difficulty of detection seems almost insuperable. Yet until the "fence can be got at, we shall do very little with the thief. The Act of 1862, which empowered the police to stop and search carts, or suspicious-looking jacket-pockets, and apprehend the owners if they were found to contain game, has worked well. But, after all, it has but thrown one additional difficulty in the poacher's path: it has caused more poachers to be caught, but it hasn't diminished poaching. Neither will anything have that effect till a blow can be struck at the trade; till the poacher's profits are affected; till the springs which feed the stream begin to fail. Till that can be done, we may throw obstacles in the poacher's way, but they will no more kill poaching than dams will dry up a river.

If all game-preservers were forced to take out a separate licence for selling game, it would have one of two effects: either they would pay the licence, and in that case sell a great deal more game, or they would not pay it, and in that case would preserve a good deal less. Either alternative would be attended by other good results. In the first place, the more game the dealers got from gentlemen, the less they would require from poachers. In the second place, the payment of this sum would form an additional contribution to the revenue, and would pro tanto diminish the odium of preserving, and proportionably the sympathy with poaching. On the second hypothesis, excessive preserving would be got rid of, the complaints of the farmer would be stopped, and the profits of poaching much reduced. We cannot help thinking that if this suggestion were adopted, means might still be found of bringing home offences to the game-dealers, and of making their trade with poachers much more dangerous and precarious than it is at present. Moreover, there is no reason why gentlemen should not make a trade of rearing and selling game as of rearing and selling sheep. And if the system were regularly established and recognized, it is possible that a feeling would gradually spring up among the dealers adverse to buying from the poacher. There is many a butcher now who wouldn't buy stolen sheep though he knew he shouldn't be detected. And we sincerely believe that, if poaching were more generally exhibited in its true light, and robbed of that mystery and romance which at present shroud it, such a feeling would become very common.

Cases such as that brought forward by Mr. Taylor, the Member for Leicester, last July, are very mischievous. The miscarriage of justice which took place in that instance was immediately assumed to be an inseparable accident of the game-laws, and to constitute a valid objection to the existence of an unpaid magistracy. The inference is absurd; but then, under existing circumstances, men should be very careful how they give a handle to such absurdities. When a law is unpopular, its administrators should walk warily. And certainly, if of any crime, it may be said of poaching that it is more prudent to let twenty guilty men go than to punish only one who is innocent. In this instance two men were convicted of poaching before a Wiltshire bench of magistrates on the sole

testimony of a gamekeeper. One of the two men had been convicted before and the gamekeeper had been mistaken before. It was contended that the unsupported evidence of a man who had proved himself liable to error ought not to have been accepted as conclusive. Our own opinion is that it would have been more prudent in the magistrates in such a case to have erred upon the side of leniency. But there are one or two points suggested by the case, which affect poaching in general, and accordingly claim a place in this article. One is this, that there is a border-land between the professional poacher and the honest labourer, if not so wide as it used to be, still much wider than skirts any other criminal profession; and that the existence of this border-land is a source of great perplexity to magistrates. If a man is caught picking a pocket, or breaking into a house, or swindling by an assumed name, or anything of that kind, he is pretty sure to be a regular professional criminal. But the man who snares a rabbit is not equally sure to be a professional poacher. He is on the high-road to become one; that is certain. But he may have done it for the fun of the thing; or from an idea of its cleverness; or merely from a lawless disposition in general. But there is very great difficulty in distinguishing between a man of this class, and a confirmed offender: and probably hardly any one can do it but those who live upon the spot, and have constant opportunities of observing him. This is one reason why the evidence of gamekeepers and the decision of local magistrates have often more in them than meets the eye of the general public. This is a point in their favour. There is, secondly, one that tells against them in just about an equal degree. Between gamekeepers and poachers, and especially such poachers as oftenest come before the magistrates, there is a much more bitter feeling than exists between officers of justice in general and criminals in general. They are pitted against each other in a much more personal way; and the game which the poacher takes is what the keeper regards almost as his own. He has reared it and tended it early and late, and has an interest in it which it is quite impossible a policeman should feel for the stock-in-trade of a goldsmith or a watchmaker. Then, again, the policeman is one of a numerous and disciplined force, the lustre of whose exploits is reflected upon each member of it, whether he has done anything himself or not. But a keeper has his own reputation either to make or to maintain. What keepers in general may do affects not him. He would be thought none the better of, though a keeper in the next county had taken twenty poachers single-handed. Consequently, there is generally a tendency, kept in check, or developed according to the character of the master, on the part of keepers to make business, and to demonstrate their own activity. Gentlemen should always be upon their guard against this very natural weakness of human nature; for sure we are that in the feuds upon the subject of game which agitate most rural districts, it plays a most important part, and is at the bottom of many of the crimes which are mostly charged against the game-laws.

