The "Carolina Sports" conclude with a description of the various kinds of game in the State, and with some general remarks on amusements, more particularly on deer hunting, the loss of which manly pastime is apprehended by the author, from the operation of various causes. The remarks are characterized by good sense and sound judgment. There is nothing, as the writer maintains, in the genuine code of morals or religion, that calls for the abandonment of innocent and rational amusements. The proscription of them by the austere and ascetic, means only that they are not agreeable to the taste of the proscribers. It reminds one of a practice common among physicians, who denounce as unwholesome any dish that disagrees with themselves, however salutary it may be to others. Wherever this proscriptive spirit prevails, we have observed the kindly and social temper of a community gradually die out. Individuals and families come to live more and more within a constantly narrowing circle of fancied godliness, but real selfishness. Society is broken up into a number of communities professedly religious, each very much impressed with the infinite importance of its own little dogma, and very much occupied in charitable comments on the defects of the rest. The irrepressible instinct for amusement, turned from its natural channel, takes the shape of some substitute less pleasing, because less natural; the pic-nic becomes a camp-meeting; the ball a fair; the evening party a sewing society. The solemn teacher who denounces a play, takes unspeakable delight in a theological dispute-he cannot tolerate a novel, but luxuriates in a diatribe on a neighboring sect. It is a different taste merely, for amusements, and we are not sure that the graver is the better one or the most productive of good temper and Christian charity.

We agree with the author, that dancing in proper place and season, is an innocent and pleasing amusement. It is the graceful expression of the joyous temper of the young, and has no adequate substitute as a promoter of good manners and social character.

He is right, we believe, in his defence of the theatre. It is a refined and intellectual amusement, and if it could be divested of certain accompaniments not necessary to it, and subjected to a rigid enforcement of decorum, easily accomplished-it would have nothing about it uncongenial with the most scrupulous morals. We hope, therefore, to see that

reform of theatrical exhibitions of which Mr. Elliott speaks, 'until they present nothing to the public but what the most scrupulous delicacy would approve,' and then a more general attendance of the refined, intelligent and exemplary may be expected to follow. Their attendance, indeed, would be in itself an efficient cause for such a reform. They might constitute a tribunal whose judgment would command respect, and whose standard of conduct and character for actor and actress would govern and improve them. As it is, these professors of the histrionic art have been flattered and fooled into an estimate of their calling so exalted, that they have too often regarded the ordinary maxims of manners and morals as not applicable to their corps, and have committed the extraordinary blunder of confounding mimicry with genius; of placing Kemble and Shakspeare as though they belonged to the same order of men; of fancying that minds stuffed with the odds and ends of another's wit, were capable of bearing any other relation to the winged genius whom they represent, than that which the stuffed birds of a museum have to the living creature abroad, on its pinions in the air. The strange hallucination has gone so far, that we have one of them writing books; pronouncing authoratively on morals and manners; deciding on the comparative civilization of nations; and talking of genius, its caprices, privileges and profundities, as if the writer herself was the original of the picture she draws.

The author of the "Sports" seems to use language more strong than necessary, when he intimates that there are denouncers of country sports. We have never had the good fortune to be much in the way of enjoying them, either directly in the chase, or indirectly in the spoils or presents, and have, therefore, none of the ardent love for them which grows from indulgence. But we are sincere. admirers of the bold rider and skilful marksman, and should judge but lightly of the good sense of the party who holds them in small esteem. A denouncer of them we do not know.

Our author estimates very highly the good effects produced by hunting, on the character of the hunter. It creates or improves the admirable qualities of promptitude, punctuality, decision, forecast and sagacity; it makes the hunter quick to observe and ready to execute, and is a good conservator of morals. We believe it all; and all being

true, might it not admit of a question whether the overseers of the country ought not to be regularly instructed in so excellent a school. The qualities enumerated are essential. to the performance of their duties, and instead of a clause in the year's contract to prevent their hunting, would it not be vastly to the planter's advantage to insert one insisting on the chase at least three times a week, as a part of their official duty? The engagement would certainly be so far satisfactory to the planter that he might confidently count upon its being carefully and faithfully attended to, and if the results are good, they would also be sure.

