“ As a legal term, the action of distraining or distraint, the right which a landlord has of seizing the personal chattels of his tenant for non-payment of rent. Cattle damage feasant (doing damage or trespassing upon a neighbour’s land) may also be distrained, i.e. may be detained until satisfaction be rendered for injury they have done. The cattle or other animals thus distrained are a mere pledge in the hands of the injured person, who has only power to retain them until the owner appear to make satisfaction for the mischief they have done. ”

“ The defaulting tenant is a “wrong-doer,” the landlord is the “injured party,”; any attempt to defeat the landlord’s remedy by carrying off distrainable goods is denounced as “fraudulent and knavish.” The operation of the law has, as we shall point out, been mitigated in some important respects, but it still remains an almost unique specimen of one-sided legislation.
At common law distress was said to be incident to rent service, and by particular reservation to rent charges; but by 4 Geo. II. c. 28 it was extended to rent seck, rents of assize and chief rents (see Rent) . ”