RABBIT STEALING.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 1116, 23 April 1891, Page 3

RABBIT STEALING.

A Blackstone correspondent writes as follows on the above subject:— Sib, —Rabbit stealing is carried on to a great extent in the country, and in tl.is district, from remarks made by Mr. Pyke at election time referring to that skit of Mr. Lance's, a great many people believe there is no law on the subject. With all due deference, as many people read The Chkomcle who do not read Acts of Parliament, I would suggest your making public clause 10 of " The Rabbit Amendment Act, IS9U." It is a matter of discretion as to any trenchant remarks on the mo ality of the thing. For my own part, I have more faith in the law of pains and penalties as a deterrent than the law of morality. Sad, but true ! A great many people, otherwise quite honourable, aud apparently well-to-do, make a practice of setting their children to watch the rabbiters laying poisoned grain, and then to go on the ground two or three days afterwards and sweep off all they find. It is easily done, as the rabbiter keeps away from the ground for six days to give all the rabbits a elm nee of dying, as a rabbit disturbed when sick makes for its hole and dies there. In addition to what are stolen, a great number are lost that way. Of course, : it is bad practice for children—teaching them lessons of deceit, whijh later on they may play off on the parents so teaching them ; j and it is very hard on the rabbiter, who is at a grout outlay for grain, rations, wages, etc., and time aud trouble, and hating been Ia great loser in the pa»t I mean in futuie to make an example of any one caught.

Clause 10 of "The Rabbit Nuisance Act, | 1890" is as follows:—"livery person who. enters upon any land not in his own legal possession orocsupation without the authority of the legal owner or occupier thereof, and lays p lison, or removes any rabbits lhat have beeu poisoned, o: their skins, ftoiu such land, i* liable on summary conviction before a Resident Magistrate or any two Justices of the Peace, to a penalty not exceeding twenty-five pounds, or to be imprisoned b»r a period not exceeding six months."