512 ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIB RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 



Sir EiCHARD Webster. — Yes. The possession is given to the man 

 on whose laud it falls and not to the trespasser. 



Senator Morgan. — Suppose that C when he kills the coney is on the 

 public iiighway and kills it there. Whose property is it then? 



Sir Richard Webster. — I believe it would be the property of the 

 killer. 



Lord Hannen. — Other questions may arise in that case. If it is only 

 a right of way, the property may belong to another person. 



Sir Richard Webster. — Yes; you have to consider what kind of a 

 road the highway is. 



Senator Morgan. — The King's highway where everybody has a right 

 to go, and nobody has a right to trespass upon the property of his 

 neighbour ? 



Sir Richard Webster. — I, Mr. President, have been accustomed 

 now by long training, if I can, to go straight to the real point; and the 

 real point is that there is no property in any of these animals until they 

 are captured alive or dead, and therefore it makes no difference to my 

 purpose in whom the property is after they are captured, after they are 

 dead. If I am well founded — and I am quite willing to stake my case 

 upon it — that there is no property in wild animals until possession has 

 been taken of them, and that the only effect of the animus revertendi is 

 to preserve the property acquired by the taking of possession as long 

 as the animal is coming back and intends to come back to the premises 

 of the person who has reclaimed or tamed it, the whole question of whose 

 property it is after it is dead is absolutely academic. It throws no light 

 whatever upon the matter. According to the French law, as you have 

 said, and as I have found out myself by research, the animal killed on 

 the property of another man belongs to the man who shot it. Accord- 

 ing to the English law and the doctrine that a man shall not take advan- 

 tage of his own wrong the animal belongs to the man on whose land it 

 lies when it is dead. 



The President. — That is a special provision of the law. 



Sir Richard Webster. — It is a special provision, and it does not 

 advance us on the road one single step. 



The President. — It seems contrary to the principle? 



Sir Richard Webster. — I do not really know whether it is contrary 

 to the i^rinciple or not. It seems to me entirely — I will not use that 

 word fiction again — a rule one way or the other. It makes no differ- 

 ence to the point we are considering, and it seems to afford no light or 

 assistance. 



The President. — You are aware that under the French law a man 

 who has a wood in which are conies is responsible for the damage which 

 the conies do to a neighbour; but that does not alter, I believe, the 

 question of property. 



Sir Richard Webster. — But also by the French law, Mr. President, 

 if the conies run out on the other man's land that other man may shoot 

 them. 



The President. — Yes. 



Sir Richard Webster. — And therefore, as a conclusive answer, as 

 far as property is concerned, the man out of whose wood they have 

 run has no property in those conies. And they might equally be said 

 to be the property of the man on whose property they have run. 



Mr. President, may I point my argument in one sentence, showing 

 you the bearing of the two limbs of the argument. I assume I have 

 made my ground good, and to avoid repetition I assume that I have 

 satisfied you that there is no property in a wild animal going on to a 



