"I was giving a low priority to homes; it's harder to get untraceable access to them than to public buildings and automobiles, and enough home incidents with untraceable perpetrators or bizarre accidents would be a red flag even to officials," Severus writes, and then gives the paper a long, tired look.
"Suppose," he writes, "that Carrot Farmer has a rabbit problem. He's a social man and successful beyond his station. Perhaps he's laid down a network of favors against the possibility that he might want something one day. In one pub, he mentions that he's worried about this year's crop. His wife throws a party and he puts up orange decorations and makes remarks about finances. At a dinner, he praises his host's rabbit stew and deplores his own incompetence with traps. Or, at another, his hostesses' fur-trimmed coat. Someone --he may not even know who -- takes the hint. Before long, everyone knows that he turns a blind eye to poachers and accepts the gift of a brace of rabbits gladly--perhaps having the giver over to dinner, although not calling old debts closed--after all, he hadn't asked for the rabbits. Is it worthwhile for the RSPCA to set a watch on him? Has he done anything they can sanction?"