§ MR. A. C. MORTON (Peterborough)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to a game trespass 372 case tried at the Hexham Petty Sessions, on the 17th of October, at which John James Beaumont, farm servant in the employ of Mr. Johnson, occupier and tenant of Linold Wood Farm, was summoned by Summers Johnson, gamekeeper in the employ of Captain Atkinson, J.P., of Newbiggin, for trespassing in search of rabbits on the Linold Wood Farm, and fined 5s. and costs, and a case for a higher Court refused; whether the landlord has any right, by agreement with Captain Atkinson or otherwise, to interfere with the tenant occupier or his servant in destroying ground game; whether an agreement, dated 1868, is of any legal effect so far as ground game is concerned; and whether he will inquire into the case with a view to insure protection to farmers and their servants by Magistrates in their right to destroy ground game under the Act of 1880?
§ MR. ASQUITHThe facts appear to be as stated. Whether the decision was right depends upon legal considerations of some difficulty, which can only be satisfactorily determined by a Court of Law. It is, I think, to be regretted that the Court refused to state a case, and that the defendant did not appeal to the Quarter Sessions. But I cannot, as the case stands, see my way to interfere.