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Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 89, 16 April 1927, Page 23

In these days most people, unless they Ere landed gentry, or at least the renters of a "shoots,•' are not inclined to look on poachers as criminals of the deepest dye, yet against poachers some of the most cruel laws in our penal code have been framed. Innocent men must have suffered time and again, while others who were not innocent of lawlawbreaking yet guilty of nothing worse than a love of sport or of a need of food, were flung into ghastlyprisons to be mutilated or to die according as the sentence went.

All the same, every forest in the old times swarmed with deer stealers who for some reason not clear, since it could hardly have been an effectual disguise, fell into the habit of blacking their faces, thus proclaiming themselves poachers to whoever might meet them. It was against them the following law was passed, to be repealed late in the last century:—

"... after the first day of June, 1723, whatever persons armed with offensive weapons and having their faces blackened

. . . should appear in any park, forest, or grounds . . . wherein deer were kept; any warren where conies or hares were kept: or steal tish out of any pond; or should rescue any person out of custody of an officer for such an offence, or procure anyone to join with them, should be

deemed guilty of felony, without the benefit of the clergy, and suffer pains of death as felons, so convicted."

As a typical "crime of the Blacks," i.e., poachers, and the way in which the law was carried out early in the eighteenth century an account given "by Johnson in his "laves of the Highwaymen'' is to the point. Somewhere on the outskirts of Guildford lived a respectable family possessing the rather queer name of Thingshel. The elder son was the industrious apprentice, learning his father's trade and growing up in the way he should go, while the second, Robert, in sowing his wild oats, had become acquainted with James Ansel, an adventurer, who had fled from London, had been suspected of housebreaking in Portsmouth, and so had wandered to Guildford. The number of deer roaming the moors and forests of Hampshire, outskirts of the great New Forest, gave him the idea of poaching, he gathered round him a band of young men, of whom Robert Thingshel was one, and by threats or bribery—probably the latter, though evidence to the opposite effect was given at the trial—he induced carters to carry his stolen venison to market and to bring back the money they received for it.

In dead of a winter night, Robert Thingshel was lying asleep in his bed, when there came a sound of tapping at the window. Knowing what it meant he flung on his clothes and crept out of the house to find Ansel waiting for him with a horse. They had only one mount, but Thingshel mounted on the crupper, and they rode away through the darkness to a meetingplace where two brothers named John and Edward Pink were waiting. There also was a Henry Marshall, and when the little band moved away, they somehow fell in with a lad of seventeen named Edward Elliott, who seems to have known them before. In his story of this night's work, however, he declared that the men were strangers to him, that he came across them on the high road at six in the morning, when they told him they were going deer hunting at Farnham Holt, and asked him to go with them. He need have no fear, they said, since they were all gentlemen of quality and would protect him from harm. He agreed, but said he was full of doubt and "trembled all the way."

Almost as soon as they reached "The Holt" a deer was killed, and young Elliott, thinking he saw a chance to escape, crept away from the rest, only to run into the arms of a body of keepers who had heard the shot.

They took the lad prisoner, binding him to a tree and keeping guard over him as they called upon the others to surrender. The poachers retorted they would neither surrender nor fly unless they could take heir comrade, Elliott, with them, on which the keepers closed in and all fought wildly, while Elliott "lay in inexpressible agony, knowing that whatever blood was spilt be should be accountable along with the rest."

Again and again the poacher could have escaped, but Marshall and Ansel called to the others not to desert Elliott, and in the end Marshall, finding himself cornered, brought his gun into action and shot ore of the keepers dead. In horror of the act the struggle stopped, two of the poachers, Marshall and Thingshel were taken, while Ansel with the two Pinks managed to escape.

It is &n& eloquent commentary on the treatment of prisoners that Johnson adds Elliott had been fettered to the tree when he was captured by the keepers and his fetters were never taken off until his execution.

The next act in the drama almost certainly happened on another day, though, as Johnson tells the story, it seems as if one event came on the heels of another.

Again the gang, now reduced to three, started out on their hunting, going along the Portsmouth Road, and presently met a young woman, who must have been there by appointment. Her name does not appear, but she was servant at an inn in Portsmouth, and had run away from her situation to join these outlaws. According to the story told afterwards by the two brothers, when a deer was killed she cut its throat with a knife given her for the purpose, afterwards she wore the knife in her belt and "rode on a horse with pistols in her saddle."

With her as queen of the ceremonies, they ran through the forest till they came to an inn kept by a man namer Parfit, where they insisted a haunch of venison should be roasted, and on it they feated merrily, a very rowdy company, perhaps a very unpleasant one, but hardly a pack of desperate criminals.

In the midst of the gaiety another person came into the room, a slow-witted, stupid fellow named Eichard Parvin, the keeper of that Portsmouth inn where the Diana of the poachers was servant. Missing her, the poor man had set out in search, an employer having a right to bring his .servant back by force if she absented herself, and to thrash her for her disobedience. However, when he saw her, he ■was so surprised he could find no words, and was persuaded to sit down and join the others at the table.

Again the feast progressed, and they •were all very merry, when— The keepers of the forest with constables, closed on the inn, and all were taken prisoners excepting the girl. When these poachers were brought to trial their bearing horrified the good people of the day, but seeing it in better perspective across the lapse of years it is mpossible to condemn wholly. The two Pinks, "who had been accounted honest and serious persons before this crime," told the story of meeting the servant and of the frolic which followed. 'Neither of the brothers objected anything against the evidence produced on the trial. They, however, could scarcely be persuaded that the crime for which they Buffered merited death. They said the deer •were wild beats, and that the poor as well as the rich, might usefully use "them." Ansel was told that if he would betrav his confederates he should go free, on which he retorted that he knew a good twenty who were guilty, but that he would not save his life by giving information against them.

Marshall, the man who actually shot the keeper, Beems to have had "the least ■ense of his crime," we are told by JohnJSO3 ae t poor wretch, was seized, with

some "stroke' 1 soon after his arrest, and in spite of the fact that he was tried and convicted in the interim, he recovered speech and movement only the day before his execution. Let Johnson tell the next scene in his own unctuous language: —

'"Then a clergyman waited on him and represented the nature of the horrible crime he had committed. But he treated the admonition with neglect, saying, "Sure he might stand on his own defence, and was not bound to run away and leave his companions in danger.'" . . . He in no respect considered his sin as heinous in the sight of God or meriting the punishment awarded him.''

The most pitiful of the prisoners wer-< young Elliott, who tried to save himself by a wild story of witchcraft, declaring the Blacks had thrown a spell over him, and the wretched innkeeper, Parvin, who protested he had had no previous connection with the poachers, and had only gone into the forest in search of his servant, a fact which the other prisoners confirmed. Very tragically the poor fellow added that he could have brought witnesses to prove his innocence, but upon his being apprehended the Mayor of Portsmouth "had seized upon all his substance, and his amily were not only in distress, but he was destitute of means necessary to evidence his complete innocence. He persisted iu maintaining his innocence to the last." Nevertheless, all seven died together, and Johnson ends the story with a note or satisfaction that, thanks to the severity or he law, the crime of poaching was stamped out.

Xest Week: ''Claude Duval, the Cero of the Dance."