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52 H. 3, CAP. 23, S. 2, WASTE. 73 for the benefit of the reversioner, would not be waste. In Adams v. Brere- ton, 3 H. & J. 124, the plaintiff in an action of waste gave in evidence a writ of ad quod damnum issued under the Act of 1704, ch. 16, by which the defendant claimed an inquisition thereon in 1763, and a lease for 80 years of twenty acres particularly described as being condemned for building a water mill, &c., and proved that the land was then unimproved and covered with timber, &c., and that the defendant had applied the same to other purposes than for the use and support of the mill, or houses, or anything thereto appertaining, and had in fact cleared it and planted it with corn and wheat. The defendant insisted that he was justifiable under the writ in so using the land, and after judgment against him below the Court of Appeals sustained his defense, possibly on the ground that the object of the Act and the length of the term justified such an user of the mill seat. This Act of 1704 recited in its preamble, that the want of water mills was a great cause of the discouragement of husbandry, and that most part of the places fit for setting them up were already in the hands of persons under age, or un- able to be at the charge of building a water-mill, or else of such as are wil- fully obstinate in forbidding and hindering such persons as would purchase such places, and then enacted that any person might acquire a title to a mill seat for a term not longer than eighty years, and gave the form of the writ ad quod damnum under which the proceedings were to be had, see Gwynn v. Jones' lessee, 2 G. & J. 173. It was repealed except as to its 6th and 7th Sections by the Act of 1766, ch. 10, with a saving of the rights of those who had previously taken out such writs. In Baugher v. Crane, 27 Md. 36, the Court intimated that the former strictness of the common law in regard to alterations of the demised premises by the tenant had been modified in this country, but held that a material injury to the building by such acts was waste, and the case of Maddox, &c., v. White, 4 Md. 79, was approved, where the conversion of the building by the tenant to uses inconsistent with the terms of the contract, and the making material alterations for such purposes were considered waste, see Doe v. Bond, 5 B. & C. 855. |
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Alexander's British statutes in force in Maryland. 2d ed., 1912
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