With Reference to the Humanitarian League's pamphlet, "The Truth About the Game Laws," Professor Alfred R. Wallace writes to the League:--

     "I was exceedingly pleased to receive the tract on the Game Laws by Mr. Connell. It is excellently done, and the preface by R. Buchanan is splendid. I hope now that you will be able to find some M.P. who will move an annual resolution for the abolition of the Game Laws, as this tract will furnish all the necessary material for speeches for a good many years. Of course it will at first be a forlorn hope, but it will keep the subject before the public, which is much needed, as few people seem to be aware of the widespread evils of these abominable anachronisms.

     "Such a motion would serve as a very good test of true Liberalism and Radicalism, and no candidate for Parliament should be voted for who will not promise to support total repeal.

     "I see no reference in the pamphlet to the decision--I think about a year or two back--by a judge, that a gamekeeper had no more right to attack or assault a poacher than the poacher had to assault the gamekeeper; that the gamekeeper had no right to apprehend the poacher, but only to take his snares, traps, dogs, or guns. To apprehend him the police must be applied to in the usual way. On referring to a law book, I find that no gamekeeper, unless appointed by the lord of the manor, or by the owner of a "free warren," or a corporation, and registered with the Clerk of the Peace, has even these powers. A landlord even has no power to shoot a poacher's dog, or seize his snares, guns, etc., but only to take the game shot on his own land.

     "Now it is quite certain that this law is constantly ignored; and as the gamekeepers almost always begin the fights with poachers, it is they who are the law-breakers, and it would be a most valuable lesson if the Society, or some of its supporters, would try this by having the gamekeeper in such a case prosecuted for assault.

     "Would it not be well to have a brief but exact statement of the law on this point appended to the pamphlet, so that this disgraceful system of private war should be put an end to, and game-keeping magistrates be kept within their legal powers?"