to keep watch and ward, and to apprehend offenders 6. Surveyors of the highways are officers appointed annually in every parish; to remove annoyances in, and to direct the reparation of, the public roads 7. Overseers of the poor are officers appointed annually in every parish; to relieve such impotent, and employ such sturdy poor, as are settled in each parish, by birth; -by parentage ;-by marriage; or by forty days' residence, accompanied with, 1. Notice. II. Renting a tenement of ten pounds annual value. III. Paying their assessed taxations. IV. Serving an annual office. V. Hiring and serving for a year. VI. Apprenticeship for seven years. VII. Having a sufficient estate in the parish CHAPTER X. Page 355 357 359-365 1. The people, whether aliens, denizens, or natives, are also either clergy, that is, all persons in holy orders, or in ecclesiastical offices; or laity, which comprehends the rest of the nation 2. The clerical part of the nation, thus defined, are, I. Archbishops and bishops; who are elected by their several chapters, at the nomination of the crown, and afterwards confirmed and consecrated by each other. II. Deans and chapters. III. Archdeacons. IV. Rural deans. V. Parsons, (under whom are included appropriators) and vicars; to whom there are generally requisite, holy orders, presentation, institution, and induction. VI. Curates. To which may be added, VII. Churchwardens. VIII. Parish clerks and sextons 376 CHAPTER XII. OF THE CIVIL STATE 377-395 396 to 407 1. The laity are divisible into three states; civil, military, and maritime 396 2. The civil state, which includes all the nation except the clergy, the army, and the navy; (and many individuals among them also); may be divided into the nobility, and the commonalty 3. The nobility are dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons. These had antiently duties annexed to their respective honours: they are created either by writ, that is, by summons to parliament; or by the king's letters patent, that is, by royal grant: and they enjoy many privileges, exclusive of their senatorial capacity Page 396 396-402 4. The commonalty consist of knights of the garter, knights bannerets, baronets, knights of the bath, knights bachelors, esquires, gentlemen, yeomen, tradesmen, artificers, and labourers. CHAPTER XIII. 403-407 1. The military state, by the standing constitutional law, consists of the militia of each county, raised from among the people by lot, officered by the principal landholders, and commanded by the lord lieutenant 2. The more disciplined occasional troops of the kingdom are kept on foot only froin year to year, by parliament; and, during that period, are governed by martial law, or arbitrary articles of war, formed at the pleasure of the crown 3. The maritime state consists of the officers and mariners of the British navy; who are governed by express and permanent laws, or the articles of the navy, established by act of parliament CHAPTER XIV. OF MASTER AND SERVANT 408 412 417 422 to 431 1. The private, economical, relations of persons are those of, 1. Master and servant. II. Husband and wife. III. Parent and child. IV. Guardian and ward 2. The first relation may subsist between a master and four species of servants (for slavery is unknown to our laws): viz. I. Menial servants, who are hired. 11. Apprentices, who are bound by indentures. III. Labourers, who are casually employed. IV. Stewards, bailiffs, and factors; who are rather in a ministerial state 3. From this relation result divers powers to the master, and emoluments to the servant 1. The second private relation is that of marriage: which includes the reciprocal rights and duties of husband and wife 2. Marriage is duly contracted between persons, I. Consenting. II. Free from canonical impediments which make it voidable. III. Free also from the civil impediments, of prior marriage; of want of age ;-of non-consent of parents or guardians, where requisite; and of want of reason; either of which make it totally void. And it must be celebrated by a clergyman in due form and place 433 433-440 3. Marriage is dissolved, I. By death. II. By divorce in the spiritual court; not a mensa et thoro only, but a vinculo matrimonii, for canonical cause existing previous to the contract. III. By act of parliament, as, for adultery 4. By marriage the husband and wife become one person in law; which unity is the principal foundation of their respective