FORESTRY 149 



system of perquisites which they were allowed 

 to take. 



So bad had things become, that the Commis- 

 sioners of 1789 were induced to say that " the 

 neighbouring inhabitants have been naturally led 

 to partake in the spoil, and hardly to think it 

 a crime to take what no one seemed anxious to 

 protect." That this was no idle word is shown 

 by an item, in a return of certain receipts from 

 the Forest, which appears in the most matter of 

 course way, namely, " The like of casual oak trees 

 found by the surveyor cut down, and by him 

 seized and saved from being stolen Loads 869, 

 value 1526." 



If filching of timber was regularly carried on, 

 as well as a supply kept up for the navy, it is 

 a matter for wonder that we should find any 

 oaks at all left in the woods existing at that 

 date. Possibly those we now see were not at 

 that date large enough for navy purposes, or 

 even to tempt the purloiner. Under certain cir- 

 cumstances the taking of even a single tree was 

 visited severely enough. At the Justice Seat 

 held in 1670 there comes a petitioner in the form 

 of Henry Browne of Brockenhurst, who had been 

 fined 10 for cutting down a tree to make a may- 

 pole, and the cart and horses carrying it forfeited, 

 "though they did not belong to the petitioner 



