106 



In all other respects, however, it is not new. 

 The student of the history of Property is aware, 

 that a state of thing's similar to that existing in 

 India, has afforded matter for thought to the law- 

 givers of all civilized nations, from the earliest ages 

 of which we have a historic record. The systems 

 of occupant-village-community- family- tribe- and 

 joint-ownership are known to have existed amongst 

 the people of most countries in the earlier stages of 

 their progress, from the days of the Romans, and 

 more lately in Austrian and Turkish Sclavonia, and 

 in many provinces of the vast Russian Empire 

 down to our own times. The difficulties which beset 

 the Governments of these countries in administering 

 the affairs of the State, and the people themselves 

 in transacting their own business, in consequence of 

 the fetters with which proprietary rights were tram- 

 melled, are now well known to jurists, and the neces- 

 sity which improving- organizations of societies im- 

 posed on lawgivers of getting rid of them, has been 

 made patent by successive laws on the subject, from 

 that of the Usucapion of the Romans, to those of 

 Limitation amongst ourselves. 



Regarding rights of Occupancy, with which we 

 have now more immediately to do, the latest and pro- 

 bably the highest authority on the subject says: 



4 Before pointing* out the quarter in which we 

 may hope to glean some information, scanty and 

 uncertain at best, concerning the early history of 

 proprietary right, I venture to state my opinion 



