The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-02-01 00:00:00

goat=

(fumy!

CAN A POACHER'S GUN BE SEIZED ?

To the Court of Exchequer the cause of " Duddle r.
Hickton" has been heard, and was an appeal from the
decision of the Judge of the Derbyshire Comity Courts. By
leave of the learned Judge a case had bern stated for the
opinion of the Court,

An action had been brought by the plaintiff for the
value of a gun the defendant, a gamekeeper, had
taken from him when the plaintiff and others were out
poaching. The facts appear from the following state-
ment of the cane :

On Sunday, the 26th of May, 1867, the defendant, the ap-
pointed gamekeeper of the manor of Sutton-cum-Duckmam
ton, caught the plaintiff and others poaching on the manor,
and the gun, the subject of the action, was then and there
taken by the defendant from the pinintiff. The plaintiff was
apprehended hy the defendant and taken before tie magis-
trates at Chesterfield, charged with night poaching and ens
remanded. At the hearing the plaintiff was convicted of
using a gun to till game on Sunday and was fined.
Thi4M.estion of the right to seize the gun arises upon
the constiverinii-io be put upon the 13th section of
the lot and 2nd f William IV. cap. 23, by which it
is enacted that it may be lawful for any lord of tne
manor to appoint gamekeepers to preserve or kill the
game within the limits of such :manor, and "to
authorize such gamekeeper or gamelteepet s within the
said limits to seize and take for the use of such lord or
steward, all such dogs, nets, and other engines and
instruments for the killing or taking of game as shall
be used within the said limits by any person not autho-
rised to kill game for want of a game certificate.
'rhe Judge gave
„judgment for the plaintiff on the
ground that "gun not being an article of less signifi-
cation than those specified in the 13th section of the
Game Act, arid not being • diadem generis with them,
was not included in the general words of "other engines
and instruments for the killing or taking of game,"
•• 'ale learned Judge, in the course of his judgment, said,
-The wish gun may have been either intentionally. or
accident: 115,..mitted. If accidentally, I sin of opinion
that I ,houll not be justified in inserting it ; if
intentions, y, it would certainly be very much
out of my province to insert it. I cannot hell)
thinking (though this is mere inference on my part)
that the word gun was intentionally omitted, and for
this reason, that the authorizing a gamekeeper to seize
a dog or net does not necessarily involve him and the
poacher in a deadly conflict ; but the authorizing him
to seize a loaded gun (and the probability is that if the
man is poaching the gun will lie loaded) would involve
him in a deadly struggle. Under these circumstances
I cannot help thinking that the wropl was intentionally
omitted. I am of opinion that, under the 13th see,
the act of the keeper, Hickton, cannot be justified, and
that it was not a legal seizure under that section.
. . . •

The question for the Court is whether "gun' is or
is not so included.

The Court stopped Mr. Hannay, and gave judgment
in itnordance with the opinion expressed by the learned
county court judge, and dismissed the appeal.