50 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



authority of the common law and the maintenance of 

 the rights of the Crown. These reasons, however, say 

 Messrs. Elton and Costelloe, may have been due to "an 

 after-thought of the Norman lawyers," the principle of 

 the English laws on the subject having been based on 

 the expediency of having a special class of witnesses for 

 the transfer of property. The notion that only a class 

 of persons of exceptional credibility should be allowed to 

 attest sales runs through the whole of the enactments. 

 In most of the English towns there was a class of persons 

 who were the " good " or " credible " or " lawful " men 

 of the town. These were regarded as an official class, 

 and were gradually organised into an official body. 



The chief officer of the trading town in Anglo- 

 Saxon times was the " port reeve " — London, Canterbury, 

 Bath, and Bodmin being instances of towns where records 

 of such an official exist. All transactions in the market 

 were made before the port reeve, or some person appointed 

 by him, or in the presence of two or three " credible 

 witnesses." Such a sale in " market overt " gave the 

 buyer a title against all comers. Mr. G. Prior Goldney, 

 the City Remembrancer, in evidence before the Market 

 Rights and Tolls Commission, referred to this as one of 

 the early advantages of the establishment of markets. 

 Whereas, in the private sale of goods, the vendor could 

 give no better title to the goods than he himself possessed, 

 and therefore the purchaser would by law be compelled 

 to restore them to anyone who could prove a better title, 

 by sale in 'market overt" the purchaser acquired a 

 perfectly good title — of course, direct fraud being supposed 

 to be absent. Thus, if a man stole a bullock and sold it 

 in ' market overt," the purchaser became the lawful 

 proprietor, and could hold it against all claimants ; but 

 there was a rather odd exception to this rule made in the 

 case of horses, which did not come under the law of 

 " market overt." To constitute a sale in " market overt " 

 the commodity sold must be actually in the market 



