837F  Anon.                                        The Game Law: Or, A Collection Of The Laws And Statutes Made For The Preservation Of The Game Of This Kingdom. Drawn Into a Short And Easie Method, For The Information Of All Gentlemen, And Caution Of Others.

London:  Richard and Edward Atkins, Esqs; for Abel Roper, at the Black Boy against St. Dunstan’s Church in Fleet-Street, 1705.                             $2,800

Duodecimo, 5.75 X3.5 inches. First edition A6,B- D12

The book is bound in contemporary full calf, previous owners name on top of title page, contents in very good condition, rear endpapers with some stains. This book is bound in the original binding with general wear and some stains, old repair to spine.

It is a very nice copy.

As argued by Munsche in his “The Gamekeeper and English Rural Society, 1660-1830”, the English gameskeeper was a policeman and “the closest thing to a professional law enforcement official to be found in rural England before the middle of the nineteenth century.” (Journal of British Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 82-105) This compilation of the Game Law, the first of many subsequent editions and popular commentaries issued in the eighteenth century, enumerates in detail the property qualifications for not only the hunting of “beasts of chase, birds of flight, and fish” but also for the possession of both weapons – “Cross-bow, Hand gun, Hackbut, or Demihake” – and of dogs, snares, and other “engines for the taking of game”, in addition to spelling out the penalties for poaching and trespassing.

Hunting has historically provided one of the few justifications for the use of weapons, and the qualification statues (monetary thresholds based on the value of a landholding or one’s social rank) laid out in the Game Law warrant attention. The English jurist Blackstone commented that “[F]ifty times the property [is required] to enable a man to kill a partridge, as to vote for a knight of the shire.” Indeed, at least one author has argued that Blackstone’s “reprobation of the forest and game laws as owing ‘their immediate original to slavery’ provided an impelling spirit for American opposition to gun control” while citing an American editor of Blackstone’s observation that the game laws “’are among the powerful instruments of state-enginery    so that the whole nation are completely disarmed, and left at the mercy of the government, under the pretext of preserving the breed of hares and partridges”. (Lund, Thomas. “British wildlife law before the American Revolution”. Michigan Law Review. Vol. 74, No. 1. pp. 49-74)

The particular examples of qualification statutes from this edition (out of 81 total statutes, incl. of Addenda) are listed below:

XII: no Layman not having Land of 40 s. per Annum, nor Clerk not having 10 l. per Annum revenue, shall keep or have any Grayhound, Hound, Dog, Ferret, Net, or Engine to destroy Hares, Coneys, or any other Gentlemens Game

XVI: No Person not having 40 l. per Annum in Lands, or 200 l. in Goods or some enclosed Ground for Deer or Conies worth 40 s. per Annum, shall use, Gun, Bow or Cross-Bow, to kill Deer or Conies, nor keep Buck-stall, Ferret, Dog, Net, or other Engine; And any Person having Lands worth 100 l. per Annum may seize such Gun, &c. and keep the same to his own use.

XIX: Persons not having Lands or some other Estate of Inheritance in their own or Wife’s Right of One hundred Pound per Annum, or for Life, or Lease of Ninety-nine Years  of One hundred and fifty Pounds per Annum        are declared to be persons not allowed to keep Guns, Bows, Grayhounds, &c.

XLIX: Every person Convicted as above said of keeping a Grayhound, Setting Dog, or Net to take Deer, Hare, Pheasant or Partridge, not having Inheritance of Ten Pounds per Annum, Lease for Life of Thirty Pounds per Annum, or worth Two hundred Pounds personal Estate, or Son of a Baron or Knight, or Heir apparent of an Esquire, shall suffer Imprisonment, ut supra, unless he pay Forty Shillings to the use above said.