Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/586

Rh 566 R I P R I P by alluvion is occasionally of considerable practical importance. In the reign of Charles I. the estate of Lord Berkeley was increased by 300 acres left dry by the Severn. The land was claimed for '.ae crown, but judgment was given in favour of Lord Berkeley. If an island be formed in the stream, it belongs to the proprietor to whose land it is nearest; if it be exactly in mid-stream, it belongs to the riparian proprietors equally. The right of use of the water of a natural stream cannot be better described than in the words of Lord Kingsdown : " By the general law applicable to running streams, every riparian proprietor has a right to what may be called the ordinary use of water flowing past his land, for instance, to the reasonable use of the water for domestic purposes and for his cattle, and this without regard to the effect which such use may have in case of a deficiency upon proprietors lower down the stream. But, further, he has a right to the use of it for any purpose, or what may be deemed the extraordinary use of it, provided he does not thereby interfere with the rights of other proprietors, either above or below him. Subject to this condition, he may dam up a stream for the purposes of a mill, or divert the water for the purpose of irrigation. But he has no right to intercept the regular flow of the stream, if he thereby interferes with the lawful use of the water by other proprietors, and inflicts upon them a sensible injury," (Miners. Gilmour, 12 Moore' 's Privy Council Cases, 156). The rights of riparian proprietors where the flow of water is artificial rest on a different principle. As the artificial stream is made by a person for his own benefit, any right of another person as a riparian proprietor does not arise at common law, as in the case of a natural stream, but must be established by grant or prescription. The rights of a person not a riparian proprietor who uses land abutting on a river by the licence or grant of the riparian proprietor are not as full as though he were a riparian proprietor, for he cannot be imposed as a riparian proprietor upon the other proprietors without their consent. The effect of this appears to be that he is not entitled to sensibly affect their rights, even by the ordinary as distinguished from the extraordinary use of the water. The limitations to which the right of the riparian proprietor is subject may be divided into those existing by common right, those imposed for public purposes, and those established against him by crown grant or by custom or prescription. Under the first head comes the public right of navigation, of anchorage and fishery from boats (in tidal waters), and of taking shell-fish (and probably other fish except royal fish) on the shore of tidal waters as far as any right of several fishery does not intervene. Under the second head would fall the right of eminent domain by which the state takes riparian rights for public purposes, compensating the proprietor, the restrictions upon the fishery rights of the proprietor, as by Acts forbidding the taking of fish in close time, and the restrictions on the ground of public health, as by the Rivers Pollution Act, 1876. The jurisdiction of the state over rivers in England may be exer- cised by officers of the crown, as by commissioners of sewers or by the Board of Trade under the Crown Lands Act, 1866. A bridge is erected and supported by the county authorities, and the riparian proprietor must bear any inconvenience resulting from it. An example of an adverse right by crown grant is a FERRY (q.v.) or a port. The crown, moreover, as the guardian of the realm, has jurisdiction to restrain the removal of the foreshore, the natural barrier of the sea, by its owner in case of apprehended danger to the coast. The rights established against a riparian proprietor by private persons must as a rule be based on prescription or custom, only on prescription where they are in the nature of profits ft prcndre (see PRESCRIPTION). Among such rights are the right to bathe, to land, to discharge cargo, to tow, to dry nets, to beach boats, to take sand, shingle, or water, to have a sea-wall main- tained, to pollute the water (subject to the Rivers Pollution Act). In some cases the validity of local riparian customs has been re- cognized by the legislature. The right to enter on lands adjoining tidal waters for the purpose of watching for and landing herrings, pilchards, and other sea-fish was confirmed to the fishermen of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall by 1 Jac. I. c. 23. The digging of sand on the shore of tidal waters for use as manure on the land was granted to the inhabitants of Devon and Cornwall by 7 Jac. I. c. 18. The public right of taking or killing rabbits in the day- time on any sea bank or river bank in the county of Lincoln, so far as the tide extends, or within one furlong of such bank, was pre- served by 24 & 25 Viet. c. 96, 17. It should be noticed that rights of the public may be subject to private rights. Where the river is navigable, although