"In the matter of the piano now in question, what more right had the doctor to it than the major? what more right had the major to it than any one of the ten captains of the regiment? What more right had any captain to it than any one of the twenty lieutenants? or what more right had any lieutenant to it than any one of the one thousand privates? If it were a question of strength only, the strongest man in the regiment would finally gain the prize, even though he had to walk over the dead body of every other man in the regiment to gain it. The court thinks that even the doctor, though he had his hands full of scalpels, or the colonel, though a sword were suspended from every hair of his head, would shrink from a contest of this character! "Again, it should be borne in mind that, though property may have been abandoned temporarily by its owner, he may afterwards repent of such abandonment and reclaim possession. Bouvier, in his admirable '_Institutes of American Law_,' says: 'Things that have been abandoned by the owner belong to the first occupant; but if the owner should repent of having thrown away or abandoned the thing, _he may retake it before any one else, and he regains his former title_. To entitle the finder to such chattels, the former owner, must have wholly abandoned his title; if, as in the case of a wreck, he has parted with the possession on the ground of necessity, or with the evident intention of resuming it, the property has never been abandoned.' "Again, he says: 'The right of acquiring personal chattels by finding, is limited to those found upon the surface of the earth. It does not extend to goods found derelict at sea, though abandoned without hope of recovery, nor to goods or money found hidden in the earth, known by the name of _treasure trove_. In England such goods belong to the crown; in this country the title to them perhaps has been seldom questioned in the hands of the finder, except by the real owner. No title by occupancy can in this country be gained in waifs, or stolen goods thrown away or scattered by a thief in his flight, in order to effect his escape. In England they belong to the King; here this prerogative has never been adopted by the government against the true owner, and never, perhaps, put in practice against the finder, though against him there would be a better reason for adopting it. Nor can any title be gained by occupancy of estrays, or cattle whose owner is unknown, or of wrecks, or such goods as after a shipwreck are cast upon the land by the sea, and left there, within some county, so as not to belong to the jurisdiction of the admiralty, but to the common law.'