518 LAW OF THE MARKET. 



prescription ; but if he requires any particular easement or convenience, 

 as a stall in the market, he must have the licence of the owner of the 

 soil for that purpose, if there be no particular sum fixed by the custom 

 of the mai-ket for stallage. If there be a fixed sum or duty by custom, 

 that cannot be exceeded, but still he must agree with the owner of the 

 soil." And it was held in Tlie Mayor of Newjiort y. Saunders, that 

 assumpsit may be maintained by the owner of a market for stallage, 

 as for use and occupation of premises, and that without showing any 

 contract, in fact, between him and the occupier of the stall. And inr 

 Lord Tenterdcn C.J. : " Tolls may be recovered in assumpsit, and no 

 proof is required of anything like a contract by the piirty against whom 

 tlie claim is made. Evidence is given of the right to receive them, and 

 that is always deemed sufficient. Stallage is not distinguishable from tolls 

 in that respect. The party entitled to stallage may waive the tort." 



A person who exposes goods for sale in a puMic marJcet has a right to 

 occupy the soil with lasMs necessary and proper for containing the 

 goods (Townend v. Woodruff); and ^w Alderson B. : "Erecting a 

 stall is very different from placing goods in baskets on the ground for 

 sale " {ih.) But if any one is refused at a fair or market the accom- 

 modation to which he is entitled, a court of equity cannot interfere by 

 injunction ( Weale v. West lliddlesex Water WorJcs). Blakey v. Dins- 

 dale seems to establish that, in order to maintain an action for setting 

 goods near to, hit out of the limits of the marJcet, it is incumbent on 

 the plaintiff to prove that the defendant did so fravdulentlg, in order 

 to avoid the toll ; and the distress of goods thus fraudulently sold was 

 illegal. But the proprietor of a market cannot bring an action for toll 

 against a person who sells out of the limits, unless he shows that he 

 first apprised him that there was room in the market, to which he 

 might resort. 



This was the substance of the decision of the Court of Queen's Bench, 

 in the celebrated Covent-garden case of Prince v. Lewis. 



King Charles II., by letters patent, granted to William Earl of Bed- 

 ford, his heirs and assigns, leave to hold a market within specified 

 limits within the parish of St. Paul's, Covent-garden, on every day in 

 the week (except Sunday and the Feast of Nativity) for the buying 

 and selling of all kinds of fruits, flowers, I'oots, and herbs whatsoever. 

 By 53 Geo. III. c. 71, reciting these letters patent, &c., the owners of 

 the market were authorized to take from the seller the tolls then usually 

 taken or collected within the market. The plaintiffs were the lessees 

 of the market under the Duke of Bedford, and tlie defendant resided 

 in James-street, about 70 or 80 yards without the limits of the market. 

 Between the hours of six and eight on the 4th of January, 1825, a 



