Fine.
For a load of sear wood { a child 34 kreuzers.
{ grown-up person 54 do.
If it be green wood, the fine is doubled.
For a load of dead leaves { a child 26 to 28 kreuzers.
{ grown-up person 46 to 48.
For a load of green grass torn {a child 30 do.
up by the hand {grown-up person 50 do.
Should a sickle or scythe be used, the fine then becomes doubled;
likewise for a second trespass: for a third, imprisonment ensues.
It is against the Duke's laws to take birds' nests; even those of
birds of prey cannot be taken without the permission of the keeper of
the forests.
For a nest taken of common singing-birds, 5 florins.
For nightingales 15 do.
Should the nest be taken out of a pleasure-ground, the fine then
becomes doubled.
It may appear to many people quite impossible that these penalties can
be enforced in desolate districts so nearly uninhabited: nevertheless,
by a sort of diamond-cut-diamond system, the Duke's forest officers
have various cunning ways of detecting those who infringe them, and the
fact is that fuel and wild grass are very often wanting in a solitary
hovel absolutely environed by both. I myself was one day told that I
had become liable to be fined eighteen kreuzers, because in a reverie
I had allowed a rough pony I was riding to bend his head down and
eat a few mouthfuls of grass; and another day, seeing a man who was
driving the ass I was riding rub with mud the end of a switch he had
just cut, I was told by him, in answer to my inquiry, that he did so in
order that it might not be proved he had _cut_ it. However, lest these
trifling data should not be deemed sufficient proof, I will at once
add, that I have myself seen the peasants lying in the Duke's prison
for having offended against these petty laws.
I took some pains to inquire what possible objection there could be to
the poor people collecting a few dead leaves, or the rank wild grass
which grows here and there all over the forest, and I was told that
both of these by rotting are supposed to manure the trees, yet, as I
have already stated, quantities of the largest timber are to be seen
decaying in every direction.
In a crowded, populous country, all descriptions of property must be
clearly distinguished and most sternly protected; but in a state of
nature, or in districts so nearly approaching to it as many parts of
Nassau, the same rule is not applicable--the same necessity does not
exist; and under such circumstances, the punishment inflicted upon a
child for tearing up wild grass with his hands most certainly is (and
who can deny it?) greater than the offence.
It is with no hostile or bad feeling towards the Duke of Nassau that I
mention these details: he is a personage much beloved in his duchy, and
I believe with great reason is he respected there; yet his forest laws
no one surely can admire; and though custom certainly has sanctioned
them,--though the humble voice of those who have suffered under them
has hitherto been too feeble to reach his ears,--and though those about
his court and person are but little disposed to awaken his attention to
such mean complaints,--yet no one can calmly see and foresee the state
of political feeling in Germany without admitting that the most humble
traveller (and why not an English one?) may render the Duke of Nassau a
friendly service, by bringing into daylight, unveiled by flattery, an
act of oppression in his government, which, while it has most probably
escaped his attention, is seditiously hoarded up by his political
enemies to form part of that fulcrum which they are secretly working
at, in order to effect by it, if possible, his downfall. A grievance,
like a wound, often only requires to be laid open to be cured; whereas
if, deeply seated, it be concealed from view, like gunpowder imbedded
in a rock, when once the spark _does_ reach it, it explodes with a
violence proportionate to the power which would vainly have attempted
to smother it in the earth.