ing to delight and exhilarate the spirits; a cry of hounds hath to my sense more spirit and vivacity than any other music." The occupier of land for the time being has now Right to kill the sole right of killing and taking the game upon the and take game. land, unless such right be reserved to the landlord, or any other person, or unless such occupier holds under a lease or agreement made previously to the passing of the last Game Act (i) for a term not exceeding twentyone years, upon which no fine shall have been taken, and in which the right of killing game shall not have been expressly allowed him (k). Where the landlord has reserved to himself the right of killing game, he may authorize any person or persons, who shall have obtained certificates, to enter upon the land for the purpose of pursuing and killing game thereon (7). And the lord of any manor or reputed manor has the right to pursue and kill the game upon the wastes or commons within the manor, and to authorize any other person or persons, who shall have obtained certificates, to enter upon such wastes or commons for the same purpose (m). When game or other wild animals were killed on any Property in land by any other person than the rightful owner, the game. law, with respect to the property in the game, was formerly as follows: If a man started any game within his own grounds and followed it into another's, and killed it there, the property remained in himself. And so if a stranger started game in one man's chase or free warren, and hunted it into another liberty, the property continued in the owner of the chase or warren; this property arising from privilege, and not being changed by the act of a mere stranger. Or if a man started game on another's private grounds, and killed it there, the property belonged to him in whose ground it was killed. Whereas, if after being started there, it was killed in the grounds of a third person, the property belonged not to the owner of the first ground, because the property was local; nor yet to the owner of the second, because it was not started in his soil; but it vested in the person who started and killed it, though guilty of a trespass against both the owners (n). And this appears to be still the law with respect to wild animals which are not game. But with respect to game, an alteration appears. to have been made by the last Game Act (o), which seems to vest the property in game killed on any land by strangers, in the person having the right to kill and take the game upon the land (p). (n) 2 Bl. Com. 419; Churchward v. Studdy, 14 East, 249. (0) Stat. 1 & 2 Will. IV. c. 32. (p) Sect. 36. CHAPTER II. OF TROVER, BAILMENT AND LIEN. HAVING now considered those moveable articles of property which form exceptions to the rules by which chattels personal are in general governed, let us proceed to notice some circumstances in which chattels personal may be placed, so as to form not real, but apparent exceptions to the primary rule already noticed (a), that personal property is essentially the subject of absolute ownership, and cannot be held for any estate. The property in goods can only belong to, or be vested in, one person at one time: in this respect it resembles the seisin or feudal possession of lands (b). Lands however may be so conveyed that several persons may possess in them, at the same time, several distinct vested estates of freehold, one of them being in possession, and the others in remainder, or the last perhaps being in reversion (c). But the law knows no such thing as a remainder or reversion of a chattel. It recognizes Property in only the simple property in goods, coupled or not with goods. the right of immediate possession. This single principle of law, if carefully borne in mind, will serve to explain many points which would otherwise appear difficult or even contradictory. It must be remembered, however, that it does not strictly apply to the moveable articles noticed in our first chapter, which, from their connexion with the land, are often governed by the principles of real, rather than those of personal property. (a) Ante, p. 7. is lost. 1. When the property in goods is coupled with the possession of them, the ownership is of course complete. This is the common and usual case of the ownership of chattels personal: the owner knows that the goods are his own, and in his own possession, and that is sufficient for him. Circumstances may, however, arise to change When an article this state of things. An article may be lost. In this case the owner still retains his property in the thing, but he has lost the possession of it. The property however which still remains in him, entitles him to the possession of the article, whenever he can meet with it; or, in legal phraseology, the property draws with it the right of possession (d). If therefore another person should find the article lost, he will have no right to convert it to his own use, but must on demand deliver it up to the rightful owner, in whom the property is already vested. If he should refuse to do so, such refusal will argue that he claims it as his own, and will accordingly be evidence of a conversion of the thing to Action of trover his own use (e). For the wrong or trespass thus committed, a specific remedy has been provided by the law, in the shape of an action of trover and conversion, or more shortly an action of trover, which is one of those actions comprised within the technical class of trespass on the case. The word trover is from the French trouver, to find; and the word conversion is added, from the conversion of the goods to the use of the defendant being the gist of the action thus brought against him. That the defendant should have found the article lost is not his fault, but his conversion of it to his own use is a trespass, and renders him liable to the action we are now considering. This action accordingly is now constantly brought to recover damages for withholding the possession of goods, whenever they have been wrongfully converted by the defendant to his own use, with and conversion. (d) 2 Wms. Saunders, 47 a. Hob. 187; Bac. Ab. tit. Trover, (B). out regard to the means, whether by finding or otherwise, by which the defendant may have become possessed (f). This action can be maintained only when the plaintiff has been in possession of the goods (g), or has such a property in them as draws to it the right to the possession. If the goods have been wrongfully converted by the defendant to his own use, the plaintiff will succeed, if he should prove either way his own right to the immediate possession of the goods (h); if he should not prove such right, he will fail (i). The property in the goods is that which most usually draws to it the right of possession; and the right to maintain an action of trover is therefore often said to depend on the plaintiff's property in the goods; the right of immediate possession is also sometimes called itself a special kind of property; but these expressions should not mislead the student. The action of trover tries only the right to the immediate possession, which, as we shall now see, may exist apart from the property in the goods. If the finder For let us suppose that the finder of the article lost, whilst ignorant of the true owner, should have been should be deprived, he may wrongfully deprived of it by a third person. In this maintain trover. case, the owner being absent, the finder is evidently entitled to the possession of the thing; and he will accordingly succeed in an action of trover brought by him against the wrong-doer (j). Here the property in (f) 3 Black. Com. 153. (g) Addison v. Round, 4 Ad. & Ell. 799; S. C. 6 Nev. & Man. 422; Brooke v. Mitchell, 6 N. C. 349; S. C. 8 Scott, 739. (h) Wilbraham v. Snow, 2 Saund. 47; Armory v. Delamirie, 1 Str. 505; Roberts v. Wyatt, 2 Taunt. 268; Legg v. Evans, 6 Mee. & W. 36; Stephen on Pleading, 354, 5th ed. (i) Gordon v. Harper, 7 T. Rep. 9; Ferguson v. Cristall, 5 Bing. 305; Leake v. Loveday, 4 Man. & Gr. 972; Bradley v. Copley, 1 C. B. 685. (j) Armory v. Delamirie, 1 Str. 505; 1 Smith's Leading Cases, 151. |