, moreover, a
forest-warden, or decides forest offenses, and enforces the penalties,
which this officer inflicts. He has his prison for delinquents of
various kinds, and sometimes his forked gibbets. On the other hand, as
compensation for his judicial costs, he obtains the property of the man
condemned to death and the confiscation of his estate. He succeeds to
the bastard born and dying in his seigniory without leaving a testament
or legitimate children. He inherits from the possessor, legitimately
born, dying in testate in his house without apparent heirs. He
appropriates to himself movable objects, animate or inanimate, which are
found astray and of which the owner is unknown; he claims one-half or
one-third of treasure-trove, and, on the coast, he takes for himself the
waif of wrecks. And finally, what is more fruitful, in these times of
misery, he becomes the possessor of abandoned lands that have remained
untilled for ten years.-Other advantages demonstrate still more clearly
that he formerly possessed the government of the canton. Such are, in
Auvergne, in Flanders, in Hainaut, in Artois, in Picardy, Alsace, and
Lorraine, the dues de poursoin ou de sauvement (care or safety within
the walls of a town), paid to him for providing general protection.
The dues of de guet et de garde (watch and guard), claimed by him for
military protection; of afforage, are exacted of those who sell beer,
wine and other beverages, whole-sale or retail. The dues of fouage,
dues on fires, in money or grain, which, according to many common-law
systems, he levies on each fireside, house or family. The dues of
pulverage, quite common in Dauphiny-and Provence, are levied on passing
flocks of sheep. Those of the lods et ventes (lord's due), an almost
universal tax, consist of the deduction of a sixth, often of a fifth or
even a fourth, of the price of every piece of ground sold, and of
every lease exceeding nine years. The dues for redemption or relief are
equivalent to one year's income, aid that he receives from collateral
heirs, and often from direct heirs. Finally, a rarer due, but the most
burdensome of all, is that of acapte ou de plaid-a-merci, which is a
double rent, or a year's yield of fruits, payable as well on the death
of the seignior as on that of the copyholder. These are veritable
taxes, on land, on movables, personal, for licenses, for traffic, for
mutations, for successions, established formerly on the condition of
performi