Business of the Court Lcct. 375 



is the property of the landlord, for the soil that it covers is 

 considered his freehold, and as such gives him an action for 

 trespass against fishers and other intruders.^ The law pro- 

 tects the riparian owner who, by the constant but palpable 

 action of water running between his lands and another's, loses 

 soil." There is, however, no such redress where the water 

 constitutes an arm of the sea. But, as has been already 

 pointed out, the rights and liabilities of riparian ownership 

 had not been regulated with that legislative nicety to which 

 we of the nineteenth century have attained. As long as the 

 highways were not injured there seems to have been little 

 cause for complaint in an agricultural age where land drainage 

 was seldom practised. If a man's mill was deprived of its 

 natural water supply,^ he could bring his case before the 

 Assize of Nuisances ; and if some flagrant case of drowning 

 land occurred, such as the neglect of a riparian owner to re- 

 pair a wall of the Thames,^ the Court Leet would redress the 

 injury, otherwise the artificial backpoundage of watercourses did 

 not at this period give rise to much litigation. Nor in an age 

 when sanitary science was as yet in its infancy was there 

 much outcry against river pollutions, unless a man possessed 

 ocular proof (or what he imagined to be ocular proof) of 

 damage to the health of his livestock, such as was caused by 

 the watering of hemp or flax in the streams or pools where 

 they were accustomed to quench their thirst.^ 



A third duty of the leet was to examine into cases of illegil 

 distraint. The lord could only levy distress for rent on lands 

 held by him, though the king might do so even in the common 

 street or highway.*' The direction in which future legislation 

 would tend is evidenced by the reservation of fixtures like a 

 millstone, windows,''' and doors, of stock-in-trade like fats in a 

 dying pan,^ of standing crops like corn in shock," of other's 

 possessions like some man's coat in a tailor's shop,^° etc. 



' 22 Ed. IV. ; 18 Ed. IV. fol. 4. ^ 22 Ed. III. fol. 22. 



3 6 Ed. IV. fol. 37 ; 2 Hen. IV. fol. 22. " 7 Hen. IV. fol. 9 and 32. 



5 38 Hen. VIII. c. 17. 



^ 9 Hen. VI. fol. 9, and Marlebridge, c. 15. 



' 14 Hen. VIII. fol. 29. « 21 Hen. VII. fol. 13. 



9 21 Hen. VII. fol. 41. i° 10 Hen. VII. fol. 22. 



