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Those who do not know the New Forest, or know it only as a collecting- or happy hunting-ground of eggers and "lepidopterists," or as artists in search of paintable woodland scenery know it, and others who make it a summer holiday resort, may say that this abuse is one which might and should be remedied. They would be mistaken. What I and a few others who use their senses see and hear in this or that spot, is, in every case, a very small matter, a visible but an infinitesimal part of that abuse of the New Forest which is old and chronic, and operates always, and is common to the whole area, and, as things are, irremediable. To discover and denounce certain things which ought not to be, to rail against verderers, who are after all what they cannot help being, is about as profitable as it would be to "damn the nature of things."
It must be borne in mind that the Forest area has a considerable population composed of commoners, squatters, private owners, who have inherited or purchased lands originally filched from the Forest; and of a large number of persons who reside mostly in the villages, and are private residents, publicans, shopkeepers, and lodging-house keepers. All these people have one object in common—to get as much as they can out of the Forest. It is true that a large proportion of them, especially those who live in the villages, which are now rapidly increasing their populations, are supposed not to have any Forest rights; but they do as a fact get something out of it; and we may say that, generally, all the people in the Forest dine at one table, and all get a helping out of most of the dishes going, though the first and biggest helpings are for the favoured guests.
New Forest conscience
Those who have inherited rights have indeed come to look on the Forest as in a sense their property. What is given or handed over to them is not in their view their proper share: they take this openly, and get the balance the best way they can—in the dark generally. It is not dishonest to help yourself to what belongs to you; and they must live—must have their whack. They have, in fact, their own moral code, their New Forest conscience, just as other men—miners, labourers on the land, tradesmen, gamekeepers, members of the Stock Exchange, for instance—have each their corporate code and conscience. It may not be the general or the ideal or speculative conscience, but it is what may be called their working conscience. One proof that much goes on in the dark, or that much is winked at, is the paucity of all wild life which is worth any man's while to take in a district where pretty well everything is protected on paper. Game, furred and feathered, would not exist at all but for the private estates scattered through the Forest, in which game is preserved, and from which the depleted Forest lands are constantly being restocked. Again, in all this most favourable country no rare or beautiful species may be found: it would be safer for the hobby, the golden oriole, the hoopoe, the harrier, to nest in a metropolitan park than in the loneliest wood between the Avon and Southampton Water. To introduce any new species, from the biggest—the capercailzie and the great bustard—to the smallest quail, or any small passerine bird with a spot of brilliant colour on its plumage, would be impossible.
The New Forest people are, in fact, just what circumstances have made them. Like all organised beings, they are the creatures of, and subject to, the conditions they exist in; and they cannot be other than they are—namely, parasites on the Forest. And, what is more, they cannot be educated, or preached, or worried out of their ingrained parasitical habits and ways of thought. They have had centuries—long centuries—of practice to make them cunning, and the effect of more stringent regulations than those now in use would only be to polish and put a better edge on that weapon which Nature has given them to fight with.
This being the conclusion, namely, that "things are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be," some of my readers, especially those in the New Forest, may ask, Why, then, say anything about it? why not follow the others who have written books and books and books about the New Forest, books big and books little, from Wise, his classic, and the Victoria History, down to the long row of little rosy guide-books? They saw nothing of all this; or if they saw un-pleasant things they thought it better to hold their tongues, or pens, than to make people uncomfortable.
I confess it would be a mistake, a mere waste of words, to bring these hidden things to light if it could be believed that the New Forest, in its condition and management, will continue for any length of time to be what it is and has been—just that and nothing more. A district in England, it is true, but out of the way, remote, a spot to be visited once or twice in a lifetime just to look at the scenery, like Lundy or the Scilly Isles or the Orkneys. But it cannot be believed. The place itself, its curious tangle of ownership—government by and rights of the crown, of private owners, commoners, and the public—is what it has always been; but many persons have now come to think and to believe that the time is approaching when there will be a disentanglement and a change.
A change foreshadowed
The Forest has been known and loved by a limited number of persons always; the general public have only discovered it in recent years. For one visitor twenty years ago there are scores, probably hundreds, to-day. And year by year, as motoring becomes more common, and as cycling from being general grows, as it will, to be universal, the flow of visitors to the Forest will go on at an ever-increasing rate, and the hundreds of to-day will be thousands in five years' time. With these modern means of locomotion, there is no more attractive spot than this hundred and fifty square miles of level country which contains the most beautiful forest scenery in England. And as it grows in favour in all the country as a place of recreation and refreshment, the subject of its condition and management, and the ways of its inhabitants, will receive an increased attention. The desire will grow that it shall not be spoilt, either by the authorities or the residents, that it shall not be turned into townships and plantations, nor be starved, nor its wild life left to be taken and destroyed by anyone and everyone. It will be seen that the "rights" I have spoken of, with the unwritten laws and customs which are kept more or less in the dark, are in conflict with the better and infinitely more important rights of the people generally—of the whole nation. Once all this becomes common knowledge, that which some now regard as a mere dream, a faint hope, something too remote for us to concern ourselves about, will all at once appear to us as a practical object—something to be won by fighting, and certainly worth fighting for.
It may be said at once, and I fancy that anyone who knows the inner life of the Forest people will agree with me, that so long as these are in possession (and here all private owners are included) there can be no great change, no permanent improvement made in the Forest. That is the difficulty, but it is not an insuperable one. Public opinion, and the desire of the people for anything, is a considerable force to-day; so that, inspired by it, the most timid and conservative governments are apt all at once to acquire an extraordinary courage. Sustained by that outside force, the most tender-hearted and sensitive Prime Minister would not in the least mind if some persons were to dub him a second and worse William the Bastard.
The people in this district have a curious experiment to show the wonderful power of the Forest fly in retaining its grasp. A man takes the fly between his finger and thumb, and with the other hand holds a single hair of a cow or horse for it to seize, then gently pulls hair and fly apart. The fly does not release his hold—he splits the hair, or at any rate shaves a piece off right down to the fine end with his sharp, grasping claw. Doubtless the human parasite will, when his time comes, show an equal tenacity; he will embrace the biggest and oldest oak he knows, and to pluck him from his beloved soil it will be necessary to pull up the tree by its roots. But this is a detail, and may be left to the engineers.
Overlooking Beaulieu
Beyond that starved, melancholy wilderness, the sight of which has led me into so long a digression, one comes to a point which overlooks the valley of the Exe; and here one pauses long before going down to the half-hidden village by the river. Especially if it is in May or June, when the oak is in its "glad light grene," for that is the most vivid and beautiful of all vegetable greens, and the prospect is