Sinopsis
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original artwork and text.
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Reseña del editor
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original artwork and text.
Reseña del editor
HARRY ROUGHTON RENINISCENCES OF A REVENUE OFFICER - 1859 - PREFACE. MANY a vagabond has commenced his career as a poacher, and ended it on the gibbet. Not that a poacher is of necessity, an innate scoundrel, nor that the propensity to illicit sporting is heinous in itself, but, because its indulgence too often leads to something worse. His plea of justification is, that animals, ferce nature, are the property of no man until reduced into possession, the free gift of God to the great human family and that the rich only tyrannize over the poor, when they arrogate to themselves exclusive dominion over the errant denizens of the woods and wilds. Grant, for the sake of argument, that it is usurpation, and that the law which sanctions it is despotic. If so, repeal it by legitimate means but, so long as it is law, it is the duty of every good subject to obey it. However the specious pretext of natural justice, as opposed to legal right, may stifle the qualms of conscience, the non-qualified pursuer of hares, pheasants, and partridges, is not the less a law-breaker. The rubicon once passed, the distinctions between right and wrong grow less and less recognizable. When convenience or necessity impels, the transgressor of one law feels the less repugnance to violate another. The nightly depredator, disappointed of his coveted game, substitutes, with little hesitation, the stray poultry of the peaceful farmyard, for the unreclaimed fowls of the air or visits, with little reluctance, the rabbit-hutch or henrooot of his neighbour. When hunger presses, mutton or veal, with slight regard to proprietorship, takes the place of chicken, goose, or turkey. A man may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, argues the backslider and, should the watchful guardians of some well-stored coppice, warren, or preserve, cross the marauders path, or dispute his passage, no vivid perceptiou of wrong restrains the fatal shot which may lay his adversary low, and bring himself to the gallows. By analogous reasoning, the neophyte in smuggling reconciles his conscience to the first infraction of the Revenue Laws. By similar gradations does he arrive at the climax of crime. The produce of the mothcr earth, he argues, is, or ought to be, free to her children...
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