take it out of the general rule of law, that the finder of a lost article is entitled to it as against all persons except the real owner, and we think that that rule must prevail, and that the learned judge was mistaken in holding that the place in which they were found makes any legal differOur judgment, therefore, is, that the plaintiff is entitled to these notes as against the defendant; that the judgment of the court below must be reversed, and judgment given for the plaintiff for £50. Plaintiff to have the costs of appeal. Judgment accordingly.1 ence. REGINA v. ROWE. CROWN CASE RESERVED. 1859. [Reported Bell, C. C. 93.] THE following case was reserved by the Chairman of the Glamorganshire Quarter Sessions. At the Glamorganshire Midsummer Quarter Sessions, 1858, William Rowe was indicted for stealing 16 cwt. of iron of the goods and chattels of The Company of Proprietors of the Glamorganshire Canal Navigation. It appeared by the evidence that the iron had been taken from the canal by the prisoner, who was not in the employ of the Canal Company, while it was in process of being cleaned. The manager of the canal stated that, if the property found on such occasions in the canal can be identified, it is returned to the owner. If it cannot, it is kept by the Company. It was objected that, as the Canal Company are not carriers, but only find a road for the conveyance of goods by private owners, the property was not properly laid as that of the Canal Company. The prisoner was convicted, and sentenced to two calendar months imprisonment in the House of Correction at Cardiff, but was released on bail. Armory v. Delamirie, 1 Stra. 505; s. c. 1 Smith's L. C. 151. This case was considered, on 22d November, 1858, by POLLOCK, C. B., WIGHTMAN, J., WILLIAMS, J., CHANNELL, B., BYLES J. and HILL, J. No counsel appeared. Cur. adv. vult. On 5th February, 1859, the judgment of the court was given by POLLOCK, C. B. The judges who have considered this case are unanimously of opinion that the conviction should be affirmed. The case finds that some iron had been stolen by the prisoner from the canal while the canal was in process of cleaning, and while the water was out. The prisoner was not in the employ of the Canal Company, but a 1 See Bowen v. Sullivan, 62 Ind. 281, the head-note of which is inaccurate. stranger; and the property of the Company in the iron before it was taken away by the prisoner was of the same nature as that which a landlord has in goods left behind by a guest. Property so left is in the possession of the landlord for the purpose of delivering it up to the true owner; and he has sufficient possession to maintain an indictment for larceny. Conviction affirmed. BARKER v. BATES. SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS. 1832. [Reported 13 Pick. 255.] TRESPASS. The plaintiff declared in his first count that the defendants broke and entered his close, and that being so entered, they took and carried away a stick of timber there found. The second count was for taking and carrying away the stick of timber. At the trial, before Shaw, C. J., it appeared that the plaintiff was the owner of a farm in the town of Scituate, within the limits of the old colony of Plymouth, bounded easterly by the sea, which farm included two pieces of land conveyed to the United States as hereafter mentioned, and that at the time of the commission of the supposed trespass, he remained the owner of all of the farm, excepting the parts so conveyed. In 1811 an act was passed by the legislature of Massachusetts (St. 1810, c. 54), providing that the United States might purchase or take any tracts of land, not exceeding six acres, which should be necessary for the lighthouse authorized to be erected at the entrance of the harbor of Scituate, reserving to this Commonwealth exclusive jurisdiction over the land, except so far as might be necessary to enable the United States to carry their object into effect. In pursuance of this act certain commissioners appraised and set off to the United States the two parcels of land above mentioned. The boundaries of the first parcel were described as beginning at a stake and stones, and, after various courses, running northeasterly "to the cliff, thence by the cliff to the first-mentioned stake and stones." Below the cliff was a beach. A plan of the farm and of the two parcels set off to the United States, was used in the case. It appeared that the stick of timber in question was discovered by the defendants on the rocks, at low-water mark, below the easterly side of the parcel of land above described, that it was then marked by one of the defendants with his name, and that the defendants subsequently attempted to carry away the stick from this place, but were prevented by the roughness of the sea. The stick was afterwards thrown upon the beach, below and adjoining the plaintiff's land, and on the easterly side thereof, and the defendants took and carried it away from the place last mentioned, and converted it to their own use. If upon the facts in the case the court should be of opinion that the plaintiff was entitled to recover, the defendants were to be defaulted, and judgment to be rendered against them for the sum of fifteen dollars damages; otherwise a new trial was to be granted. W. Baylies and Warren, for the defendants. SHAW, C. J., delivered the opinion of the court. The sole and single question in the present case is, which of these parties has the preferable claim, by mere naked possession, without other title, to a stick of timber, driven ashore under such circumstances as lead to a belief that it was thrown overboard or washed out of some vessel in distress, and never reclaimed by the owner. It does not involve any question of the right of the original owner to regain his property in the timber, with or without salvage, or the right of the sovereign to claim title to property as wreck, or of the power and jurisdiction of the governments, either of the Commonwealth or of the United States, to pass such laws and adopt such regulations on the subject of wreck, as justice and public policy may require. In considering this question of the relative right of possession, a preliminary one has been discussed, which is, whether the plaintiff had title to the land upon which the stick of timber was found. This place appears to have been on the seashore, between high and low water mark, in the town of Scituate, a town within the limits of the old colony of Plymouth. [The court then considered the question of