rights, duties, and disabili 440 442 CHAPTER XVI. ties OF PARENT AND CHILD 446 to 459 1. The third, and most universal privete relation is that of parent and child 446 2. Children are, 1. Legitimate; being those who are born in lawful wedlock, or within a competent time after. II. Bastards, being those who are not so 3. The duties of parents to legitimate children are, I. Maintenance. II. Protection. III. Education 4. The power of parents consists principally in correction, and consent to marriage. Both may, after death, be delegated by will to a guardian; and the former also, living the parent, to a tutor or master 5. The duties of legitimate children to parents are obedience, protection, and maintenance 446 447 452 453 6. The duty of parents to bastards is only that of maintenance 458 459 7 The rights of a bastard are such only as he can acquire; for he is incapable of inheriting any thing II. Guardians for nurture, assigned by the ordinary. III. Guardians in socage, assigned by the common law. IV. Guardians by statute, assigned by the father's will. All subject to the superintendence of the Court of Chancery 3. Full age in male or female, for al purposes, is the age of twenty-one years (different ages being allowed for different purposes); till which age the person is an infant 4. An infant, in respect to his tender years, hath various privileges, and various disabilities in law; chiefly with regard to suits, crimes, estates, and 3. Corporations are also either spiritual, erected to perpetuate the rights of the church; or lay. And the lay are, I. Civil; erected for many temporal purposes. II. Eleemosynary; erected to perpetuate the charity of the founder 470-1 4. Corporations are usually erected, and named, by virtue of the king's royal charter; but may be created by act of parliament 5. The powers incident to all corporations are, I. To maintain perpetual succession. II. To act in their corporate capacity like an individual. III. To hold lands, subject to the statutes of mortmain. IV. To have a common seal. V. To make by-laws. Which last power, in spiritual, or eleemosynary corporations, may be executed by the king or the founder 4 6. The duty of corporations is to answer the ends of their institution 7. To enforce this duty, all corporations may be visited: spiritual corporations by the ordinary; lay corporations by the founder, or his representatives; viz. the civil by the king (who is the fundator incipiens of all) represented in his court of King's Beuch; the eleemosynary by the endower (who is the fundator perficiens of such), or by his heirs or assigns 8. Corporations may be dissolved, I. By act of parliament. II. By the natural death of all their members. III. By surrender of their franchises. IV. By forfeiture of their charter 472 475 479 480 484 BOOK II-OF THE RIGHTS OF THINGS. CHAPTER 1. Page 2 to 14 OF PROPERTY, IN GENERAL 1. All dominion over external objects has its original from the gift of the Creator to man in general 2. The substance of things was, at first, common to all mankind; yet a temporary property in the use of them might even then be acquired and continued by occupancy 3. In process of time a permanent property was established in the substance, as well as the use of things; which was also originally acquired by occupancy only 4. Lest this property should determine by the owner's dereliction, or death, whereby the thing would again become common, societies have established conveyances, wills, and heirships, in order to continue the property of the first occupant: and, where by accident such property becomes discontinued or unknown, the thing usnally results to the sovereign of the state, by virtue of the municipal law 5. But of some things, which are incapable of permanent substantial dominion, there still subsists only the same transient usufructuary property, which originally subsisted in all things CHAPTER II. OF REAL PROPERTY, AND, 2 3 4,5 9-11 14 1st. OF CORPOREAL HEREDITAMENTS 16 to 18 1. In this property, or exclusive doininion, consist the rights of things; which are, I. Things real. II. Things personal 2. In things real may be considered, L. Their several kinds. II. The tenures by which they may be holden. III. The estates which may be acquired therein. IV. Their title, or the means of acquiring and losing them 3. All the several kinds of things real are reducible to one of these three, viz. lands, tenements, or hereditaments; whereof the second includes the first, and the third includes the first and second 4 Hereditaments, therefore, or whatever may come to be inherited (being the most comprehensive denomination of things real), are either corporeal or incorporeal 16 16 16 17 2. Incorporeal hereditaments are, 1. Advowsons. 