336 
Farmiiifj of Ilamjisldre. 
for compensation attaching to private owners, whose lands had 
been afforested by royal prerogative. If the king might turn 
his deer into other men's lands, require them to provide pasture 
and shelter, prevent them from enclosing, cultivating, or im- 
proving their own property, clearly they were entitled to certain 
rights and jirivileges in return over the Royal demesne which 
adjoined their lands. Qui seiitit oims, seiitire debet et commodum. 
But then, on the other hand, when their lands wei'c disafforested, 
and the exercise of the royal prerogative over their private pro- 
perty ceased, the exercise also of their claims on the royal pro- 
perty should have ceased also. Discharge from forest burthens 
in all reason implied discharge from forest rights. The latter 
alternative the claimants did not recognise. They received im- 
munity, but did not give it. The Crown endeavoured, in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to impress on them the 
anomaly of which they were guilty, but without success. The 
state of the New Forest, in regard to the exercise of these rights 
(particularly that of pasture — the most valuable), is said, on the 
authority of the Commission of 1850, "to be little less than 
absolute anarchy." The neglect of the forest law raised doubts 
. as to whether it could be revived ; while it was confidently 
asserted that no other law, whether common or statute, was. 
current in the Forest ; and consequently, that there was no power 
lodged in the officers to interfere for the purpose of checking- 
usurpations. Squatters accordingly came and settled in the 
Forest, Avho could not legally acquire, but nevertheless exercised, 
common rights, to the prej udice of the Crown and of those who 
were entitled to them. It is in evidence (Commission 1848-9) 
that not only did many persons turn in cattle without right of 
pasture, but " nearly all the neighbours from Christchurcli and 
Ringwood and all around the country " did so ; while those who 
had rights turned in without any regard to the extent and limits 
of those rights. People from Dorsetshii'e and Wiltshire, who 
had no forest rights at all, purchased large quantities of cattle 
and swine, made some underhand arrangement with an indivi- 
dual who had rights, by the possession of an acre or two within 
the Forest, who accordingly took the cattle on his own premises, 
perhaps for a day, and then turned them into the Forest. One 
family is mentioned which alone used to do this to the amount of 
4000 or 5000 head of cattle a year. The right of fuel was 
equally perverted. It applied originally to "such wood as is 
decayed, dry, and dead," and was for the recipient's personal and 
family use only; whereas it was the practice to assign and take 
sound beech timber, and latterly beech and fir in equal (|uan- 
tities. The allowance of such decayed wood for the purpose of 
actual home consumption, especially to the poor, seems reason- 
