122 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



deer, many of them the red-deer, who do great damage to 

 the young trees, and whose existence produces habits of 

 poaching and immorality among the people in this neigh- 

 bourhood. Of the red-deer, the woodman says that they 

 will break through every fence, even though it be seven feet 

 high ; and of the influence of the forest on the neighbour- 

 hood, the clerk to the magistrates says, ' In its present 

 state it is attended with great disadvantages to the morals 

 and habits of the inhabitants of the adjacent districts and 

 forest parishes.' Wood -stealing is also very common ; the 

 offences, we are told, are almost innumerable, for not more 

 than one in twenty is prosecuted ; unless the case is very 

 outrageous it is passed over. Even those that do take 

 place entail a heavy expense on the county of Oxford, 

 whose ratepayers have to 'pay the piper.' The crown 

 claims in the forest the rights of soil, timber, minerals 

 and deer ; but all the officers are appointed by the 

 ranger, Lord Churchill, who claims the rights of timber 

 and deer. This is founded on a grant made by Charles II. 

 to the Clarendon family, ' to cut heath, fens, fern, bushes, 

 and shrubs in the open forest, and to timber for certain 

 specified repairs.' This right was purchased from the 

 Clarendon family, by the late Duke of Marlborough in 

 1751, and made over by him to the late Lord Churchill. 



" This lord was very tenacious of his rights, or supposed 

 rights ; and in 1834 raised an action against the crown for 

 the settlement of the dispute, which was only abated at 

 his death. When ordered by the royal warrant to send 

 the customary annual supply of venison, instead of sending 

 the bucks whole, as they were sent from every other forest, 

 he retained the shoulders, asserting that they were his 

 privilege." 



Of the Forest of Salcey, the following account is given 

 in the Journal of Forestry (vol. 1, p. 101) : 



" Salcey Forest, in the south-east part of Northampton- 

 shire, and on the borders of Buckinghamshire, appears to 

 have been perambulated as early as the reign of Henry III. 



