ATROPHY OF INSTITUTIONS FROM LACK OF USE 283 



furnishing an example of degeneration by sus- 

 pension of function. 



Another incidence of accidental degeneration is 

 furnished by the office of wharf -porter, which was 

 formerly exercised in the port of Bruges. When 

 Bruges, consequent upon the blocking up of the 

 Zwyn, ceased to be a sea-port town, the wharf- 

 porters who were formerly employed to carry 

 grain, lime, and coal, etc., were no longer required 

 and so abandoned their calling. 



(2) The forest-courts of England. As an instance 

 of normal degeneration due to the transformation 

 of an agricultural country into a commercial country, 

 take the old English forest-courts. In the middle 

 ages there still existed in England great tracts of 

 forest land which were Crown property, and sub- 

 jected to special legislation conducted by three 

 separate courts of justice : (a) The Court of Attach- 

 ment x which instituted proceedings ; (b) the Court 

 of Swainmote 2 before which the culprits were tried, 

 and the Judge's Court presided over by the Lord 

 Chief Justice, who pronounced sentence, and from 

 whose decision there was no appeal. These courts 

 have lost all importance since the seventeenth 

 century, and the forest laws are now only functional 



1 When a forest law was infringed, it was the duty of the forester 

 to "attach" the culprit i.e. constrain him to appear either by 

 seizing his person or his goods. These attachments were then 

 submitted to the Court of Attachment. 



a The judges were called verderers ; the jury was composed of 

 foresters of the reeve, and of four men out of each forest hundred. 



