THE GAME LAWS. 279 



OPINION. The circumstances &f the defendant having a 

 right of pasture and turbary, and a right of getting stones and 

 slates on the moors, commons, and wastes within Caton, in re- 

 spect of his estates, these will not justify his entrance upon those 

 moors to kill game. Jf he has a right to enter to kill game 

 there, it will be by virtue of a prescription for that purpose, or 

 of a grant from the owner of the manor, or reputed manor, so 

 to do ; and such a prescription may be established by strong 

 evidence of an uninterrupted course of usage, or of a usage in 

 despite of prohibitions to the contrary, or exercised, under cir- 

 cumstances shewing it to have been used as a claim of right, and 

 not allowed or connived at as a courtesy or indulgence. The 

 fact of the other freeholders of Caton (the manor) having been 

 in the same habit of sporting within the manor, and of doing so 

 not only on the commons, but on the enclosed lands also, is 

 unfavourable I think to the defendant's establishing what he has 

 done as a right in himself to sport upon the manor; and I think 

 in all probability the result of what has been done by the free- 

 holders of Caton, and by the defendant amongst the rest, will, 

 on investigation, be deemed to have been founded on courtesy, 

 and indulgence, and connivance, and not on right. If, however, 

 the defendant can shew such a strong uninterrupted or adverse 

 course of sporting on the waste lands of the manor, as will in- 

 duce a Jury to believe it founded on a privilege annexed to his 

 estate in Caton, he cannot give that enjoyment in evidence in 

 support of such a right under the general issue, but must plead 

 it specially, as a prescriptive right appurtenant to his estate, 

 which is the only mode by which he can have an opportunity of 

 trying that question. G. S. H. Gray's Inn, llth February, 

 1800. 



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