Business of the Court Led. Zll 



proclamation, and had its own laws, its own officers, and its 

 own courts. The offender therefore would be brought before 

 a jury of forest swains and freeholders, and judged by the 

 particular verderer who happened to be for the time being 

 steward of the swainmote. Happily for the prisoner this court 

 could onlj^ try and convict, judgment being reserved for the 

 court of justice seat. But even then it seems as though a sus- 

 pected party would run a poor chance of acquittal. The laws 

 respecting venison and vert were complicated, and it is ques- 

 tionable whether the person accused of interfering with the 

 deer of a chase or park would fare better at the hands of the 

 Leet Jury or manorial suitors than at those of the forest 

 " sweins." The lord was an interested party, and the juries of 

 all three courts his tenants, while the judges were his servants. 

 There is a vagueness about this game legislation which, when 

 combined with the nature of its tribunals, savours of injustice. 

 A man may chase a wild hart, or an escaped and proclaimed 

 one.^ He may drive a deer back into its chase by means of a 

 little dog, if it be on his own ground. The dog may even 

 follow and destroy it with impunity, if its master can prove 

 that he used all practicable means to restrain it ; but to have 

 driven it away with beagles would have rendered him liable 

 for trespass.^ Then again, a man and his dog take a stroll in 

 the neighbourhood of a deer park, the dog breaks leash and 

 chases the deer,^ and the law holds the master blameless ; but 

 who save an eye witness can prove whether the dog really did 

 break away, or was urged to the chase by his owner ? Let us 

 trust that the sporting blood of the English juryman overruled 

 all considerations of self-interest when the unfortunate prisoner 

 awaited his verdict. 



The destruction of fish fry in any waters or rivers, salt or 

 fresh ; the killing of trouts and salmons out of season ; the 

 taking of pike, salmon, trout or barbel under certain prescribed 

 sizes ; the capture of any fish save by angling or by 1\ inch 

 meshed nets, the attempt to steal the lord's fish by the 



' 21 Hen. VII. fol. 80. ' 48 Ed. III. fol. 8. 



••^ 18 Hen. VI. fol. 21. 



