Page:The statutes of Wales (1908).djvu/128

cxxiv private legislation will demand separate and prolonged consideration.

The chronological table printed in this volume is based upon the edition of the Statutes of the Realm, published by the Record Commissioners, which extended until the reign of Queen Anne. Subsequently we have to depend upon Ruffhead's edition and the ordinary editions of the Statutes at Large. The table explains how the various statutes have been respectively repealed or affected by subsequent legislation, and it will be perceived that the majority are not now in practical use. The long-contemplated revision of our Statute Law commenced in 1856, with the result that most of the spent and obsolete Acts, which were not applicable to modern circumstances, have been gradually expunged from the Statute Roll. But it is specially provided by the various Statute Law Revision Acts, that repeals thereby made shall not revive or restore any jurisdiction, office, custom, right, title, privilege, practice, or procedure not existing or in force at the time of the repeal. Notwithstanding this provision, the point was raised in 1862 in the Court of Exchequer, in the case of the Attorney-General v. Jones (see 33 Law Journal Reports, Exchequer, p. 249), whether the laws of Howel Dda were still applicable in. The question was whether one of the laws of Howel Dda (viz., that "whosoever owneth the land on the side of the shore, he owneth the breadth of his land on the shore, and he may make a weir upon it if he will, but if the sea cast anything on the land or on the shore, the king owneth it, for the sea is a packhorse to the king") was still in force by virtue of the statutes 12 1 and 27  8, c. 26, s. 31. The counsel for the Crown rested their case, in the first instance, on the prima facie title of the Crown to the seashore between high and low-water mark. On the part of the defendant it was contended that by the Venedotian Code of the laws of Howel Dda the seashore in Anglesea, Carnarvon, and Merioneth did