152 



When it was lioldeii that clccr were not distrain able, it was because 

 they were Icept principally for j)leasure aud not for profit, and were not 

 sold and turned into money as they are now. But now they are become 

 as much a sort of husbandry as horses, cows, sheep, or anj' other cattle. 

 Whenever they are so, and it is universally known, it would be ridic- 

 ulous to say that when they are kept merely for profit they are not dis- 

 trainable as other cattle, though it has been holden that they were not 

 so when they were kept only for pleasure. The rules concerning per- 

 sonal estates, which were laid down when personal estates were but 

 small in proportion to lauds, are quite varied, both in courts o^' law and 

 equity, now that personal estates are so much increased and become so 

 considerable a part of the property of this kingdom " 



The case of Morgan, etc., Executors of Abergavenny vs. Williams, Earl 

 of Abergavenny {8 C. B., 768), has a distinct bearing on some aspects 

 of the question under consideration. Tiiat was an action of trover 

 to recover damages for the conversion of deer, a considerable number 

 of which had the range of a park, consisting of upwards of 1,100 acres 

 of land, and, in many parts, of a very wild and rough description. 

 Some of the deer were described by witnesses as tame, others as wild, 

 meaning thereby, as the court said, that some were less shy and timid 

 than others. The case appeared to have been tried upon the issues, 

 whethe-r the deer were in what was called a legal park, and whether, 

 in view of the state and condition of the animals, the luxture of the 

 place where they were kept, aud the mode in which they had been 

 treated, they could be regarded as tamed or reclaimed. The jury 

 found that the park had all the incidents of a legal park, and that the 

 animals had been originally wild, but had been reclaimed. Upon the 

 hearing of a rule nisi for a new trial before Lord Chief Justice Wilde 

 and Justices Maule, Goltman, and Cresswell, the court, referring to the 

 objection that the jury had been misdirected, said: "That it was 

 proper to leave the question to the jury in the terms in which the issue 

 is expressly joined can not be disputed, and the direction that that 

 question must be determined by referring to the place in which the 

 deer were kept, to the nature and habits of the animals, and to the 

 mode in which they tvere treated, appears to the court to be a 

 correct direction; and it seems difficult to ascertain by what other 

 means the question should be determined, whether the evidence in the 

 case was such as to warrant a conclusion that the deer were tamed and 

 reclaimed. The court is, therefore, of opinion that the rule can not be 



