6H PROTECTION AGAINST MAN. 



perhaps a judgment of some Court, and partly on ^Yhat is 

 called prescription. By this latter term \ve mean, that 

 though the exact origin is not known, j'et as a matter of 

 fact the right has been exercised for a long time — the term 

 of years (usually 20 or 30) is fixed by the law of each country 

 — and also has been exercised openly (not by fraud and 

 unknown to the owner), peaceably (not by violence), and as of 

 right (not by mere leave or sufferance, acknowledging that 

 the owner could put a stop to the practice). When these 

 conditions concur, there is a full legal right by prescription. 

 It is also possible the rights may l)e regarded as (in a wa}') 

 prescriptive, by reason of their being admittedly matters of 

 ancient local custom or on other equitable grounds, even when 

 the precise terms of a legal prescription, as above stated, are 

 not established. 



2. Rights or Servitudes classified into Kinds. 



The lawyers in various countries have classified these rights 

 in different ways in consequence of particular legal distinc- 

 tions. For example, such rights are said to be negative 

 when the estate which bears the right is merely under 

 the continuous obligation not to do something — i.e. not to dig 

 a hole so as to endanger the right-holder's foundations, not to 

 stop the flow of water, etc. ; and p)ositive, when it is obliged 

 to allow the right-holder to do or take something, as to drive his 

 cattle across a field, .take wood, or drive-in pigs to feed on 

 acorns, etc. Rights are also said to be continuous or dis- 

 continuous (intermittent) ; the former in their nature are 

 continually in operation at every moment (as a right to light 

 and air by ancient windows*) ; the latter are used from time 



had something of the same history ; but uudcr the effects of the land settlements 

 such areas have mostly been freely given over to the villages. In the Garo Hills 

 (Assam), where tribal settlements in the ancient model still can be observed, it 

 is only within the last 40 years that fighting has ceased when one village group 

 tried to encroach on the border-forest of the next. Forest rights also arose by 

 grant of the baron or lord : and still more grow up by local custom, and long user 

 of the neighbours, partly because the modes of agriculture then known suggested 

 forest grazing, pannage, etc., as the most desirable, and wood fuel was required 

 before coal was obtainable. In those times, too, forests were abundant in com- 

 parison with the number of the population : and no one cared to interfere with 

 people habitually taking what was so abundant and had so little value. 

 • And in general all negatife servitudes are necessarily continuous. 



