EPPING FOREST. 129 
village as such, but although they may be all capable of taking 
individually as grantees, yet they cannot under that general 
designation ; but that passage applies solely to grants by private 
individuals. On the other hand, several authorities were cited 
by Mr. Joshua Williams to establish the proposition that a 
grant by the Crown to a class of persons is good. The dis- 
tinction between a grant by a private individual and a grant 
by the Crown is this: that as the Crown has the power to 
ereate a Corporation, so, if it is necessary for the purpose of 
establishing the validity of the grant, the grantees will be 
treated as a corporation guoad the grant, which is not the case 
with a grant by a private individual, because a private individual 
has no power of erecting a corporation. . . . Another cir- 
cumstance which is very strongly in favour of the suit is that 
it is a grant by the Crown in derogation of its forestal rights. 
The forestal rights were excessively oppressive upon the inhabit- 
ants, and accordingly the Crown frequently made to the in- 
habitants in the neighbourhood of a forest, certain grants in 
derogation of those rights, which grants, though they might 
not be good in every other respect, were good as far as they 
were in derogation of the forestal rights.” * 
The legal objections being thus disposed of, there 
remained the question of fact to be determined on the 
main trial of the case—namely, whether there was 
sufficient evidence to justify the presumption that a 
grant had been made to the inhabitants in ancient times 
of the right claimed by them, though the charter itself 
had been lost. This was not decided in the Willingale 
suit, for the old man died in 1870, before his case came 
on for hearing, and his death’ abated the proceedings. 
During the four years between the commencement of 
the suit and his death, it had been difficult for him to 
* Willingale v, Maitland, L.R. 3 Eq., 103, 
