sorely he
chased the game into his fields, and the hunt which was to slay the game
trampled down what the latter had not devoured. The war about the forest
violently forced upon the peasant the question as to whether or not the
ancient privileges of the aristocracy could be justified before God and
man. We possess a poem by G.A. Buerger which contrasts the naked rights
of labor with the historic rights of rank in so sharp a fashion that, if
it should be published today, it would undoubtedly be confiscated as
communist literature. This ancient specimen of modern social-democratic
poetry, characteristically, for those times, takes its theme from the
"War about the Forest;" it bears the title: _The Peasant to His Most
Serene Tyrants_. Because the princely huntsman has driven the peasant
through the latter's own down-trodden corn-field, followed by the halloo
of the hunt, the peasant in the poem suddenly hits upon the dangerous
question, "Who are you, Prince?"

The horrible punishments with which poachers and trespassers against the
forest were threatened in the Middle Ages can be explained only when we
see in them an outlet to the bitterness of two parties at war about the
forest. In this war martial law was declared. The poacher felt that he
was acting within his rights, like the pirate; neither of them wished to
be considered a common thief. Above, I compared the forest with the sea;
the former barbarous punishment of pirates likewise runs parallel with
the cruel chastisement of trespassers against the forest. The latter
still frequently thinks he is only getting back again by cunning and
force a proprietorship that was snatched from him by force. There are in
Germany whole villages, whole districts, where, even at the present day,
poaching and trespassing against the forest are sharply distinguished
from common crimes which disgrace the perpetrator. To catch a hare in
their traps is, for these peasants, no more dishonorable than it is for
a student to cudgel the night-watchman. Therein lurks the ancient hidden
thought of the "War about the Free Forest." In the forest the turbulent
country-folk in times of excitement can attack the state or the
individual large landholder in his most sensitive spot. We saw how, in
the year 1848, extensive tracts of forest were laid waste--not
plundered--in accordance with a well concocted plan. The trees were hewn
down and the trunks were intentionally left to lie and rot, or the
forest