EXCLUSION OF THE PUBLIC FROM THE LAND. [To TR! EDITOR
OF THE "SPECTATOR."
SIR,—May I draw attention to the following remarks in Mr. Bryce's recently published volume of "American Addresses" (page 394), upon a subject which the holiday season brings to
the minds of many of us P — "Now let us remember that the quantity of natural beauty in the world, that is to say, the regions and spots calculated to give enjoyment in the highest form, are limited, and are being con- stantly encroached upon. This encroachment takes four forma. There is the desire of private persons to appropriate beautiful scenery to themselves by enclosing it in private grounds and debarring the public from access to it. We hi England and Scotland have lost some of the most beautiful scenery we possess because it has been taken into private estates. There is the habit of excluding people even from land uncultivated and remote from houses for the sake of 'sport.' A great deal of the finest scenery in Scotland is now practically unapproachable by the pedestrian, or the artist, or the naturalist because rich people have appropriated it to their own self-regarding purposes and insist on excluding the public. This is especially the case whore the motive for exclusion is what is called sport. Sport is understood to mean killing God's creatures for man's amusement, and for the sake of this amuse- ment—the killing of deer and birds, an amusement which gives pleasure only to a handful of men—very large areas in Britain, and some few also in other parts of Europe, have been within the last sixty or seventy years closed against all the rest of the nation."
It has been suggested that, apart from any wish to give pleasure to their fellow creatures, owners of property might wisely seek to avert the wrath to come by offering to the public the privilege of admission to their private grounds. Feelings of delicacy would restrain me from peremptorily calling upon a rich man—even a Tory duke—to give me access to his garden or park. But it is not, I think, too much to say that "enlightened self-interest" should teach great game-preserving landlords not to be too rigorous in excluding the humble and harmless pedestrian from their fields, woods, and hills. The roads have already been made intolerable to him by rich men's motor-cars.---I am, Sir, &c., Cms.
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