Great as the advantages may be however, derived from hunting, to planters or overseers, the expediency may be doubted of any direct regulation for the preservation of game. When this becomes necessary, the chase must be ranked with those amusements, in which the game is not worth the candle. The candle, in England, is sometimes the murder of the keeper, sometimes the transportation of the poacher; with us, it is the destruction of fences, the worrying of cattle, the disregard of the rights of property. The landholder in Carolina must choose between his sport, and the quiet enjoyment of his land. If the last be his object, he has but one way to get rid of the poacher and his mischief, and that is to get rid of the game which produces them. If his aim be to enjoy the deer hunt secure from interlopers, the only mode to obtain it is that adopted by Boon; the wilderness in North America is the only preserve. So far then, from desiring to keep the deer, it seems to be the true policy of the planter to destroy them; or at least not to regret their diminished numbers. But if it were desirable, it is not possible, as will be seen by a little attention to the causes assigned by Mr. Elliot for their threatened extinction. He very justly says that he is not one of those "who would regret the destruction of the forests when the sustenance of man is the purpose.' It is "the wanton destruction of forests and game" that he reprehends.

But of the causes assigned for the disappearance of deer, "the most obvious" is the clearing of land for cultivationthe river swamps especially. The next in importance is the destruction of the undergrowth by the browsing of cattle, and the burning of the woods to give them pasturage. In either case the sustenance of man is the purpose. The remaining cause assigned for the diminished number of deer

is the havoc committed by the professional hunter, who kills for market, not for sport. But this can hardly be called a wanton killing of game. Whatever it may be, there is no help for it. The law is with the hunter. It secures to him the right to kill deer, on unenclosed land, anywhere. Even on enclosed land, public opinion refuses to regard the shooting a deer as in itself a legal offence. If the causes assigned then be the true ones for the disappearance of game, there is no remedy; to preserve them is not possible, and the attempt to do so will involve disappointment and vexation only to the planter. He cannot escape the professional hunter, and would not restore the rice or cotton field to the forest.

Our author would find less difficulty in coming to this philosophy of the matter, if it were not that there is some want of clearness in his views as to rights of the landholder. He says that in the code of the great body of the people, the right to hunt animals feræ naturæ "is one of their franchises," and that animals so hunted "are the property of him who can take them, irrespective of any conflicting right in the owner of the soil," and in defiance of "the broad common law maxim, that every thing upon a man's land is his own-usque ad cœlum." But the maxim does not give to the owner of the land a property in every thing that happens to be on it-as for example in stray cattle, or wild animals. The common law recognizes no property in animals feræ naturæ. The right of property in them begins with the taking, and exists in the captor only. If he kills a deer in his neighbor's unenclosed land he has committed no trespass, for his right to do so is as much a legal right as that of the owner to plant the land. There is no "conflicting right in the owner of the soil" so far as the deer is concerned, for he has, and can have, no right of property in it, exeept by killing it, and that right has been acquired by another person. Even on land enclosed with an ordinary fence, the case does not differ materially. The hunter who enters the enclosure commits a trespass certainly, but it consists in entering upon the land, not in shooting the deer; the trespass is as complete if he misses, as if he hits.

It is very clear that a landholder who regards the wild deer on his soil as his property, like his sheep or cattle, must necessarily be more annoyed by their being killed by another, and in making the preceding remarks we are gov

erned, not by the idle wish to controvert Mr. Elliott's opinions, but by the desire of removing a cause of vexation to himself and other planters, resulting from an erroneous opinion of their rights. If the planter is convinced that in feeding the neighboring deer in his pea-field, he is fattening an animal to which a stranger has an equal right with himself, neither having any right at all, and that he is only cherishing a cause of annoyance and damage to his property, he will be less anxious about the preservation of game, and acquiesce the more readily in exchanging a sport, however pleasant, for the unmolested enjoyment of his property; or, if he strives to retain the amusement, he will feel less aggrieved, and therefore be less annoyed by the poacher's killing deer on his land, when he is no longer possessed with the mistaken notion that the deer killed on his land is his property.

We take leave of the Carolina Sports, with great respect for the accomplished author, and with the hope that he will not permit them to be the only fruits of his leisure imparted to the public. He will find such presents more acceptable, as they are more valuable, than those even of his more active pursuits, productive as these are in reciprocal good will. If we might be permitted to offer a suggestion, it would be to re-model the book of Sports, by making it more homogeneous; it is now partly in letters, partly in chapters; enlarge it by such additional topics, traditional, historical, biographical, as will occur to the author; and throw into an introduction or notes, the information in natural history connected with the subject.