unsuccessful, as I trust you are too honest a fellow ever to intend
to turn poacher. With poaching much more evil is connected: a habit
of nightly depredation, a custom of prowling in the dark for prey,
produces in time a disrelish for honest labor. He whose first offence
was committed without much thought or evil intention, if he happens
to succeed a few times in carrying off his booty undiscovered, grows
bolder and bolder; and when he fancies there is no shame attending it,
he very soon gets to persuade himself that there is also no sin. While
some people pretend a scruple about stealing a sheep, they partly live
by plundering of warrens. But remember, that the warrener pays a high
rent, and that therefore his rabbits are as much his property as his
sheep. Do not then deceive yourselves with these false distinctions.
All property is sacred; and as the laws of the land are intended to
fence in that property, he who brings up his children to break down
any of these fences, brings them up to certain sin and ruin. He who
begins with robbing orchards, rabbit-warrens, and fish-ponds, will
probably end with horsestealing, or highway robbery. Poaching is a
regular apprenticeship to bolder crimes. He whom I may commit as a boy
to sit in the stocks for killing a partridge, may be likely to end at
the gallows for killing a man.

"Observe, you who now hear me, the strictness and impartiality of
justice. I know Giles to be a worthless fellow, yet it is my duty to
take his information; I know Jack Weston to be an honest youth, yet I
must be obliged to make him pay the penalty. Giles is a bad man, but
he can prove this fact; Jack is a worthy lad, but he has committed
this fault. I am sorry for you, Jack; but do not let it grieve you
that Giles has played worse tricks a hundred times, and yet got off,
while you were detected in the very first offence, for that would be
grieving because you are not so great a rogue as Giles. At this moment