Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/360

 344 RIPARIAN affray, it is a riot ; for the fact of forming such factions or parties and then acting with a defi- nite and unlawful intention is constructive evidence of premeditation. If three or more persons, lawfully assembled, quarrel among themselves, and the party falls upon one or more of their own number, this is a simple affray ; but if they attack a stranger, the very moment the quarrel begins it becomes an un- lawful assemblage, and it is a riot in all those who join the affray, but only in them. So a person seeing a riot and joining therein be- comes a rioter himself, though he did not go there premeditating the act, and is liable as a principal with the rest. The inciting persons to assemble in a riotous manner is also indict- able. The law will not allow individuals to seek redress for private grievances by disturb- ing the public peace," though in some cases the justice of the quarrel in which they are en- gaged may be a great mitigation of the offence. By the common law, riots were punished by fine and imprisonment, and if enormous by the pillory. But these penalties being found in- sufficient, statutory provisions were early made for their suppression. The first English statute enacted for this purpose was 84 Edward III., c. 1, E. II., which gave justices of the peace very extensive authority in such cases, and visited the offence with severe punishment. The statute 1 George I., commonly called the " riot act," made it a capital felony for per- sons riotously assembled to the number of 12 or more to continue so assembled for one hour after proclamation by a justice of the peace requiring them to disperse ; thus leaving the offence, if committed by more than 3 and fewer than 12 persons, punishable by fine and imprisonment only, but if by 12 or more by death. Subsequent statutes made other specific offences felonious, such as riotously demolishing any church or chapel, or any house or other building, or any machinery or manufactory, or forcibly obstructing the export of corn from any part of the kingdom. Principals in the second degree and. accessories before the fact were also punishable as felons. In the United States the statutory provisions respecting riots follow in a great measure those of England, but are milder in their punishments and more qualified in their application. RIPARIAN (Lat. ripa, the bank of a river), in law, a term relating to the rights and privi- leges of persons who own lands lying upon or bounded by streams or rivers. At the com- mon law all bays and arms of the sea, and all rivers wherein the tide ebbed and flowed, were considered navigable, or public highways ; and all rivers, irrespective of size, where the tide did not ebb and flow, were unnavigable. The owner of land lying upon an unnavigable stream (in the common law sense) owns the bed of such stream to its centre, or thread ; and the grant of a piece of land bounded by a river will carry the exclusive right and title of the grantee to the middle of the river, unless the grant certainly expresses the intention of the grantor to convey only to the bank or mar- gin. If a person owns the land lying on both sides of the river, he also owns the whole river as far as his land extends along it ; and the owner in fee of land lying under an unnaviga- ble river, whether he owns the whole bed or only to the centre on one side, may sell and convey such land separate from the upland to which it is attached. "Where a river is actually navigable for boats and rafts, the public have an easement in the water for this purpose, and are entitled to a right of passage up and down, which the riparian proprietors cannot interfere with or prevent ; and all obstructions or im- pediments to the free use of the river in this manner are public nuisances, which the public may lawfully abate. The owners hold the land under the water subject to the public right of passage over it. The proprietors of adjoining banks are entitled to use the water of the river, and the land under it, as regards the public, in any manner or for any purpose what- ever, not inconsistent with this easement ; and neither the state nor any private individual has a right to alter the course or character of the stream, or to render it by any means less useful to the owner of the soil. When a piece of land in a conveyance lies upon and is bound- ed by a navigable pond of water, it is generally held that the grant only extends to the margin of the pond, and the grantee acquires no right to the soil beneath it. So riparian owners on technically navigable rivers, that is, on rivers in which the tide flows, are not entitled, as a matter of right, to the soil under the water in front of their uplands, because it belongs to the state. The land covered by navigable ponds and lakes also belongs to the state when these are not private property, but a grant of the bed of such a pond or lake could only be made to the owner of the adjoining shore. If the water running between the lands of separate owners gains gradually and imperceptibly upon one side or the other, the title of each con- tinues as before to the middle of the stream regardless of the change. But if the change takes place suddenly and visibly, the owner- ship remains unchanged, and the boundary line continues as previous to the alteration, at what then was the middle of the stream. If there- fore the river should suddenly and entirely forsake its natural channel, and make for itself a new one in the lands of the proprietor on one side, he would thereby become the exclu- sive owner of the soil under the whole river so far as it was enclosed in his land. If soil be formed by alluvium or the washing up of earth out of the river, by slow and imperceptible accretion, or by the dereliction of waters which have gradually receded and left the land be- neath them bare and dry, it belongs to the owner of the adjoining land. Islands formed in the same manner are subject to the same rule. If they are formed near the shore, they belong to the person who owns the land on