purchased from Cobb, and that all the parties to the contract of purchase were to receive the benefit of said commission in proportion to the amount of stock which they held in the Kankakee Electric Railway Company, and Charles H. Risser testified Patton informed him that all the purchasers of said properties were to receive the benefit of said commission. From a careful examination of this record we are of the opinion that the findings of the chancellor, as incorporated in the decree, are supported by the great weight of the testimony and that they should be sustained. The decree of the circuit court will therefore be affirmed. JOHN W. FUNSTON, Appellee, vs. Harmon Hoffman, Appellant. Opinion filed February 20, 1908. I. APPEALS AND ERRORS-when a freehold is involved. In an action at law for damages to plaintiff's crops, caused by defendant's taking up tile on his land with which plaintiff's tile was connected, if the plaintiff asserts and the defendant denies a perpetual easement of drainage and the decision of the case rests upon the determination of that question, which is raised by the assignment of errors, a freehold is involved and the Supreme Court has jurisdiction of a direct appeal. 2. DRAINAGE land owner cannot claim some other owner has not consented to constructing ditch. A land owner who consents to the construction of a system of drains on his land as an outlet for drains from other lands is estopped to deny the existence of a perpetual easement of drainage, under the statute relating to drains by mutual consent, upon the ground that the consent of the owner of some intermediate tract in the system was not legally obtained. 3. SAME-party cannot claim benefit of drain unless other parties have consented to his use of it. Before a land owner can claim a perpetual easement of drainage through drains constructed by mutual agreement of other land owners he must have had the consent of the other owners to connect with and use the drains; and the question whether such consent was given is a question of fact for the jury, under proper instructions. 4. SAME when tenant cannot recover for injury to crops after renewing lease. A tenant from year to year who renews his lease after an adjoining land owner has taken up his tile with which the leased land was connected, and after knowledge as to how such action has already damaged the crops on the leased land, cannot recover from such adjoining owner for injury to the crops from such source during the year for which the lease was renewed. 5. EVIDENCE-evidence of damages must be confined to damages for which defendant is liable. In an action by a tenant against an adjoining owner for injury to crops for two successive years, due to the defendant's act in taking up tile on his land, if the tenancy was from year to year and the lease for the second year was made after the plaintiff knew of the injurious effect of the defendant's act, the defendant is entitled to have the evidence of damages confined to the injury to the crops for the first year. 6. SAME what evidence is not admissible in action for injury to crops. In an action for injury to plaintiff's crops from flooding of his lands, alleged to be due to defendant's act in taking up tile on his land with which plaintiff's tile was connected and plugging up the outlet, evidence that other lands not connected with the drain were flooded that year and the crops thereon damaged is not admissible; nor is it proper to prove that more than a year after the injury the plaintiff's tile was flowing freely. VICKERS, J., specially concurring. APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Moultrie county; the Hon. W. G. COCHRAN, Judge, presiding. This was an action on the case brought by appellee in the circuit court of Moultrie county, against appellant, for damages to appellee's crops in 1905 and 1906, caused by the appellant having removed certain tiling through which passed the water drained from the land appellee was cultivating as a tenant of Jacob Dumond. The jury found for appellee and assessed his damages at $400. Appeal is now prosecuted to this court. It appears from the evidence that appellant, since some time before 1890, had owned the land upon which was situated the outlet of the tile drain in question. At about that date the next tract east of his land was owned by the heirs of one Isaac Smith, deceased. The tract east of that was owned by one Ascherman, and the tract east of Ascherman's was owned by Jacob Dumond. It appears that Ascherman desired to drain his land, by means of tiling, into an outlet on Hoffman's land, and asked and received permission from Hoffman to cross his land, and from Dumond, the administrator of Smith, to cross the Smith tract with the drain. As a part of the agreement with Dumond it seems that Ascherman agreed, in consideration of $100 paid him by Dumond and the latter's consent, as administrator, to crossing the Smith land, that Dumond might connect to the tile drain two tile drains from his own farm. Said tile drains were