By the Bev. Canon J. E. Jachson, F.S.A. 155 



exercise, as he said, of his lawful authority, in cold hlood shot one 

 of Mr. King's greyhounds walking quietly hehind its master : the 

 man asserting that the dog had no rig-ht to use his legs in Cranhorne 

 Chase without the previous consent of the owner of the Chase, 

 which owner was represented by him, the keeper, Mr. King was, 

 as he well might be, indignant; and, being backed by many 

 others, determined to try what were the bounds and what were 

 really the rights of the Chase; because, having carefully enquired 

 from those who had long considered the subject and had examined 

 all sorts of ancient evidences, he was advised, first of all, that no 

 part of Wiltshire was projwrly within the Chase : and secondly, 

 supposing it did include any part of Wilts, it did not include the 

 land which Mr. King held in the parish of Alvediston. He was 

 tenant under Mr. Wyndham, of Norrington farm, part of which is 

 called Trow Down : so, to proceed in a business-like way, one day, 

 finding certain deer feeding on Trow Down, he drove them away. 

 Whereupon an action was brought against him for driving bucks 

 out of the lordship of the owner of the Chase. To this Mr. King 

 replied with proper formality, that the deer had no right to be 

 feeding upon his grass and herbage. This brought the matter to 

 a point — was Trow Down, or was it not, a part of Cranhorne Chase? 

 A question easy to be asked : but not so easy to be answered. The 

 trial came on at Salisbury in 1816 : an enormous mass of records, 

 charters, and what not, had to be inspected, and many living 

 witnesses to be examined on both sides. The result was that Mr. 

 Pitt was considered to have full right, within the smaller bounds, 

 to start deer, hunt and kill them — the full rights of a forest : but 

 that beyond those bounds he had only the right of what was called 

 in the old Latin charter a " per-cursus," or " running through.'' 

 For some little time, the learned counsel on both sides, and even 

 the still more learned judge on the bench, were puzzled to make 

 out what this per-cursus, or " running through," exactly meant : 

 because trespassers may have various objects in entering a park, 

 some, perhaps, not very beneficial to the owner. At last they 

 agreed the meaning to be that outside the smaller bounds Mr. Pitt, 

 as owner of the Chase, had only the right to follow, for the 



