Common

1, adj. (1) Belo Dging to, or participated in, by several or more persons; mutual: as, a common — ancestor, benefit, labor or service, mastei-, property, recovery, tenants iu common, 2 qq, v. (2) Originating with, or subsisting for, the people at large; belonging to, or affecting, the public; not private, but public or general, g. 1).: as, a common or the common — bench, carrier, 'council, fishery, highvcay, inn, law, nuisance, pleas, right, schools, way, qqi v. (3) Ordinary, usual, customary, familiar; opposed to special: as, common or a common— appearance, assumpsit, assurance, bail, bar, bond, care or diligence, costs, count, informer, intendment, intent, jury, mortgage, seal, stock, traverse, warranty, qq. V. (4) Frequent, habitual: as, common offenders— barrator, drunkard, gambler, prostitute, scold, thief, qq. v. Three distinct acts of sale of liquors are necessary to constitute a "common " seller. Such has been the rule as to common barrator, and other cases of this nature.^ (5) Ordinary; manual; opposed to mental or intellectual: as, common labor, q. v. 2, n. The common field; ground set apart for public uses.* The waste grounds of manors (q. v.) were called "commons."' Land appropriated to a public common may not be diverted to other uses, to the prejudice of individuals who have purchased lots adjoining it.* Where privileges of a public nature are beneficial ■ to private property, as in the case of land upon a public square, the enjoyment of the privileges will be protected, by injunction, against encroachment.^ See Dedication, 1. Common, or right of common. A profit which a man hath in the lands of another: ' County of St. Clair v. Lovingston, 23 Wall. 69 (1S74). = Chambers v. Harrington, 111 XJ. S. 352 (1884). a Commonwealth v. Tubbs, 1 Cush. 3 0848), Dewey.'j. * Patterson v. Mc Eeynolds, 61 Mo. 203 (1875); Crawford-!). Mobile, &c. R. Co., 67 Ga. 416 (1881). S2B1. Com. 32. '» See Emerson v. Wiley, 10 Kck. 315 (1831); Carr v. Wallace, 7 Watts, 394 (1838); Abbott v. Mills, 3 Vt. S25 (1831); State v. Trask, 6 id. 864 (1834). ■' Wheeler v. Bedford, 54 Conn. 248-49 (1886), cases: 2 Story, Bq. § 927; High, Inj. § 551. ■ An injunoti'on to prevent inclosing part of a town common or public as, to feed his beasts thereon, to catch fish, to cut wood.' Commoner. A person invested with a right of common. Existed between the owner of a manor and his feudal tenants, — for the encouragement of agriculture. The tenant's right was to pasture his cattle, provide necessary food and" fuel for his family, and repair his implements of husbandry, from the lord's land. 2 An incorporeal hereditament. The right usually meant is common of pasture: the right of feeding beasts on another's land. There was also common of estovers: the liberty of taking necessary wood, for use of house or farm — house-bote, fire-bote, hay-bote, hedge-bote, etc.; common of piscary; the liberty of fishing (g. t) ) in another's water; common of turbary: a right to dig turf; common in the soil: a right to dig for minerals, etc. All the species result from the same necessity — the maintenance and carrying on of husbandry. ' Commonable beasts. Beasts of the plow; beasts which manure the ground. Inter-commoning. Where the beasts of adjacent manors have immemorially fed upon adjoining commons. Commons of pasture were appendant, when regularly annexed to arable land,— for the support of commonable beasts; appiirtenant, when annexed to lands in other lordships,— for the support of all kinds of animals, and arose neither from necessity nor from any connection of tenures; in gross or at large, when annexed to » man's person, by grant to him and his heirs; because of vicinage, when -the inhabitants of adjoining townships intercommoned.' See Feud. The right of common, with many of its old common-law incidents, was formerly recognized in this country, particularly in the middle and eastern States.* 1 2 Bl. Com. 32. " 3 Kent, 403. ^ ' 2 Bl. Com. 33-35; 3 id. 237. *See Watts v. Cof Hn, 11 Johns. *493 (1814),— as to lands in the city of Hudson, Columbia country, N. Y.; Livingston v. Ten Broeck, 16 id. "15 (1819),— town of Livingston, same county; Leyman v. Abeel, ib. *S0 (1819),

— Catskill patent; Van Rennselaer v. Radcliff, 10 Wend. »639 (1833),— town of Guilderland, Albany county. See also Western University of Pennsylvania v. Robinson et al., 12 S. & R. *S9 (1824), and Carr v. Wallace, 7 Watts, 394 (1833),- both as to one hundred acres of land in the town of Allegheny, Pa. (now constituting the parks in the central portion of the city), in which the State, in 1787, created the right of " common of pasture " in the purchasers of " in-lots " in the plan of lots laid out and sold by the State for the purpose of raising money with which to pay public debts. In 1819 the legislature, without the consent of the owners of those lots, granted ifty acres of these