The English statutes which are repealed extend from the 51 Henry III. to the 5 & 6 Edward VI. c. 15.
The third section enacts, " That the several acts and parts of acts which were repealed, as to Great Britain, by the first recited set of the twelfth year of the reign of King George III. shall be taken, after the. passing of this act, to be re pealed as to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." The fourth section provides, " That nothing in this act contained shall be con strued to apply to the offence of know ingly and fraudulently spreading or con spiring to spread any false rumour, with intent to enhance or decry the price of any goods or merchandise, or to the offence of preventing or endeavouring to prevent by force or threats any goods, wares, or merchandise being brought to any fair or market, but that every such offence may be inquired of, tried, and punished as tf this act had not been made." Though the law against engrossing, forestalling, and regmting was, we be lieve, seldom enforced, the repeal of this mass of absurd legislation, and of the common law applicable to these so-called offences, is a proper measure, particularly as the ground of the repeal is that the sta tutes were "passed in restraint of trade." Trade therefore, it is admitted, should not be restrained by statutes ; a principle which, if fully carried out, would add greatly to the prosperity of this country. FOREST LAWS. On the establish ment of the Norman kings in England, it has generally been supposed that the property of all the animals of chase throughout the kingdom was held to be vested in the crown, and no person with out the express licence of the crown was allowed to hunt even upon his own es tate. But this is rather a conjecture de duced from the supposed principles of feudalism, than a well-established fact. There are no laws respecting the forests among the laws attributed to the Con queror; and perhaps all that we can af firm is, that after the Norman conquest the royal forests were guarded with much greater strictness than before ; that their number was extended and possibly in some cases their bounds enlarged ; that trespassers upon them werepunished with much greater severity; and, finally, that there was established a new system of laws and of courts for their adminis tration, by and according to which not only all offences touching the royal forests were tried, but also all persons living upon these properties were generally go verned. This is the system or code that is properly called the forest laws. Yet even of this in its original integrity we have no complete or authoritative record ; all our knowledge of it is derived from some incidental notices of the chroniclers ; the vague though energetic language of complaint and condemnation in which it is repeatedly spoken of; the various legis lative enactments for its reform which have been preserved ; and the remnants of it which survived to a comparatively recent period.
The Conqueror is said to have pos sessed in different parts of England 68 forests, 13 chases, and 781 parks. Le gaily, forests and chases differ from parks in not being inclosed by walls or palings, but only encompassed by metes and bounds ; and a chase differs from a forest, both in being of much smaller ex tent (so that there are some chases within forests) and in being capable of being held by a subject, whereas a forest can only be in the hands of the crown. But
the material distinction is, or rather was, that forests alone were subject to the forest laws so long as they subsisted. Every forest however was also a chase. A forest is defined by Manwood, the great authority on the forest laws, as being " a certain territory or circuit of woody grounds and pastures, known in its bounds, and privileged, for the peace able being and abiding of wild beasts, and fowls of forest, chase, and warren, to be under the king's protection for his princely delight; replenished with beasts of venery or chase, and great coverts of vent for succour of the said beasts ; for preservation whereof there are particular laws, privileges, and officers belonging thereunto." The beasts of park or chase, according to Coke, are properly the buck, the doe, the fox, the marten, and the roe; but the term in a wider sense compre hends all the beasts of the forest. Beasts of warren are such as hares, conies, and roes ; fowls of warren, such as the par tridge, quail, rail, pheasant, woodcock, mallard, heron, &c. He afterwards how ever quotes a decision of the justices and the king's council that roes are not beasts of the forest, because they put to flight other wild beasts (eo quod fugant alias feras), which seems an odd reason ; perhaps the word should be " fugiunt" (because they fly from other wild beasts). And he adds, "beasts of forests be pro perly hart, hind, buck, hare, boar, and wolf; but legally all wild beasts of venery." (Co.-Litt. sec. 387.) For the antiquity of the royal forests in England, "the best and surest argu ment," says Coke, elsewhere (4 kat. 319), "is, that the forests in England, being sixty-nine in number, except the New Forest, in Hampshire, erected by William the Conqueror, and Hampton Court Forest, by Henry VIII., and by authority of parliament, are so ancient, as no record or history doth make any mention of their history or beginning." Yet it appears, both from the great charter of John, and from a previous charter granted by Stephen, that some lands had been afforested (as the term was) after the time of the two first Nor man kings. "The forests," says Stephen, " which King William my grandfather, and William II. my uncle, made and held, I reserve to myself; all the others which King Henry superadded I render up and concede in quiet to the churches and the kingdom." Aud one of the con cessions demanded from John and granted in Magna Charta (§ 47) was, that all the lands which had been afforested in his time should be immediately disafforested. No additional forests appear to have been made from the reign of John till that of Hampton Court was constituted by act of parliament in 1539 (31 Hen. VIII. e. 5). The name given to it in the statute is Hampton Court Chase ; but it is enacted that all offenders in it shall incur such penalties as the like offenders do in any other forest or chase. It was therefore made a forest as well as a chase.