128 EPPIXG FOREST. 



custom or to prescribe for a right of a profitable kind. It 

 will be seen, however, that some years later the custom 

 received legal recognition, and that the inhabitants 

 w r ere compensated for it on the final settlement of the 

 Forest. 



Meanwhile, in the suit on their behalf, the claim 

 made was that, " by ancient charter from the Crown, 

 the right was granted to the labouring and poor people 

 inhabiting the parish to lop or cut boughs and branches, 

 above seven feet from the ground, for the proper use 

 and consumption of themselves, and for sale, for their 

 own relief, to all or any of the inhabitants for their 

 consumption within the parish as fuel ; that the charter 

 which was formerly among the records of the Forest 

 Court, called the Verderers' Court, had, together with 

 other records, been long since lost or improperly dis- 

 posed of ; but that there were divers documents and 

 entries in the Court rolls relating to the Manor, 

 referring to and containing evidence of the charter." 



To this the defendant made a preliminary legal 

 objection, or demurrer, on the grounds that the inhabit- 

 ants of a parish are too vague a class of persons to 

 claim such a right by prescription, and that the right 

 itself could not exist at law, being a claim to take 

 profits in another man's land. 



These objections w T ere argued for three days in the 

 Rolls Court before Lord Romilly, who, in his judgment, 

 overruled the demurrer. In doing so he said 



M A passage has been cited from Shepherd's " Touchstone " to 

 the effect that a grant cannot be made to the inhabitants of a 



