The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1878-11-19 00:00:00

Instance, the learned counsel stoutly' asserted Mr.
Pan! WY stopped at the boundary fence itself. H.
when the dayVaport wits over, he had done no damage,
be would have been within his strict Cfninnoo Tim
tights ; and how could it be argued that he had done
damage, or even that he was likely to do, when se a
mottsr of fact, be had never been allowed to enter the
land in question To this undoubtedly subtile piece
of special pleading was opposed an argument drawn
from the armoury of rough common Pei.se and also_
like the bulk of such common sense as there is in our
common I tw—to he found within the four corners of
Bacon. For although that Erma jiirisprudent Ana an
hunters tho right to pursue ravenous beasts of prey^
across another man's ground, he is yet caroled to
remind tie that "It bath been realve,i," in diver, old
wick hi which we are moro pirticularly referred in
the manic!, "that the bunting and Idling such
noxious animal' must be done in the ordinary and
usual manner; and that therefore the digging for •
badger is unlawful, and the party subject to an action
of trespass." Thus, then, Mr. Cole had to show the*
• fox-hunter who persists in riding acroae land off
which be has been warned in pursuing his= in
"the ordinary and usual manner," and this, ng
to the decision of the learned Judges, he failed to do.
"liunting," Lord Coleridge said, in giving judgment,
"must be carried on, like all other sports, subject to
the general rights of mankind, and with reference to
the ordinary and established right, of property. There
was nothing, for Instance, to justify • field of fox-
haute.. entering a gentleman's garden, trampling it
dowa and destroying the flowers and plants, and no
such right exists at common law." The sound c nannon
sense of this decision is in itself almost suffiLient to
mark it with the stamp of sound law. Our common
law, although firm and deeply-rooted, like the oak, is
also, like the oak, subject to growth and development.
The right of chire acroli another man's ground ea,
rewgnised of old In the common interest of all. The
benefit done to the community at bilge by killing
wolf was very great; Vie injury dune t i the In-
dividual by breaki g such few fences 44 he had
roughly constructed WAS extremely small. But cir-
cumstances naturally alter even the c Amnon law itself.
What cosiosear beseficiam is it now to kill a fox, when
—in these days of nigh farming—we should have no
foxes at all but for artificial preservation of them;
or how can we pretend to ) put the benefit done to the
hundred( by the death of a fox, against some hundred
or more horsemen sail across it in full cry? The truth
is—as all true sportsmen would be themselves the first
to recognise—that fox-huuting, n .ble sport as it is, Is
no longer possible, except upon sufferance. In almost
all hunts liberal comperpostion is given for any damage
actually done. Then, too, f.wmars as a rule are fond
of hunting themselves and are not at all unwilling to
' In actively In a Pastime which brings them into
close and iinmediste relations with their landlords,
and with the other gentlemen in the county. Indeed,
the hunting_ field is in its way a sort of informal
"agora." Vaile cover is being drawn, or while • long
check occurs, or as the tiel I trots homeward in com-
pany, all aorta of little matters of interest can be
talked over and pleasantly settled. There is a free-
masonry of its own about the hunting field, which
but few tenant farmers are slow to recognise and to
appreciate as it deserves. Where, here an I there, a
churl is found, and that can be done, ant all that, as
a rule, is attempted, is to leave him to himself. He
will almost inevitably find public opinion too strong
for him. Above all, should he have gone to the last
length, and have actually shot down • fox in
sight of the field, he will find himself •
copal lapin um. At market, at the farmers'
ordinary, at nomination day, and all other
such gathe_rings, his brother yeomen will shun him as
o:thodox Brahmins shun the miscreant who has not
only killed a cow, but actually eaten steak. If, ia
the face of social penalties thus terrible, A man
deliberately chooses to:forbid his fields to the hunt,
surely the one and only course to be taken with such
an erring brother is to punctiliously; respect his strict
legal rights. Bach • course is at once b ith sound law
and sound sense. In any case it is, as Lord Coleridge
pointed out, monstrous that a fox-hunter should, when
its owner warns him off land which the fox has crossed,
attempt to smart his common-law rights Si a pursuer
of vermin by a liberal use of the thick end of his crop.
To maintain that a proceeding so high-handed is not
an assault and trespass nee LA all Mr. Cole's happy
audacity, and more than all his learnin:. And yet,
when we take into account how imp,rtant a factor an
the happiness of a man is the goolwill and good
opinion of his neighbours, we shall probably be hardly
disposed to congratulate Mr. Summerhays upon haa
victory.