ABSTRACT
The state of things which prevailed on the border between England and Scotland within recent times, and which is brought back in the flesh by the ballad of the Fray o’ Suport, is very like that which in an earlier century left its skeleton in the folk-laws of Germany and England. The German philosophers who have written upon law have known no other system than the Roman, and the German lawyers who have philosophized have been professors of Roman law. The point which is essential to understanding the common-law theory of possession is established: that all bailees from time immemorial have been regarded by the English law as possessors, and entitled to the possessory remedies. The principle was directly decided in accordance with the ancient law in the famous case of Southcote v. Bennet.
