312 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



pouud-keeper must keep this notice posted for three days. At the 

 end often days, if no party pays the bills, and no replevin suit is 

 brought, the pound-keeper shall sell the animal at public auction, 

 after having posted up in two public places in town, at least forty- 

 eight hours before the sale, notices of the time and place of sale, 

 with a description of the property. 



Now, after all this has been done, suppose that pound-keeper 

 was not legally qualified in any respect; suppose your certificate 

 is wrong in stating your residence, or the town in which the close 

 is situated, or in not properly describing the animal, or claiming 

 too much fees, or any other requisite has not been complied with, 

 then you are "gone up." Suppose the pound-keeper makes any 

 mistake in issuing his notices and putting them up, does not give 

 a proper description of the animal, or the amount claimed, or sup- 

 pose one of the preliminary notices is torn down before the expira- 

 tion of the three days, and that can be proved, then you are "gone 

 up," and you are a trespasser; and not only a trespasser, but a 

 trespasser ab initio ; everything you have done becomes unlawful, 

 by a turn of the legal kaleidoscope, and you are a trespasser from 

 the very beginning. 



So, when a man comes with a case of that kind to my friend 

 yonder, and asks him about impounding cattle, he either looks 

 sour, or laughs, and says " you can't do it; you haven't a man in 

 your town who can do it. I sliould not want to undertake to do 

 it myself, and I don't believe any lawyer would do it." You say 

 *that is wrong. Perhaps it is; but it is just like any other pro- 

 ceeding ex parte, where there is a proceeding looking to the forfei- 

 ture of property, in which the legal notice is not directed to the 

 true owners. It is a proceeding, as lawyers say, in rem, rather 

 tha,n in pei'sonam. It is a proceeding against a thing rather than 

 a person. The owner may never have heard of the matter. 



There are other provisions. If the pound-keeper is told that 

 the beast is from a drove, or owned by a person out of town, he 

 must adjourn the sale for thirty days. It is an expatte proceeding ; 

 it is a statute proceeding ; it is against common right ; and there- 

 fore a statute proceeding of that kind is most strict law ; as law- 

 yers say, atrictissimi juris. You must proceed exactly according 

 to the provisions of the law, or you fail. To be sure, the statute 

 pointK out this course, and if you go riglit, and tlicre is a proper 

 pound-keeper, you can hold the animal and get your damages in 

 that way, or may recover the penalty — 75 cents — for a horse. 



