COMMON (OF'. comun, Fr. commun, from Lat. communis, OLat. comoinis, common). lit the law of real property, the right of one person, in common with others, to take a profit from the land of another. The person over whose land the right is exercised may be a private owner or the State. The term is somewhat loosely employed as the equivalent of profit a prendrc (q.v.) : but such a 'profit' may be exclusive, or `several,' in which case it is not properly char acterized as a common. Blackstone, however, seems to use the term in this sense, and he enumerates four species of commons, viz.: Com mon of pasture, or the right of feeding one's beasts on another's land; common of piscory, or a liberty of fishing in another man's water; common of turbarg, a liberty of digging turf upon another's ground: and common of tstorers, a liberty of taking necessary wood, for the use or furniture of a house or farm, from off an other's estate. These rights, with the various other profits a prcndrc, will be considered under that head. See ILEREDITAMENT; INCORPOREAL.
The term is often used to denote the common use of a piece of uninclosed ground possessed by all the inhabitants of a village or hamlet. The right of common is 'disturbed,' as the legal phrase is, when one who is not possessed of the right unlawfully infringes it, or when one pos sessed of the right exceeds his lawful use, or where one wrongfully prevents others Possessed of the common right from exercising it. as where
he incloses the land. in Great Britain the right of common was formerly possessed from time immemorial in almost every village with regard to certain pieces of land which were not held by any owner in fee. but might be fairly considered to belong to the community as a body. Statutes. both public and private, permitted the inclosing of such common laud under various conditions, such as the consent of two-thirds of those exer cising the right of common. By this legislation, and by acts of usurpation on the part of individ uals, much of the common land has been lost; of late years the further inclosure of common land has been to some extent guarded against. In the United States the most frequent use of the term is as a substantive to denote a piece of ground set apart for public uses, such as open air meetings, reviews, and for the general pleas ure of the people at large. See PROPERTY, and the authorities there referred to.