the rights of property. The first step, therefore, should be the simple abolition of the game laws. That done, first let there be a breeding season of the year defined, and make the pursuit of the protected animals during that season, either for the purpose of taking their eggs or young, an unlawful act by any person or persons whomsoever. So soon as the breeding season is over, let it be lawful for all persons, but subject to the rights of property, to pursue and capture wild animals. Hares and rabbits being nurtured and made saleable at the expense of the cultivator, all cultivators have a common interest in them, and therefore the exclusive right of obtaining possession of them when on their farms should be vested in the tenant farmers. Let, then, the law give effect to that just right. Let a property be created in the tenant to hares and rabbits, not similar to what he has in his domesticated animals, but analogous to the exclusive riparian right to fish for salmon-in the owners of the banks of salmon rivers, and let the infringement of that right be a penal offence. Birds are divided by law into wood birds-sylvestres; ground birds-campestres; and water birds-aquitales. Pheasants are both sylvestres and campestres, in this sense, but though they roost at night they frequent the ground, in hedgerows and covers by day. Pheasants and partridges are maintained as much almost by insects as by cereal produce, and also quails and landrails.

It has been proved that the landlord has a larger capital in the land than the tenant, and therefore there would be no injustice, but the contrary, done by creating in the landlord a similar exclusive right as regards pheasants, partridges, quails, and landrails. Water birds and woodcocks undoubtedly do no injury to the tenant's crops, nor are they supported at the expense of landlord or tenant; but, inasmuch as if the public had an unlimited right to go on cultivated land for the purpose of killing them, it would be made available for killing hares, rabbits, pheasants, partridges, &c., the exclusive right to pursue and capture water birds and woodcocks should be similar to that relating to phea

sants, partridges, &c. As regards grouse, black game, and and bustards, in order to continue a supply to the nation, it is necessary that they should be preserved, and for that purpose an exclusive right to pursue and capture them must be created in some one, and the owner of the soil is that person. The foregoing animals are those which for sporting purposes require the assistance of dogs, and the beating of ground with hunting dogs should be regarded therefore as evidence of a breach of the aforesaid rights of property. The remaining wild birds are the wood birds of every kind, and the going out with a gun to kill them should be regarded as a trespass only; but the law should be sufficiently penal to deter not only that trespass but the indiscriminate invasion of cultivated land, and every landowner or land occupier should be liable in damages to his adjoining neighbour for an exccssive preservation of hares or rabbits.

It is believed that those classes from which poachers, for the most part, come, would respect rights of property created upon the principle of securing to landowners and land occupiers the enjoyment of their capital. There are but two other alternatives, namely, either a very stringent law of trespass, or the exposure of cultivated land to the footsteps of the multitude, which would be a gross invasion of the rights of property. Private grounds and gardens would practically belong to the public.

In conclusion we may observe that our first game laws were born in sin, and notwithstanding the lapse of centuries and numerous Acts of Parliament altering and amending them, those in existence have the taint of their first parents. They are founded on no sound principle whatever, and it is proved that it is in the highest degree inexpedient to maintain them; and it is hoped, therefore, that they will be speedily consigned to death, especially as having regard to the rights of capital, there can be no difficulty in providing a sufficient substitute. For that purpose it is not necessary, as has been shown, to make any wild animal the subject of larceny, or to abandon the legal principle that

until captured they belong to nobody. But it is possible to create and defend an exclusive right to pursue and capture them, founded on that principle on which all property depends. The nation is expecting an entire abolition of the game laws, and will willingly submit to new law, which will protect from extermination all wild animals whose existence is conducive to the public good, provided only those new laws are founded in justice both to the landowners, the land occupiers, and the public.

VI.—LEGAL EDUCATION AND THE INNS OF

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COURT.

