Page:The Hare.djvu/77

Rh example, kept a kennel of these dogs in the county of Cumberland. One Allan Wastehouse took charge of it. He kept ten hounds, and four men formed the staff of his kennels. The cost of keeping it up for eighteen months amounted to 109l. 15s., a considerable sum in those days. But while the rich and powerful claimed the right of chasing poor Puss in sport, poorer men sought to enjoy her in the pot.

For centuries the fortunes of the hare oscillated between her persecutors, and the legal strategy which devised protection for this animal is curious to study. Richard II. passed a statute prohibiting any layman from keeping greyhounds, or catching hares in nets or snares, unless he could prove that he possessed lands or tenements of the annual value of 40s. I do not know whether sporting parsons were then in the ascendent. Possibly they may have been. At all events, any weakness on their part for the pleasures of the chase was anticipated by the draughtsman of this same statute, who debarred the clergy from hunting hares unless their emoluments of office amounted to no less a sum than ten pounds per annum. Thereafter, the lawyers modelled their statutes to suit the views of country gentlemen.

Their patrons, as justices of the peace, brought offenders to book. If necessary, they sent some