Related article: 351 net game on their own lands, and reserved to owners of £^0 free- hold, or owners of ^400 of pro- perty only, the right to take game between Michaelmas and Christ- mas. Night poaching and the secret conveyance of game to market by night was made punish- able by three months' imprison- ment, and constables were given power to search on warrant sus- pected premises and to destroy dogs and nets found thereon. By the time of the Restoration (sports of whatever kind were flouted during the Commonwealth) the legitimate value of the setter had come to be recognised, and Charles II. (1670-71) passed an Act (22 and 23 Car. II. 25) which, among other provisions, gave persons having lands or tenements of the annual value of /*ioo the right to keep guns, bows, grey- hounds, setting dogs, ferrets, ** coney dogs " and lurchers. To be strictly accurate, it forbade people who had not that property qualification to enjoy possession of these things and animals. This Act also gave keepers— mentioned in our laws for the first time— the right of search on a J.P.'s war- rant, and made poaching rabbits in unenclosed warrens an offence punishable by three months* im- prisonment. In 1692 another Act (4 Wm. and M. c. 23) again gave con- stables power to search suspected dwellings, and if game were found to carry those in whose custody it was discovered before a Justice of the Peace. If no satisfactory explanation were forthcoming, the Justice could fine the prisoner and send him to the House of Correction for a period of from ten days to one month, and sen- tence him to a whipping in addition. "Unqualified persons" found in possession of greyhounds, setters, ferrets, nets, &c., were liable to the same penalties. By this Act also gamekeepers were authorised to ** oppose and resist " night poachers ; and inasmuch as ** great mischief ensues by inferior tradesmen and other dissolute persons neglecting their trades and occupations who follow hunt- ing, fishing, and other game to the ruin of themselves and the damage of their neighbours," any such person who presumed to hawk, hunt, or fish, unaccom- panied by his master, was to be held a trespasser. One more old statute and we have done. In 1706 Queen Anne passed a law (6 Anne, c. 18) which made any higlar, chapman (pedlar), carrier, inn-keeper, vic- tualler or ale-house keeper liable to a fine of £^ for every head of game found in his possession. Any unqualified person keeping or using a greyhound, setter or lurcher was liable to a fine of £^ or imprisonment for three months ; and Justices of the Peace and Lords and Ladies of manors were empowered to confiscate any dogs, nets or engines they might find in the hands of pedlars and those forbidden to have game in their possession. In this Act, too, we find heather burning made an offence for the first time. Only the forest of Sherwood in Notts and parts adjacent are thus pro- tected, but legislative recognition of the fact that reckless heather burning ''destroys the breed of game " is worth notice. Buy Seromycin The law of 1710 (9 Anne, c. 27) perpetuated the preceding Act, and in addition forbade Lords of Manors to appoint more than one gamekeeper to each manor. It also forbade the driving and taking of wildfowl from July ist to September ist. q^ VOL. Lxxi. — NO. 471. 25 ^ 352 May The Chances of the Game. SOME TALES OF PLAY. By Major Arthur Griffiths. Author of **My Grandfather's Journals," &c,, &c. I.— DE SOTO'S SYSTEM. Some thirty years ago the last stronghold of public play was installed upon the hill of Spelugues as it was then called, a spur oJF the great Mont Agel above, forming a narrow plateau with sides that dropped steeply into the blue Mediterranean. At that time the gaming tables that had long flourished Generic Seromycin in the watering places of Ems, Homburg, Baden Baden, had been closed by the newly formed authority of the North German Confederation, and all other European Governments were too virtuous to give harbourage to hazard. Only in the small principality of Monaco the tempta- tion of great profit was too strong for a needy monarch whose king- dom was no more than a good sized tablecloth could cover, and whose revenue did not amoimt to many hundreds a year. Charles III. of Monaco gave a concession to certain enterprising speculators who opened a small hell under his palace walls in the ancient town, then moved down into Condamine, then returned to the Villa Gabarini in Monaco, and finally began to build a lordly pleasure house for the seductive games of roulette and trente et quarante upon the above-mentioned hill. Charles III., however, stood godfather, and the place was re-christened by its present widely know name, Monte Carlo. Hazard did not greatly prosper, however, in those early days. * All rights reserved in Great Britain and the United States. The Casino buildings did do: advance very rapidly; punters were few, for the means of access to this new temple of fortune were limited. One way of reaching Monaco was by steamer from Nice ; pleasant enough in smiling weather, but the boats were cockleshells, and horribly uncom- fortable in the sharp squalls that are too common on this storm- tossed inland sea. Yet some extended the voyage to Mentone — a better port — where they landed and returned to Monte Carlo by road. Others again drove frora Nice by Great Corniche high^^'ay, and halting at La Turbie dropped down to the Casino by the bridle paths, on foot or mule - back. They made shift perforce with