the title to the locus, and resolved that it was the freehold of the plaintiff. The discussion of this question in the opinion is omitted. — ED.] Considering it as thus established, that the place upon which this timber was thrown up and had lodged was the soil and freehold of the plaintiff, that the defendants cannot justify their entry, for the purpose of taking away or marking the timber, we are of opinion that such entry was a trespass, and that as between the plaintiff and the defendants, neither of whom had or claimed any title except by mere possession, the plaintiff had, in virtue of his title to the soil, the preferable right of possession, and therefore that the plaintiff has a right to recover the agreed value of the timber in his claim of damages. ACTION of trover to recover the value of ten white pine logs. The logs in question were found by the plaintiff floating in the Delaware Bay after a great freshet, were taken up and moored with ropes in the mouth of Mispillion creck. They were afterwards in the possession of defendants, who refused to give them up, alleging that they had found them adrift and floating up the creek. BAYARD, Chief Justice, charged the jury. The plaintiff must show first, that the logs were his property; and secondly, that they were converted by the defendants to their own use. In support of his right of property, the plaintiff relies upon the fact of his possession of the logs. They were taken up by him, adrift in the Delaware Bay, and secured by a stake at the mouth of Mispillion creek. Possession is certainly prima facie evidence of property. It is called prima facie evidence because it may be rebutted by evidence of better title, but in the absence of better title it is as effective a support of title as the most conclusive evidence could be. It is for this reason, that the finder of a chattel, though he does not acquire an absolute property in it, yet has such a property, as will enable him to keep it against all but the rightful owner. The defence consists, not in showing that the defendants are the rightful owners, or claim under the rightful owner; but that the logs were found by them adrift in Mispillion creek, having been loosened from their fastening either by accident or design, and they insist that their title is as good as that of the plaintiff. But it is a well settled rule of law that the loss of a chattel does not change the right of property; and for the same reason that the original loss of these logs by the rightful owner, did not change his absolute property in them, but he might have maintained trover against the plaintiff upon refusal to deliver them, so the subsequent loss did not divest the special property of the plaintiff. It follows, therefore, that as the plaintiff has shown a special property in these logs, which he never abandoned, and which enabled him to keep them against all the world but the rightful owner, he is entitled to a verdict. Verdict for the plaintiff. Ridgely and Bates, for plaintiff. M'AVOY v. MEDINA. SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS. 1866. [Reported 11 Allen, 548.] TORT to recover a sum of money found by the plaintiff in the shop of the defendant. At the trial in the Superior Court, before Morton, J., it appeared that the defendant was a barber, and the plaintiff, being a customer in the defendant's shop, saw and took up a pocket-book which was lying upon a table there, and said, "See what I have found." The defendant came to the table and asked where he found it. The plaintiff laid it back in the same place and said, "I found it right there." The defendant then took it and counted the money, and the plaintiff told him to keep it, and if the owner should come to give it to him; and otherwise to advertise it: which the defendant promised to do. Subsequently the plaintiff made three demands for the money, and the defendant never claimed to hold the same till the last demand. It was agreed that the pocket-book was placed upon the table by a transient customer of the defendant and accidentally left there, and was first seen and taken up by the plaintiff, and that the owner had not been found. The judge ruled that the plaintiff could not maintain his action, and a verdict was accordingly returned for the defendant; and the plaintiff alleged exceptions. E. J. Sherman and J. C. Sanborn, for the plaintiff. D. Saunders, Jr., for the defendant. DEWEY, J. It seems to be the settled law that the finder of lost property has a valid claim to the same against all the world except the true owner, and generally that the place in which it is found creates no exception to this rule. 2 Parsons on Con. 97; Bridges v. Hawkesworth, 7 Eng. Law & Eq. R. 424. But this property is not, under the circumstances, to be treated as lost property in that sense in which a finder has a valid claim to hold the same until called for by the true owner. This property was voluntarily placed upon a table in the defendant's shop by a customer of his who accidentally left the same there and has never called for it. The plaintiff also came there as a customer, and first saw the same and took it up from the table. The plaintiff did not by this acquire the right to take the property from the shop, but it was rather the duty of the defendant, when the fact became thus known to him, to use reasonable care for the safe keeping of the same until the owner should call for it. In the case of Bridges v. Hawkesworth the property, although found in a shop, was found on the floor of the same, and had not been placed there voluntarily by the owner, and the court held that the finder was entitled to the possession of the same, except as to the owner. But the present case more resembles that of Lawrence v. The State, 1 Humph. (Tenn.) 228, and is indeed very similar in its facts. The court there make a distinction between the case of property thus placed · by the owner and neglected to be removed, and property lost. It was there held that "to place a pocket-book upon a table and to forget to take it away is not to lose it, in the sense in which the authorities referred to speak of lost property." We accept this as the better rule, and especially as one better adapted to secure the rights of the true owner. In view of the facts of this case, the plaintiff acquired no original right to the property, and the defendant's subsequent acts in receiving and holding the property in the manner he did does not create any. Exceptions overruled.1 1 See Kincaid v. Eaton, 98 Mass. 139, accord. |