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346 346 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. lutely unlawful, and as the prisoner had been once in jeopardy he might have the benefit of the habeas corpus. It cannot be doubted that justice was cheated again. Such judicial escapes as this have led to a general relaxation of the criminal procedure, and it may be .i^rged that it is the merest form to require the jury to reaffirm its written verdict. On the other hand it may be a valuable privilege for the accused to ask the final decision of each of his triers separately when the coercion of the major- ity of the fellow-jurors ceases to have effect ; he would have had this privilege if there had been no sealed verdict, — why should he lose it? The oral verdict is at most only a slight formality, not harassing, and seldom objected to. The conservative decision in the principal case represents the bulk of the American authority, though states like Massa- chusetts and Virginia, which have done away with polling, might well refuse to follow it. Property in Animals Fer^e Naturae. — When an animal /<?r« naturce is reduced into possession, the possessor gains a qualified proprietary right. The limitations of that right were involved in a recent decision of the New York Supreme Court. Mullett v. Bradley, 53 N. Y. Supp. 781 (Sup. Ct. App. Term.). A sea-lion, brought from the Pacific coast to Long Island, escaped from the possession of its owner, and was aban- doned by him. A year afterward it was recaptured upon the New Jersey coast by a fisherman, seventy miles from the place of escape. Upon these facts it seems clear that the former owner had forfeited his right by the abandonment. Buster v. Newkirk^ 20 Johns. 73. However, this was not the ratio decidendi. The court held for the fisherman upon the ground that the owner had lost his property by the very loss of possession. The ruling of the court represents the usual statement of the law of prop- erty in wild animals that remain undomesticated. Goff. Kilts, 15 Wend. 550 ; Ulery. Jones, 81 111. 403. The old writers assume that as ownership in animals ferce naturce is acquired by taking possession, the property is always contingent upon the maintenance of an actual possession. The further ancient rules that such animals remain property when be- yond manual control animo revertendi, and their young, always, ratione impo- tenticB, seem not even exceptions to that general principle. Bracton, liv. 2, c, i. ; Institutes, liv. iv. Tit. 9. Now, the usual tide gained by possession is not defeasible by the mere loss of possession. Again, this ancient rule limiting the rights of ownership in animals ferce naturce seems incon- sistent with the related law governing the responsibility of owners for in- jury done by such animals. Where a bear slipped his collar and in his escape to the woods injured a man, the court held the owner liable as a matter of course. Vredenburg v. Behan, 33 La. Ann. 627. The one limitation that has been suggested is that when the animal reaches its native place or an environment specially adapted to its existence, liability should cease. This points to a practical distinction between indigenous and imported animals — liability for the one may cease upon loss of pos- session, not for the other. It would seem that the same law should govern the extent of the respon- sibility for animals ferce naturce and the rights of property in them ; and it is to be regretted that an express dictum in the principal case insists upon the ancient rule. If in the principal case the interruption of the owner's possession had been momentary, it would be hard to hold that