BLOCKING UP ANCIENT LIGHTS. 77 



sell the house, I cannot afterwards stop the lights of that house. By 

 selling the house, I sell the easement also. This land is purchased witli 

 the water running upon it, and the conveyance passes the land with tlie 

 easements existing at the time." 



Moore v. Rawson is an authority that stopping up ivindoivs is primd 

 facie an aVatulonment , and that it lies on the owner of the dominant 

 tenement to show something from whence to infer an intention of re- 

 suming the right within reasonable time. This case was relied on for 

 the defendants in Stolcoe v. Singer, where it was held by the Court of 

 Queen's Bench, that if the plaintiff having acquired the right to the 

 passage of light to his windows blocks them up, and the defendant 

 while they are blocked up purchases the servient tenement and com- 

 mences building on it, so as to obstruct the windows if open, where- 

 upon the plaintiff reopens them and brings an action for the obstruc- 

 tion, the plaintiff's right to recover depends upon two points : that he 

 did not so close his lights as to lead the defendants to incur exjjense 

 or loss in the reasonable belief that they had been permanently aban- 

 doned ; nor so as to manifest an intention of permanently abandoning 

 the right of using them. And ^^fv Lord CamphcU C.J. : " The 

 question is not what the party stopping up the windows intended, but 

 what he gave others reason to believe that he was going to do. Sup- 

 posing the facts to be as in Moore v. Baivson, and that in addition 

 the plaintiffs showed by undoubted evidence that the former owner 

 had a lonafide intention of opening a fresh window on a given day, I 

 doubt whether this would entitle the plaintiff to maintain the action." 



In an action for an injury to the reversion, hy ohstructing ancient 

 lights, it was ruled by the Common Pteas, on the authority of Kidgitl v. 

 3Ioore, that it is sufficient for the declaration to show an obstruction 

 which may cause an injury, especially if it be alleged that by means 

 thereof the plaintiff's reversionary estate was injured ; and such de- 

 claration is not bad, because the obstruction is one which is capable of 

 being shown to be only temporary, and not injurious to the reversion. 

 {Metropotitan Association for Improving the Divetlings of the Poor v. 

 Petch.) 



Water as it issues from a wetl or spring, is not to he considered as the 

 produce of the soit, so as to make the right to take it in alieno solo a 

 profit a 'prendre. Such right to use running water (under which descrip- 

 tion the Court of Queen's Bench considered that a spring might fairly 

 be ranked) is an easement only, and may be claimed by custom {Race v. 

 Ward). And 'per Lord Campletl C.J. : " The reason why a profit h 

 prendre cannot be supported by a custom in an indefinite number of 

 people, is that the subject of the profit a j^rendre would in that case be 