so connected, and for some fifteen years or more before the acts herein complained of, discharged the water from the Dumond tract, through the tile drain built in accordance with the permission heretofore spoken of, across the Ascherman, Smith and Hoffman tracts, into the outlet on the latter tract. In 1905 Hoffman caused the tiles composing the portion of the drain on his tract to be taken up and the mouth of the tiling where it entered his land to be plugged. Appellee, Funston, had been renting Dumond's farm for a number of years and had planted it mostly in corn. On account of the drainage being cut off, the water collected in two or more natural depressions on the farm cultivated by him and drowned out the corn grown in such depressions for the years 1905 and 1906. This caused the loss for which he recovered the judgment here in question. A. J. MYERS, JOHN E. JENNINGS, and W. K. WHITFIELD, for appellant. JOHN R. EDEN, J. K. MARTIN, and E. J. MIller, for appellee. Mr. JUSTICE CARTER delivered the opinion of the court: A motion by appellee to dismiss the appeal in this case on the ground that no freehold was involved was taken with the case. The issues involved necessarily require this court to determine the existence or non-existence of a perpetual easement in the land of appellant. Such an easement is a freehold interest. (Wessels v. Colebank, 174 Ill. 618; Oswald v. Wolf, 126 id. 542; Chronic v. Pugh, 136 id. 539.) Appellee based his right of recovery upon the existence of a perpetual easement over the lands of appellant. The existence of this easement was denied by appellant and his assignments of error question its existence. This appeal therefore involves a freehold, and the motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction must be overruled. The contention is made that the court erred in not directing a verdict at the conclusion of all the evidence. It is insisted that there is no proof in the record that appellant gave his consent to the construction of the drain in question with knowledge that the tiling from Dumond's land was to be connected therewith. Whether or not appellant knew that Dumond and Ascherman had made the agreement above set forth to connect their drains is not clear from the record. Ascherman testifies that he supposed the appellant knew that fact, although he does not remember that he stated it to him directly in terms, and the latter testifies positively that Ascherman said nothing about Dumond connecting with this tile. The evidence heard tends to show that appellant received notice that the Dumond and Ascherman drains were connected, if he did not already know it, some three years before he took up this tile. There is some controversy, however, as to the exact time when this information was received and its character. We think that some of the surrounding facts and circumstances tend slightly to show that the appellant knew, at the time Ascherman's drain was built, that Dumond's drain was to be connected with it. There seems to be no dispute in the evidence as to Dumond's land naturally draining westerly across the Ascherman, Smith and Hoffman tracts. We do not think the court erred in refusing to take the case from the jury on the ground that there was no proof of consent by appellant. The further contention is made that the motion to direct a verdict should have been sustained on the ground that there is no evidence that an easement existed over the tract immediately east of the Hoffman tract, which, at the time the drain was put in, was owned by the Smith heirs. The evidence tends to show that Ascherman bought the Smith tract at an administrator's sale shortly after the drain was put in, and that a year or two before this suit was commenced he sold both tracts, the one he originally owned and the one so purchased,—to Reuben Daugherty. The evidence shows that the only consent that was given to construct a drain across the Smith forty at the time it was made was given by Dumond, as administrator of the estate. The statute of 1889 (Hurd's Stat. 1905, sec. 1, p. 832,) provides for the construction of either open or covered drains "by mutual license, consent or agreement of the owner or owners of adjoining or adjacent lands, either separately or jointly, so as to make a continuous line upon, over or across the lands of said several owners." Appellant argues that this statute contemplates the consent of the owners of the fee, either in person or by some duly authorized agent. But even if this contention be correct, (which we do not now pass upon,) appellant is in no position to take advantage of the point raised. At the time he gave his consent to Ascherman to drain into his land across the Smith forty no question was raised as to the legal right to build the drain across the Smith forty. Appellant does not deny that he consented that the drain could be extended from this forty across his land and into an open ditch thereon. He had the authority to consent to this arrangement. To permit him now to raise the objection that |