powers of animals are made subservient to the will of man, I at once declare myself-slight as my powers may be, an open enemy, though not an uncompromising one, to such an unwholesome state of things. In making use of the word uncompromising, I wish the fact not to be lost sight of, that a Society for the Prevention of Unnecessary Cruelty to Animals driven to the Slaughter-houses, would be of infinite service to the interests of humanity; and, in support of this assertion, I would simply refer to a fact laid before the House of Commons, when Islington Market was under consideration, of the enormous sum of money annually returned between the salesman and the butcher, for bruised and damaged portions of the slaughtered beasts, rendered unfit for human food from the unnecessary and cruel blows inflicted on the wretched animals by the brutal drovers. Against all cruelties practised in the open streets, distressful alike to the eyes of man, as well as to the softer hearts of the female sex, who are often forced to witness it, I would direct the attention of an usefully humane society. The hackney coach, the cab, or omnibus horse, should not be over-driven, starved, or inhumanly beaten; the dog and cat should not be skinned alive, even if patties were made of their flesh for the profit of wayside vendors, sausage shops, and other dark assuagers of unwary appetites. In short, let the present society compromise even in the eleventh hour, confine its attention to legitimate

purposes, and wage war with the million cold-blooded and unnecessary cruelties which publicly offend, and are passing hourly before our eyes, and I do not think there is a soul in the state that would not assist them heart and hand. If the society will not do this, but Quixotism is to be their order of the day, and tilts are to be run against old English games; why then, instead of making a dastardly selection from the amusements of the poor, let them send down their informers to Ascot, Epsom, Newmarket and Doncaster, to the fixtures of the Royal Staghounds, and to every trout-stream strictly preserved for particular classes, for one amusement is just as cruel as the other, while many left unassailed, are more so. The society will then escape the charge of attempting to tyrannize over the poor, while they fear to attack the rich, and, at least, appear honest in their intentions.

One other remark, and for the present I have done. The same unwholesome, uncharitable, and, as I look upon it, irreligious spirit, which ministers to the "cruel society" in London, and affords them funds wherewith "to be wicked in behalf of righteousness, and to be cruel out of piety," is, at this moment, under another garb, and through the generalship of Mr. Gutherie and others, instigating a holy war in the north; and the Agnewites of Edinburgh are joining battle with Sabbath railway travelling, and against the sale of lollipops on a Sunday.

We know, from the fourth commandment, that there shall be no labour in man's living establishment on the seventh day, even unto his cattle; but how any wise men, east, west, north, or south, can contrive to bring within the meaning of that behest, the properties of boiling water, I cannot, for the soul of me, conceive. In one sense, Mr. Gutherie is consistent; for what is a cold dinner to him on a Sunday, but a comfortable holiday to his stomach? At least I have heard that, when men pamper themselves for six days out of seven with heated food; cold meats and cooling salads are periodically refreshing. Mr. Gutherie and the labourer, or artificer, cannot be brought sufficiently near to each other to render their service, in point of argument, similarly effective. Mr. Gutherie has, if he likes it, a hot dinner every day, not so as regards the other; but, to use the words of this preacher in a wider sense, the poor man has "the blessed privilege to be," for six days out of the seven, instead of "for one day in seven-clothed like the lilies, and fed like the sparrows;" and who, as truly stated in the "Examiner" of the 20th of November, does but too frequently pick a cold repast from the hedges." From this poor man, whose bone, if lucky enough to have one, or whose morsel of bread and cheese, has been eaten in a solitary ditch for a week previous, and whose only chance of a hot meal is of a Sunday, if you stop the baker's oven, you wrest from him his hard-earned and long-toiled-for delicacy, at the only time when he can enjoy it in the bosom of his family.

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One public Sunday oven, for the baking of the frugal delicacies of the poor, enables every individual member of many families to go to church, as one man, to attend that large oven, dispenses with the

See the Hon. Grantley Berkeley's Review of Dr. Styles's Prize Essay, published by Ridgway, in Piccadilly.