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if you get upon his line near the point whence he first moved, you will find very pretty and quite sufficient diversion for one night in his pursuit. About fifteen years ago, at the time when "Swing," the great promoter of incendiarism alarmed the country, and corn-ricks burned like beacons from one end of the kingdom to the other, I engaged to meet some friends in a wild, sequestered spot, for the purpose of hunting the polecat. On my road I had occasion to pass through a large farm-yard about twelve o'clock at night, and, on getting into the "mowey," I suddenly heard a gun cocked very near I had sufficient presence of mind to shout out, "Who's there?mind what you're at: don't shoot!" when a man, advancing with gun in hand from the dark side of a rick, exclaimed: "God forgive me, sir, but you've had a narrow escape of your life. I took you to be 'Swing; and had I not seen your old hound Rattler, in one moment you would have been a dead man!" This was a lesson which I availed myself of; and during those disturbed times, I ever after carefully avoided farm-yards by night. On that occasion we found five polecats, killed three, and put two to ground under the same old barn. Our sole object was sport; and we could not apply to ourselves the merit of purposing to do the public a service by destroying a "noxious vermin;" but that we did do them a vast service there can be little doubt, for few animals are more destructive in a henroost than the polecat; and as to game, a couple of them would unstock Prince Albert's preserves in one week.

A SAFE SHOT.

ENGRAVED BY J. WESTLEY, FROM A PAINTING BY G. ARMFIELD.

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No class of British field-sport would appear to have more degenerated in practice than the trigger. Of late years especially, the system of over-preserving game in many quarters has raised an outcry against the patrons of powder and shot-we must candidly confess, by no means without good or great provocation. Formerly, some fifty years ago we will say, the common notion with respect to a sportsman was picturing in the mind's eye a man walk," in company with, as the song written just at that period has it, "his dog and gun." The sportsman then in fact, almost par excellence with the rest of the world, was the shooter; a statement which the powers of printer's ink, as well as the memory of the oldest inhabitant, furnish us with ample evidence to support. Whenever the literary man of that day, the poet, the dramatist, or the politician, thought fit as on rare occasion we find he did-to turn his thoughts to the subject of rural recreation, it is ten to one but the verse was rounded off, the character filled up, or the essay finished in a high

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compliment to that well-conducted worthy, Mr. Ramrod. devotees to the turf, the chase, and other pastimes, had then to bear up against far more of open abuse and sly satire than they have even in the present almost glut of those two generally very marketable commodities: while, on the other hand, it would be difficult to find a line penned either in avowed hostility, or witty derision of any habit the SAFE SHOT owned to acquiring. And yet only mark the change! Give the scene but one sudden crack with Harlequin's baton, and let forty-five take the place of ninety-five. Behold the crowd of charges and condemnations now conjured up at the voice of Joe Manton or of Westley Richards; listen to the clamour now taken up by grave and gay, by nearly one and all, from friend Bright to friend Punch; and note the mixture of ridicule and regret the too SAFE SHOT's practices now give occasion for.

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Still, surely, it cannot be all bad. We must'nt come for to to take, as the Bishop of Bond-street says, all this wholesale slander against the trigger as gospel. It cannot invariably have that sad tendency to effeminacy, selfishness, insipidity, injustice, and sheer pocket profit, that great and small talkers have so frequently and so lately been accustomed to associate with it! Of course it has'nt, we undertake at once to answer for everybody; and if so be this volunteer is not "generally and gratefully acknowledged," we would just wish to have one word with the objecting gentleman who wants to have it himself. We will take, for an example of the many varieties of shooting, the sample that happens to be before us to wit, "THE SAFE SHOT" subject of our artist-and hang all your selfish, effeminate, insipid, unjust, and mere mercenary considerations thereon. Imprimis, did you ever taste a wild duck

Did I indeed! I should think I

Just stop one minute more, if you please. Did you ever taste a wild-duck that you had shot yourself? that you had sprung yourself, found yourself, marked yourself (with your own peculiar mark), and bagged yourself-many thanks to nobody-else beyond a couple of good water-proof black boots, and ditto, ditto, liver and white spaniels? Did you now really, honour bright, ever taste a bit of the breast with that Spartan sauce sort of flavour about it? If you can only put in one little soft maiden-like " yes" in that tone and pitch of voice with which Sophia Matilda replies to Arthur Augustus's "will you be mine?" If you can only imitate cock sparrow, and say, "I killed wild-duck," you are no opponent of ours. If you have braved the frosts of February, the fens of Lincolnshire, or any-where else, and the hardy, invigorating toils and pleasures of the whole proceedings, you are not the man to need a rejoinder from us. In your eye, the eye of the true sportsman that is, wild-fowl shooting is as pure and fine a divarshun as ever it and was, THE SAFE SHOT" a position any-one might glory in and no-one be ashamed of. In short, you mean to argue that a wild-duck is not a tame pheasant, and that killing one is not a battue.

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And to show how ready we are to support you, we have put your impression into the magazine.

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(The BERNARD BLACKMANTLE of "The English Spy," and the OLD TOM WHIPCORD of "The Annals of Sporting.")

In the last number of the Quarterly for 1845, there is an admirable article on Highland sports, commencing with a notice of Mr. Scrope's work on salmon-fishing, but abounding, as it proceeds, with original and powerful descriptions of Highland sports, in all their singularly attractive characteristics and varieties. The graphic style and delineations of the writer prove that he is one of a good sort,

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