Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/585

Rh R I P R I P 565 and those who act under their authority from liability for injuries caused thereby. Any prosecution for an offence against the Act must be commenced within twelve months after the offence. By 24 & 25 Viet. c. 97, 11, it is a felony punishable with penal servitude for life for persons riotously and tumultuously assembled together to the disturbance of the public peace to unlawfully and with force demolish or begin to demolish or pull down or destroy any building, public building, machinery, or mining plant. By 12 it is a misdemeanour punishable with seven years' penal ser- vitude to injure or damage such building, &c. A riotous assembly of three or more seamen unlawfully and with force preventing, hindering, or obstructing the loading or unloading or the sailing or navigation of any vessel, or unlawfully and with force boarding any vessel with intent to do so, constitutes a misdemeanour punishable with twelve months' hard labour, 33 Geo. III. c. 67. In addi- tion to these Acts, there are others aimed at crimes of a somewhat similar nature, such as assembly for the purpose of smuggling, going armed in pursuit of game by night, forcible entry and detainer, political meetings in the city of Westminster, tumultuous petitioning, and unlawful drilling. For these offences see Stephen, Digest of the Criminal Law, art. 76-82. It is the duty of a magistrate at the time of a riot to assemble subjects of the realm, whether civil or military, for the purpose of quelling a riot. In this duty he is aided by the common law, under which all subjects of the realm are bound to assist on reasonable warning, and by various enactments enabling the authorities to call out the auxiliary and reserve forces for the suppression of riot, and to close public houses where a riot is apprehended. It is his duty to keep the peace ; if the peace be broken, honesty of intention will not avail him if he has been guilty of neglect of duty. The question is whether he did all that he knew was in his power and which could be expected from a man of ordinary prudence, firm- ness, and activity. The law as thus stated is gathered from the opinions of the judges on the trials of the lord mayor of London and the mayor of Bristol on indictments for neglect of duty at the time of the Gordon riots of 1780 and the Bristol riots in 1831. 1 In addition to his liability to an indictment at common law, a defaulting magistrate is subject under the provisions of 13 Hen. IV. c. 7 and 2 Hen. V. st. 1, c. 8, to a penalty of 100 for every default, the default to be inquired of by commission under the great seal. A matter of interest is the extent of the protection afforded by the Riot Act to soldiers acting under the commands of their officers. The soldier is at the same time a citizen, and the mere fact of his being a soldier is not sufficient to exonerate him from all responsibility. No case in which the question has called for decision seems to have arisen. It is the opinion of Mr Justice Stephen that a soldier would be protected by orders for which he might reasonably believe his superior officer to have good grounds (History of the Criminal Law, vol. i. 206). On the other hand, he would probably not be protected by an order plainly unnecessary, such as an order to fire into a crowd of women and children when no violence was observable. _ The civil remedy given to those whose property has suffered by riot is of an exceptional character. The action is brought against the hundred in which the riot took place. This liability of the hundred is a survival of the pre-Conquest obligation of the hundred and tithing to pursue and do justice on the thief : the hundred is supposed to guarantee the orderly conduct of its inhabitants, and is liable to damages for its failure to preserve order. The liability of the hundred in case of robbery was enacted as early as the Statute of Winchester, 13 Edw. I. st. 2. That and subsequent Acts were repealed by 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 27, and their provisions were consolidated and amended by 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 31. The Act gives a remedy against the hundred in the case of any church, chapel, house, machinery, &c. , being " feloniously demolished, pulled down, or destroyed, wholly or in part, by any persons riotously and tumultuously assembled together." A summary remedy is given for damage not exceeding 30. The remedy is extended to injury to threshing machines by 2 & 3 Will. IV. c. 72. It has been held that damage to a house will not entitle the owner to compensation from the hundred unless the intention of the rioters was to totally destroy the house. The Riot Act does not extend to Ireland. But similar provisions are contained in the Act of the Irish Parliament of 27 Geo. III. c. 1 Reports of these trials will be found in Carringtoa and Payne's Reports, vol. v., p. 254. 15, as amended by 5 & 6 Viet. c. 28. An offence peculiar to Ireland and punishable with penal servitude for life under the provisions of the Acts above mentioned is the sending of a notice, letter, or message exciting or tending to excite a riot. The Prevention of Crimes Act, 1882, enabled summary proceedings to be taken against rioters. The Act was temporary only, expiring with the session of Parliament 1885. In Scotland a riot may be either rioting and mobbing or rioting and breach of the peace. The first is much the same as the riot of English law. " Mobbing consists in the assembling of a number of people and their combining against order and peace to the alarm of the lieges" (Macdonald, Criminal Law, 180). The second offence occurs where concourse or a common purpose are wanting. Numerous Acts against riot and unlawful convocation were passed by the Scottish parliament at different times, beginning as early as 1457. The Riot Act (1 Geo. I. ) applies to Scotland. The liability of the county or burgh for destruction of property by riot is pro- vided for by the Riot Act and by several Acts of Parliament of the reign of George III. In the United States the law is based upon that of England. In some States there is a statutory proclamation for the dispersion of rioters in words almost identical with those of the British Riot Act. The city, town, or county, according to circumstances, is liable for the damage caused by rioters. In some cases a remedy over against the rioters is given by legislation. (J. Wt.) RIPARIAN LAWS. By the law of England the property in the bed and water of a tidal river as high as the tide ebbs and flows at a medium spring tide is pre- sumed to be in the crown or a grantee of the crown, generally the lord of a manor, and the bed and water of a non-tidal river are presumed to belong to the person through whose land it flows, or, if it divide two properties, to the riparian proprietors, the rights of each extending to mid- stream (ad medium filum aquee). In order to give riparian rights, the river must flow in a defined channel, or at least above ground. The diminution of underground water collected by percolation does not give a cause of action to the owner of the land in which it collects, though he is entitled to have it unpolluted unless a right of pol- lution be gained against him by prescription. As a general rule a riparian proprietor, whether on a tidal or a non-tidal river, has full rights of user of his property. The most important limitations of these rights will be found under the headings FISHERIES and NAVIGATION LAWS. In both these cases the rights of the riparian proprietors are subject to the intervening rights of other persons. These rights vary according as the river is navigable or not, or tidal or not. For instance, all the riparian proprietors might combine to divert a non-navigable river, though one alone could not do so as against the others, but no combination of riparian proprietors could defeat the right of the public to have a navigable river maintained undiverted. It is proposed in this place to consider shortly the rights enjoyed by, and the limitations imposed upon, riparian proprietors, in addition to those falling under the head of fishery or navigation. In these matters English law is in substantial accordance with the law of other countries, most of the rules being deduced from Koman law. Perhaps the main difference is that running water is in Roman law a res communis, like the air and the sea. In England, owing to the greater value of river water for manufacturing and other purposes, it cannot be said to be common property, even though it may be used for navigation. The effect of this difference is that certain rights, public in Roman law, such as mooring and unloading cargo, bathing and towing, are only acquirable by prescription or custom in England. A hut might lawfully be built on the shore of a tidal river by Roman law ; in England such a building would be a mere trespass. The principal rights enjoyed by riparian owners as such are the right of increase of property by means of alluvion and the right of use of the water. Alluvion is the gradual and imperceptible increase of land by deposit; a sudden and violent changing of the course of a stream by a flood does not change the property. The addition to property