1. Tithes. IH. Commons. IV. Ways. V. Offices. VI. Dignities. VII. Franchises. VIII. Corodies or pensions. IX. Annuities. X. Rents 21-41 3. An advowson is a right of presentation to an ecclesiastical benefice; either appendant, or in gross. This may be, L. Presentative. II. Collative. III. Donative 4. Tithes are the tenth part of the increase yearly arising from the profits and stock of lands, and the personal industry of mankind. These, by the antient and positive law of the land, are due of common right to the parson, or (by endowment) to the vicar; unless specially discharged, 1. By real composition. H. By prescription, either de modo decimandi, or de non decimando 21-23 5. Cominon is a profit which a man hath in the lands of another; being, I. Common of pasture; which is either appendant, appurtenant, because of vicinage, or in gross. H. Common of piscary. III. Common of turbary. IV. Common of estovers, or botes 6. Ways are a right of passing over another man's ground 7. Offices are the right to exercise a public, or private, employment 8. For dignities, which are titles of honour, see Book 1. Ch. XII. 24-31 32-35 35 36 37 9. Franchises are a royal privilege, or branch of the king's prerogative, subsisting in the hands of a subject 10. Corodies are allotments for one's sustenance; which may be converted into pensions. (See Book I. Ch. VIII.) 40 11. An annuity is a yearly sum of money, charged upon the person, and not upon the lands, of the grantor 12. Rents are a certain profit issuing yearly out of lands and tenements; and are reducible to, 1. Rent-service. 11. Rent-charge. III. Rent-seck 5. Corporeal hereditaments consist CHAPTER III. OF INCORPOREAL HEREDITAMENTS 20 to 42 1. Incorporeal hereditaments are rights 3. These were granted by investiture; were held under the bond of fealty; were inheritable only by descendants; 44-5 15 and could not be transferred without the mutual consent of the lord and vassal 4. Lamproper fends were derived from the other: but differed from them in their original, their services and renders, their descent, and other circumstances 5. The lands of England were converted into feuds, of the improper kind, soon after the Norman conquest: which gave rise to the grand maxim of tenure; viz. that all lands in the kingdom are holden, mediately or immediately, of the king CHAPTER V. Page aids, primer seisin, and fines for 53-57 4. Pure villenage was a precarious and 58 5. From hence, by tacit consent or en- 48-53 6. These are subject, like socage lands, 61 to 77 OF THE ANTIENT ENGLISH TENURES 1. The distinction of tenures consisted in the nature of their services: as, I. Chivalry, or knight-service; where the service was free, but uncertain. II. Free socage; where the service was free, and certain. III. Pure villenage; where the service was base, and uncertain. IV. Privileged villenage, or villein socage; where the service was base, but certain 2. The most universal antient tenure was that in chivalry, or by knightservice; in which the tenant of every knight's fee was bound, if called upon, to attend his lord to the wars. This was granted by livery, and perfected by homage and fealty; which usually drew after them suit of court 61-78 62 7. Privileged villenage, or villein socage, 8. These copyholds, of antient demesne, 9. Frankalmoign is a tenure by spiritual CHAPTER VII. OF FREEHOLD ESTATES OF INHERIT ANCE Page 86-89 93 95 97 99 100 101 103 to 117 74 2. Estates, with respect to their quantity 77 78 to 101 1. Free socage is a tenure by any free, certain, and determinate service 2. This tenure, the relic of Saxon liberty, includes petit serjeanty, tenure in burgage, and gavel-kind 3. Free socage lands partake strongly of the feodal nature, as well as those in chivalry: being holden; subject to some service, at the least, to fealty and suit of court; subject to relief, to wardship, and to escheat, but not to marriage; subject also formerly to 78 81 3. A freehoid estate, in lands, is such as 4. Freehold estates are either estates of fees 5. Tenant in fee-simple is he that hath 6. Limited fees are, I. Qualified, or 104 104 104. 104 109 7. Qualified, or base, fees are those |