Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/313

 Ch. 8. thief (which is called making freh uit) or do convict him afterwards, or procure evidence to convict him, he hall have his goods again. Waived goods do alo not belong to the king, till eied by omebody for his ue; for if the party robbed can eie them firt, though at the ditance of twenty years, the king hall never have them. If the goods are hid by the thief, or left any where by him, o that he had them not about him when he fled, and therefore did not throw them away in his flight; thee alo are not bona waviata, but the owner may have them again when he pleaes. The goods of a foreign merchant, though tolen and thrown away in flight, hall never be waifs : the reaon whereof may be, not only for the encouragement of trade, but alo becaue there is no wilful default in the foreign merchant's not puruing the thief, he being generally a tranger to our laws, our uages, and our language.

XV. are uch valuable animals as are found wandering in any manor or lordhip, and no man knoweth the owner of them; in which cae the law gives them to the king as the general owner and lord paramount of the oil, in recompence for the damage which they may have done therein; and they now mot commonly belong to the lord of the manor, by pecial grant from the crown. But in order to vet an abolute property in the king or his grantees, they mut be proclaimed in the church and two market towns next adjoining to the place where they are found; and then, if no man claims them, after proclamation and a year and a day paed, they belong to the king or his ubtitute without redemption ; even though the owner were a minor, or under any other legal incapacity. A proviion imilar to which obtained in the old Gothic contitution, with regard to all things that were found, which were to be thrice proclaimed, primum coram comitibus et viatoribus obviis, deinde in proxima villa vel pago, Rh