law with any one who tries to evade the rental
or the royalty. There was one case in which a
portion of the river Dee became dry, on account
of the shoaling to which that stream is much
subject. A Question arose as to whom the dry
strip belonged. It was ultimately decided that
as this strip had never had an actual individual
owner while it was covered with water, no
neighbouring landowner could justly lay claim
to it ; the Crown, as owner of the bed of the
river when the water still flowed over this spot,
was pronounced to be owner of the strip of dry
land; and a good round sum was realised by
selling it to a wealthy marquis who owns much
property thereabouts. A contest of a directly
opposite nature arose concerning a strip of land
on the banks of the Humber. Instead of being
laid bare, after having for untold ages been
covered with water, it had been grass land until
the river encroached upon it and converted it
into foreshore. The Crown said, " This is
foreshore, and is, therefore, mine." The landowner
said, " This was grass land, and no one has ever
compensated me for the loss occasioned by the
encroachment of the river ; the Crown should not
be allowed to benefit at my expense, merely
because the river has misbehaved." The law
decided, however, for the Crown, who obtained a
handsome sum for permitting the formation of a
railway along the debatable strip. The Liverpool
Corporation were called upon to pay, and did
pay, a considerable amount to the Crown, when
they began to operate upon an ill-favoured and
ill-odoured strip of mud on the Birkenhead side
of the Mersey for the construction of docks.
During the course of the astonishing improvements
which the river Clyde has undergone
during the last half century, certain strips of
land have been laid bare which were formerly
covered with water, and certain other strips have
been brought within the river's grasp which were
formerly dry land ; in both cases narrow margins
of muddy foreshore suddenly acquired a
commercial value, either as necessary parts of a
navigable river for which tolls were charged, or
as bits of dry land for agricultural or building
purposes. The Crown put in a claim, and
obtained decisions sufficient to recognise the royal
rights in these matters, even if no immediate
pecuniary benefit resulted. On one occasion there
was a bit of mud for which there were almost as
many claimants as there have been for Schleswig-
Holstein. The Crown said, " I claim these three
or four miles of foreshore and the minerals
beneath it ;" a noble earl said, " I claim as
lord of the manor;" another said, "I claim
under a special grant from the Crown ever so
long ago ;" others said, " We, as freeholders,
claim such bits of this foreshore as lie in front
of our respective freeholds ;" and somecopper-
smelters said, " We already pay royalties to the
freeholders, and we will not pay them to the
Crown also." This struggle began just twenty
years ago ; and the latest report of the Woods
and Forests shows that it is still going on, with
a prospect generally in favour of the Crown, but
a resolute opposition from a firm or obstinate
Welshman—firm or obstinate according as he
may prove to be right or wrong.

The annual reports issued by the board just
adverted to, afford numerous exemplifications
of the modes in which the Crown—in such
cases a royal mudlark—picks up a little money
out of these strips of mud. We all of us
know something about Brighton, and the strip
of semi-pebbly, semi-muddy, beach which is
covered with water twice a day at and near
high tide. About three years ago, the Crown
granted a lease of this whole strip, from
Kemp Town to Hove, to the Brighton
commissioners, for twenty-one years. The object
was to enable the lessees to prevent
nuisances on the foreshore, which would be
inconsistent with the well-ordering of a bathing-
place, but which would be probable if the
said shore were a sort of no-man's-land. The
rent is a curious one—half the value of any
stone, shingle, sand, or gravel, taken up and
sold by the town commissioners. More recently
the Brighton west-enders have resolved to build
a new pier opposite Regency-square, stretching
out a thousand feet seaward ; and as an
acknowledgment of the fact that her Majesty is queen
of the sea-bed as well as of the foreshore, they
have bought (not leased) the requisite privileges
for one hundred and fifty pounds. The good
people of Swanage, wishing that the Isle of
Purbeck should possess its own particular
Brighton attractions on a small scale, built a
pier without consulting the lady of the foreshore ;
whereupon and wherefore, the lady rapped their
knuckles in a court of law—not very hard, but
sufficient to show that there is a lady of the
foreshore. Colonel Pennant, the mighty man
of slate; wishing to be able to ship minerals at
a sea-side village with an unpronounceable
Welsh name, near Bangor, obtained foreshore-
rights on payment of one pound a year rent,
and a trifling royalty on all minerals shipped.
A year or two ago, the Crown sold little bits of
mud at Stokes Bay and Ryde to two companies
concerned in establishing a new rail-and-steam
route from Portsmouth or Gosport to the Isle of
Wight. When the Hull docks were enlarged,
in eighteeen hundred and sixty-three, a strip of
mud was deemed so valuable, that it was sold by
the Crown for no less a sum than two thousand
pounds. Fifty pounds were given by the
corporation of Deal for permission to carry an
iron pier across the foreshore. At Oban, in
Scotland, a place becoming very well known to
summer tourists, one pound was charged for
permission to remove a hundred tons of gravel
and stone, for the improvement of the beach
and landing-place ; a curious charge, the
smallness of which shows that it was considered
rather as the recognition of a right, than
as a payment of any pecuniary value. The
late Marquis of Lansdowne gave the Crown six
hundred pounds for about two hundred acres of
foreshore in Ireland. When the owners of that
unfortunate ship, the Great Eastern, wanted to
beach her, for repairs, on the Cheshire side of
the Mersey, they paid the Crown one pound for