The House that Scott Built.

SOME years ago-Eheu! fugaces, &c.-I wrote, in the infancy of this Magazine, a modest essay, entitled "The House that John Built." The John was that venerable gentleman, Mr. John Company of the East Indies, then recently deceased, and I spoke with tender regrets, and almost, indeed, with mournful memories of the old times, when I served the honest merchant in his great house in Leadenhall. Since that time, the

delenda est has become the deleta est, if I am not wrong in the tenses, which I learnt at Christ's in the old hatless days of yellow stockings. Not one stone stands upon another. The old street, whose pavements I trod for so many years, should now be baptized anew, taking the name of "Ichabod Street," for "the glory has departed." I went there once after Mr. Company's servants were sent to lodge in the tavern over against the Abbey of Westminster, and I saw, from the opposite side of the street, the ruins of "The House that John Built." One wall only remained, with some projecting roofs and floors; and I discerned, for the last time, a fragment of the room in which I had done Mr. Company's work for so many long years. With a mist about my eyes, I retreated to the region which gives its name to the work in which I now write, and I never had the heart to journey again into the old street. I am told that on the site where once stood the House that John Built, there is now a vast stack of offices in which business of all sorts and sizes is done by a miscellaneous assemblage of merchantmen and brokers, and promoters of public companies. It may be a fanciful thought, but it has seemed to me, that ever since the demise of Mr. John Company, the good old family name has fallen into disrepute. There is assuredly an unsavoury odour about it in these days; for, whereas it was the pride of Mr. John Company to raise many to fame and fortune, the companies which have fungused up since his time, bring only ruin and disgrace.

Thus the old House of which I wrote is clean gone from the East; and a grand mansion or palace has risen up in the West, for the use of Mr. Company's successors. It is easier to pull down than to build up, whether it be fame, fortune, or a big house; and it has been no surprise to me, therefore, to find that, as I write, the business is still carried on at the temporary lodgings in the Tavern. It may be, however, that before these pages meet the eye of the public, the flitting will have commenced, and that if my old comrades and their masters are not then fairly housed in their new abode, they will at least be on their way to Downing Street. I am minded, therefore, in this month of August, having been taken by my nephew Marmaduke (now a senior clerk in what is called the Indian

Department of her Majesty's Government) all over the new building, to say something about it, after my own rambling, desultory fashion. Perhaps something of everything will be found in my discourse, except that of which I may be most expected to speak-the architecture of the new Indian Palace, whereof I know nothing. Indeed, looking at the outside of the thing, I must confess that I cannot quite take in the design. But, peradventure, the reason of this is that the original conception of a group of public offices has not yet been carried out to completion. Looking at it the other day, from the park of St. James, on my way to the Tea-andToast Club, hard by the site of old Charlton House, which ever brings back to my memory the old days of Edipus Tyrannus, I confess I could make nothing of it as a whole, though some of the details are mighty pretty; and I wished that good Mr. Gilbert or Mr. Digby were at my elbow to delight me with an intelligent demonstration in default of any light of my own. But I am bound to have faith in those great men-and there is no faith so pure as that which gropes hopelessly in the dark.

