Mr. Kendall, a relative of Sir. J. C. Rashleigh, on
Monday ex- plained in the House the reasons which induced Colonel Beard to sentence six persons, one of them a young married woman far advanced in pregnancy, to twenty-one days' imprisonment for trespass. Other persons have been in the habit of trespassing in Sir C. Rashleigh's woods and injuring the coppices. Well, but did these people injure anything, and if they did, why would not a fine do? We quite admit that property must be protected, but any severe law of trespass would make England uninhabitable. When the magistrates forget that less than fifty thousand persons own all the woods and pleasant places in England, they strike at the very root of the existing social system. Suppose the Duke of Sutherland punished every trespasser on his lands He cannot make the experiment, for in Scotland the magistracy is organized on civilized principles, and a few cases like this will help England to imitate her.
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