300 VILLAGE GREENS. 
Green appears to have been for the first time recognized 
by the judges in the time of Charles II., when, per- 
haps, there was a reaction in favour of such amuse- 
ments, after the stricter notions and habits of puri- 
tanical times. In the seventeenth year of the Merry 
Monarch, the inhabitants of a parish in Oxfordshire, in 
an action for trespass on land belonging to the plaintiff 
in the case, pleaded “that all the inhabitants of the 
village, time out of memory, had been used to dance 
there at all times of the year for their recreation,’ and 
justified their entering on the land for this purpose. 
It was objected that such a claim “to dance on the 
freehold of another, e¢ spor son grass,’ was void, 
especially as it was laid at all times of the year, and 
not at seasonable times, and that it was also ill-laid in 
the inhabitants who “claim easements as in Gateward’s 
case, yet there ought to be easements of necessity, as 
ways to a church, etc., and not for pleasure.” The 
judges, however, held it was a good custom, and that 
it was “‘necessary for the inhabitants to have their 
recreation.” * 
This case was followed by another, in which the 
inhabitants of a parish claimed by custom, from time 
immemorial, to have enjoyed the liberty of playing at 
all kinds of lawful games, sports and pastimes, in a 
certain close, at all reasonable times of the year, at their 
free will and pleasure. The judges in this case acknow- 
ledged the validity of the previous decision. ‘It has 
been objected,” they said, “that it is not alleged that 
* Abbott v. Weekly.—Levinz, 176, 