Not questioning, therefore, the excellency of the external structure, either as a whole in esse, or part of a whole in posse, I pass on to the contemplation of the interior, which is an emanation, as I am instructed, of the fertile genius of Mister Digby Wyatt. I speak only of that part which belongs to the successors of Mr. Company, who are to be housed in what is now a semi-detached palace, the managers of her Majesty's Foreign Department being their neighbours-my profane footsteps have not trodden that part of the great House that Scott Built-nor do I know aught of the inner chambers. But although I am little addicted to gauds-a matter whereof I purpose presently to speak with greater amplitude-I am pleased as an Englishman to see that these high officers of her Majesty the Queen have a fitting place for the reception of the ambassadors and envoys of foreign Powers who have relations in this favoured country. There is "glory," as the poet wrote, in "moderation;" but those old houses in Downing Street were on the wrong side of moderation. It was not merely that they were not palatial, but that they were absolutely shabby-of such a poor and paltry appearance altogether, that even humble-minded Englishmen might blush to think that the ambassadors of great emperors and kings should be received amidst so much dreariness and dirt. Famous all over the world was Downing Street-but what a poor little place it was! How many people have made pilgrimages thither, looked up the street incredulously, and returned ruefully disappointed at the moment, and de-illusionised for the rest of their days. It was, even in the estimation of plain men like myself, not at all given to the vanities, a national shame that foreign countries should see our great Ministers so poorly housed. There was not a nobleman in the country, or a private gentleman of good estate, who would have lived in that miserable cul de sac-not much better than a West End mews. I trust that, in the Foreign Minister's new house, Mr. Scott has provided a grand " salon," as I think it is called, in which may be held those conferences, on the issues of which the

peace of the world so often hinges and depends. We may manage our own little affairs as poorly as we like-I do not know that it much matters that we should decide such questions as those of over-charged income-tax or tickets-of-leave in grand ministerial edifices. But when it is the duty of Britannia to give a reception to other Powers, it becomes her to wear becoming vestments, not to disfigure herself with mean apparel. "What is Majesty deprived of its externals? "A jest." And so the representatives of Majesty may make themselves ludibria, or laughing-stocks, if they do not make a becoming appearance in the sight of our allies.

But, for all this, I am not without a feeling of apprehension that there is a little too much of outward display in the new apartments which have been assigned to the successors of Mr. John Company. I think that people who have important work to do, ought to be well housed. They should have light and air and space. These conditions it is essential to fulfil. But when they are fulfilled, I do not know that, for ordinary purposes of business, much more is required. I know that in what I write there is more or less of the prejudice of the superannuated man— the laudator temporis acti, who thinks that "whatever was is best." But there was a sort of sombre simplicity about the House that John Built, which if it did not look like beauty, certainly looked like work. There was very little in the way of decoration about it except the mirrors and the marble mantel-piece in the court-room, which latter article of vertu, being an allegorical representation somewhat commercial in its tendencies, has been removed to the new council-chamber. But we never had much time to look about us, and we were regardless of such things as fresh paint and gilding and cornices of elaborate device. The change, however, is all in accordance with what is called the "spirit of the age." Even the city of London has cast off the severe simplicity so redolent of business which was erst the prevailing style of its houses. They build palaces now in place of houses; or at least they have palatial fronts, distinguished by all sorts of fanciful designs. Banks and Insurance companies and even private firms, content in the Georgian era with modest edifices of brick and mortar, straight up from basement to roof, with everything like their business "on the square," now put on false fronts of the most pretentious kind; and as to the taverns or hotels of the present age, verily they are of royal aspect, magnificent to behold. But it may not perhaps be all an old man's prejudice, if I think sometimes that the business, which is thus gorgeously represented on the surface, may be almost as gimcracky as its fantastic front. My mind misgives me when I contemplate all this finery. It is what one of my respected seniors in the old house, Mr. Charles Lamb, would have called not decoration but "decoyration." And the saddest part of all is that the cheatery extends even to God's most perfect works-fair women, who have become in these days mere "painted sepulchres," false of colour, false of hair, plastered and padded and made up with all sorts of ingenious contrivances for giving false proportions to the human frame. "The