"Four _gentlemen_ from Leadenhall-Market, who went on the long-coach to Woolwich, as there are partridges in that part of Kent, killed two crows in Hanging-Wood Lane, blinded a jackass near the Warren, and wounded a sparrow, several feathers being perceived to drop from its wings. They had tolerable good sport with a bat, their terriers being of an excellent breed, and having worried a flock of ducks in a ditch, and killed one, they returned from _Partridge shooting_ about nine at night, very much fatigued indeed. "Five gentlemen who went sporting from Kent Bar to Lewisham, notwithstanding the wetness of the day, had tolerable good luck. "They belonged to the Trained Bands, and depended more upon their bayonets, than their guns. At the Half-Way-House they killed a fine buck-cat, as he was watching a chaffinch. From the Half-Way-House to New-Cross Turnpike, every sparrow was affrighted by the noise of their guns: but the rain by this time having completely wetted the locks, and damped the powder, they were obliged to charge with bayonets, and every tree bore marks of their prowess, to the Lion and Lamb at Lewisham, where they dined, got drunk, killed two hogs, and a Chinese sow, and, in the evening, were carried home by the Lewisham stage. "St. George's Fields, once the mart of London sportsmen, being now almost covered with houses, very few prentice-boy gunners were seen there. The birds which now inhabit that quarter, are many of them jail-birds, and if the new Magistrates were to sport their authority a little more than they do, they might bring down some of the most dangerous game with which a neighbourhood was ever infested. "Very few were the sportsmen on Blackheath, to the great joy of sheep and jackasses, and to the safety of stage-passengers, who were often endangered by the random shot of those _one-day_ sportsmen. As to partridges, their lives were in no danger, not one of those sportmen out of fifty knowing the difference between a partridge and a crow; besides, as their dogs are generally of the bull-dog kind, of the terrier, or the fox breed, the game are in very little danger of injury from their ability."--(_Times, Sept. 15, 1797._) * * * * * "There will be more Powder expended to-day against the innocent Partridges, than would drive Buonaparte and his crew out of Asia. The Bank Clerks, India House Jemmies, Men Milliners, and tippy Apprentices, most loudly complain against the enclosures of that _Cockney Manor_, St. George's Fields, bewailing the loss of their sport, and lamenting that there is not a sparrow left to exercise their prowess upon."--(_Times, Sept. 14, 1798._) * * * * *