the right of navigation is common to the subjects of the realm, it may be connected with a right to exclusive access to riparian land, the invasion of which may form the ground for legal proceedings by the riparian proprietor (see Lyon v. The Fishmongers' Company, Law lleports Appeal Cases, vol. i., 662). A freshwater lake appears to be governed by the same law as a non-tidal river. The preponderance of authority is in favour of the right of the riparian proprietors as against the crown. Unlawful and malicious injury to sea and river banks, towing paths, sluices, floodgates, milldams, &c., or poisoning fish is a crime under 24 & 25 Viet. c. 97. Scotland. The law of Scotland is in general accordance with that of England. One of the principal differences is that in Scotland, if a charter state that the sea is the boundary of a grant, the fore- shore is included in the grant, subject to the burden of crown rights for public purposes. Persons engaged in the herring fishery off the coast of Scotland have, by 11 Geo. III. c. 31, the right to use the shore for 100 yards from high- water mark for landing and drying nets, erecting huts, and curing fish. Similar powers were given to those engaged in any white fisn fishery by 29 Geo. II. c. 23 ; but the section of the Act giving these powers was repealed by the Sea Fisheries Act, 1868. United States. In the United States the common law of England was originally adopted, the State succeeding to the right of the crown. This was no doubt sufficient in the thirteen original States, where rivers of the largest size do not occur, but was not generally followed in later times when it had become obvious that English law was insufficient to meet the case of the vast rivers and lakes of North America. " In Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Soutli Carolina, Iowa, Mississippi, and Alabama, it has been determined that the common law does not prevail, and that the ownership of the bed or soil of all rivers navigable for any useful purpose of trade or agriculture, whether tidal or fresh water, is in the State" (Bouvier, Law Diet., s.v. "River"). The supreme court of the United States in 1857 declared constitutional an Act of Congress of 1845, extending the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States to all public navigable rivers and lakes where commerce is earned on between different States or with foreign nations (The Propeller Genesee Chief v. Fitzhugh, 12 Hoivard's Reports, 443). The right of eminent domain has been exercised to a much greater extent than in England in the acquisition of sites for mills under the powers of State legislation in encouragement of trade. Such a course has never been necessary in England (see Angell, Law of Watercourses, 478). The law as to subterranean water seems to be still unsettled. Some State decisions have recognized a public right to moor vessels and place cargo on the shore. ( J. Wt. ) RIPH (*!*") or T^l), i-e-> RABBENU YISHAK B. YA'AKOB HAKKOHEN x AL-PHASI or AL-FEZI, after the death of his teachers the greatest rabbi of Africa, and subsequently of the Peninsula, in the llth and 12th centuries, was born in 1013 at Karat-Ibn-Hammad near Fez, and died at Lucena in 1103. His teachers were the great rabbins Eabbenu Nissim and Rabbenu Hananeel, both of Kairawan (ob. 1055). What RASHI (q.v.) was to the Ashkenazic Riph was for the Sepharadic Jews, 2 not only a teacher of the deepest learning, but also one who made new paths altogether for the students of the Talmud. Otherwise these two great men differed widely from one another in their activity. Rashi left the Babylonian Talmud, correc- tions of the text excepted (which he, however, confined to his own commentary, and by which his own disciples and publishers corrected the Talmud text), in its old state. Al-phasi, however, first separated from it the Agadah, which he cast aside almost entirely, and then he sifted the Hala- khah 3 thoroughly, retaining only the practical part of it. Thus either title his book has received is correct, the Little Talmud or the Decisions of Rob Al-phez. Late in the 12th century and in the 13th a host of rabbins respectively attacked and defended Al-phasi (see RABAD III., and RAMBAN), whilst others commented on him (see below). One of the commentaries accompanying the Riph is by Rashi. This commentary, however, which is now an integral part of the book, was not written for it by Rashi himself, who could scarcely have known of Riph's exist- ence, and much less of his work. The fact is the enter- prising publisher of the second edition (Venice, 1521-22, fol.), the famous Daniel Bombergi, had one of the three recensions which Rashi had made on the Talmud excerpted and applied to corresponding parts of the Riph which has the very wording of the Talmud, or something near it. Where no Rashi was to be found in the passages of the 1 That Riph was a Kohen, or Aaronite, will be seen from the epitaph given in Haggahoth Hariph in the collection Tummath Yesharim (Venice, 1622, fol.). 2 On these names see MAHZOR, vol. xv. p. 293. 3 On these terms see MIDRASH, vol. xvi. p. 285, and MISHNAH, p. 503.