From The Every-day book; or, Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Vol. II, by William Hone.
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September 1*
Until this day partridges are protected by act of parliament from those who are "privileged to kill."
Application for a License.
In the shooting season of 1821, a fashionably dressed young man applied to sir Robert Baker for a license to kill— not game, but thieves. This curious application was made in the most serious and business-like manner imaginable.
"Can I be permitted to speak a few words to you, sir?" said the applicant. "Certainly, sir," replied sir Robert. " Then I wish to ask you, sir, whether, if I am attacked by thieves in the streets or roads, I should be justified in using fire-arms against them, and putting them to death ?" Sir Robert Baker replied, that every man had a right to defend himself from robbers in the best manner he could; but at the same time he would not be justified in using fire-arms, except in cases of the utmost extremity. "Oh! I am very much obliged to you, sir; and I can be furnished at this office with a license to carry arms for that purpose?" The answer, of course, was given in the negative, though not without a good deal of surprise at such a question, and the inquirer bowed and withdrew.
* Feast of St. Giles, patron saint of beggars and blacksmiths, among many others. The name is familiar to Regency readers as a famously crime-ridden section of London.
Illustration by Robert Havell, Partridge Shooting at Windsor.
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