So true is it that
in England, under the existing system of land tenure, an estate cannot
be worked like the machinery of a factory.
At first, when the pheasant-preserving began to reach such a height,
there was a great deal of poaching by the resident labourers. The
temptation was thrust so closely before their faces they could not
resist it. When pheasants came wandering into the cottage gardens, and
could even be enticed into the sheds and so secured by simply shutting
the door, men who would not have gone out of their way to poach were led
to commit themselves.
There followed a succession of prosecutions and fines, till the place
began to get a reputation for that sort of thing. It was at last
intimated to the steward by certain gentlemen that this course of
prosecution was extremely injudicious. For it is a fact--a fact
carefully ignored sometimes--that resident gentlemen object to
prosecutions, and, so far from being anxious to fine or imprison
poachers, would very much rather not. The steward took the hint, and
instead increased his watchers. But by this time the novelty of
pheasants roaming about like fowls had begun to wear off, and their
services were hardly needed. Men went by pheasants with as much
indifference as they would pass a tame duck by the roadside.
Such poachers as visited the woods came from a distance. Two determined
raids were carried out by strangers, who escaped.
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