t the rich never sleep; and that there are no wild things
in England.

In short, the English ruler is always appealing to a nation of
sportsmen and concentrating all his efforts on preventing them from
having any sport. The Imperialist is always pointing out with
exultation that the common Englishman can live by adventure anywhere
on the globe, but if the common Englishman tries to live by adventure
in England, he is treated as harshly as a thief, and almost as harshly
as an honest journalist. This is hypocrisy: the magistrate who gives
his son "Treasure Island" and then imprisons a tramp is a hypocrite;
the squire who is proud of English colonists and indulgent to English
schoolboys, but cruel to English poachers, is drawing near that deep
place wherein all liars have their part. But our point here is that
the baseness is in the idea of _bewildering_ the tramp; of leaving
him no place for repentance. It is quite true, of course, that in the
days of slavery or of serfdom the needy were fenced by yet fiercer
penalties from spoiling the hunting of the rich. But in the older case
there were two very important differences, the second of which is our
main subject in this chapter. The first is that in a comparatively
wild society, however fond of hunting, it seems impossible that
enclosing and game-keeping can have been so omnipresent and efficient
as in a society full of maps and policemen. The second difference is
the one already noted: that if the slave or semi-slave was forbidden
to get his food in the greenwood, he was told to get it somewhere
else. The note of unreason was absent.

This is the first meanness; and the second is like unto it. If there
is one thing of which cultivated modern letters is full besides
adventure it is altruism. We are always being told to help others, to
regard our wealth as theirs, to do what good we can, for we shall not
pass this way again. We are everywhere urged by humanitarians to help
lame dogs over stiles--though some humanitarians, it is true, seem to
feel a colder interest in the case of lame men and women. Still, the
chief fact of our literature, among all historic literatures, is human
charity. But what is the chief fact of our legislation? The great
outstanding fact of modern legislation, among all historic
legislations, is the forbidding of human charity. It is this
astonishing paradox, a thing in the teeth of all logic and
conscience, that a man that takes another man's money