CUTTING OFF SPRING AT SOURCE. 179 



his land, and thereby diverts the widerground waters, not Icnown to le 

 formed into a stream, flowing in a defined channel, which otherwise would 

 have percolated into the river, although the landowner does not use the 

 water for purposes connected with the land, but pumps it up and 

 carries it off in pipes to supply persons living in the neighbourhood, 

 many of whom had no right to use the water at all. 



The above three cases were the only ones cited in the argument in 

 Dudden v. Tlie Guardians of the Poor of Clutton Union. There the water 

 from a spring flowed in a natural channel to a stream on which was a 

 mill ; the sjmng was cut off at its source hj the licence of the owner of the soil, 

 in which it rose, and it was held that an action lay against the person so 

 abstracting the water. The plaintiff was the owner of a mill situated on 

 a stream which rises near a place called the Holly Marshes. Prior to 

 1852, " The Red House Spring," which rose from the earth in a field of 

 Captain Scobell's, after a short course fell into the stream on which the 

 plaintiff's mill was situated. Before 1835, the tenant of the field had 

 slightly altered the course, in which the water after rising from the 

 spring flowed to the stream, and before such alteration the current 

 from the spring flowed across the adjoining field to the same stream, 

 in a crooked channel or gully, where watercresses grew, and trout had 

 been caught in summer, close up to the spring-head. The union work- 

 house is a mile to the north of the spring, and the Guardians in 1852 

 got a grant from Captain Scobell of the use of the spring, and caused 

 works to be constructed to supply the workhouse with water from it. 

 A tank was therefore sunk into the earth at the mouth of the spring, 

 and at a considerable depth, and a line of pipes took the water fi-om 

 thence to the workhouse. The overflowing of the tanks ran through 

 the channel to the stream. The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff, 

 leave being reserved for the defendants to move to enter a nonsuit, but 

 the Court discharged the rule. 



Pollock C.B. said : " The real question is, whether there is a natural 

 watercourse, which, but for the acts done by the defendant, would have 

 conveyed water to the stream, and from thence to the mill of the plain- 

 tiff. If there is a natural spring, the water from which flows in a 

 natural channel, it cannot be lawfully diverted by any one, to the injury 

 of the riparian proprietors. Wlien the stream is above ground, a grant 

 must be presumed not only of the thing itself, but of all things neces- 

 sary to the complete enjoyment of it. If the channel or course under- 

 ground is known, as in the case of the river Mole, it cannot be inter- 

 fered with. It is otherwise when nothing is known as to the sources of 

 supply ; in that case, as no right can be acquired against the owner of 

 the land under which the spring exists, he may do as he pleases with 