N all human probability the close of the Parliamentary Session of 1875 will find the Inns of Court under new management, and Legal Education reduced to a system. All the obstructions to legislation have been removed. The legal profession has been educated up to the point of change, and the public have learnt at last something about the way our lawyers and judges are manufactured. Not many years ago the profession would, almost as a whole, have been opposed to the reforms now imminent, and would have been perfectly able and ready by the exercise of its influence in either House to prevent their passing into law. We doubt very much whether "the previous question " is any longer possible even if it were thought desirable. The House of Lords is at the command of Lord Selborne and Lord Cairns, as the events of the closing session have clearly demonstrated, and Lord Cairns and Lord Selborne are as much of one mind on this subject as two persons can well be. In the House of Commons there are representatives of the Inns who might be disposed to set up the standard of resistance, but even they would hardly care to repeat the arguments of five years ago, against any change in the

system of education for the bar. If the rights of property were likely to be interfered with, they have no doubt a House of Commons that would not suffer them to be wronged, and as a matter of social ethics even, they would have a much stronger case than many of the assailants are willing to allow. After all, the Inns, as proprietors, are voluntary societies, and every one of their members has a vested interest in the customary distribution of their funds, no matter how absurd and wasteful it may have been. The privilege of eating something like ninety dinners a year at less than half price is a pecuniary benefit capable of being very accurately ascertained, and, on the principles of modern legislation, we must not interfere with the interests of the beneficiary unless we are prepared to make him compensation. It would not appear, however, that there is any intention of attacking the money-chest of the Honourable Societies, and the temper of the times is not very favourable to any such experiment. Lord Selborne, besides, is the very personfication of cautious reform, and it will be a most unwise bench that persists in refusing his terms as excessive. All that his Lordship proposes to do in the meantime is to give the Inns a constitution, and to establish a Law School responsible to the State, and working under its sanction and authority. The two schemes are quite distinct, and either might pass without the other. Possibly it will be found that they must be brought into more intimate union than Lord Selborne now contemplates, but whatever may be their fate, they indicate between them the limits of the problem at present before the public, and the nature of the solution likely to be effected.

A brief glance at the institutions under trial will help us to estimate the success of Lord Selborne's proposed reform. First of all we have no public institution for teaching law. The barristers learn their profession, or abstain from learning it, under the rules laid down by the irresponsible Society to which they may happen to belong. The young solicitors are looked after by the Incorporated Law Society. The unprofessional people who may wish to know something about the

laws they are expected to obey, have no provision made for them whatever. In the second place we have, or till yesterday had, four large and wealthy societies invested with a monopoly of practice at the bar, and offering in return no kind of security for the professional knowledge or aptitude of their members. We find the Inns partially occupying the field of legal education, making desperate efforts at the last moment to acquit themselves creditably therein, but resolutely warning off all intruders, and acknowledging responsibility to no power but themselves. We find them insisting on examination, as a necessary preliminary to the call to the bar, and doing their best to teach the subjects in which they examine. But they will teach nobody but their own members, nor will they countenance any association between their own members and the young solicitors or the profane public outside. We find, moreover, that the internal management of the societies in some non-educational matters is in many respects deficient, and in particular the junior bar calls loudly to be represented on the bench. Lord Selborne has undertaken to clear up all this, with the condition staring him in the face that he must not attack the monopoly of the Inns or lay sacrilegious hands upon their private funds. His object has been, through the Inns of Court, to make the teachof law a reality, instead of a sham, to make it a school for the country instead of a seminary for the bar, and to change the Bench of the Inns into a representative, well-ordered, and responsible body of governors. Some may think the first part of the scheme impossible, while others will hold that the two parts are inseparable in legislation. Lord Selborne is trying to make a legal university which shall be entirely independent of the Inns of Court, without interfering with the ancient privileges of these Societies.

It was no doubt the original intention of those who are associated with Lord Selborne in this movement, if not of Lord Selborne himself, to create a legal University, teaching law to all the world, and giving degrees to persons found duly qualified for that honour, In In every essential