As to what the sonalty. hence, likewise, may be derived the frequent forfeitures inflicted by the common law, of all a man's goods and chattels, for misbehaviours and inadvertencies that at present hardly seem to deserve so severe a punishment. Our antient law-books, which are founded upon the feodal provisions, do not therefore often condescend to regulate this species of property. There is not a chapter in Britton or the Mirroir, that can fairly be referred to this head; and the little that is to be found in Glanvil, Bracton, and Fleta, seems principally borrowed from the civilians. But, of later years, since the introduction and extension of trade and commerce, which are entirely occupied in this species of property, and have greatly augmented its quantity and of course its value, we have learned to conceive different ideas of it. Our courts now regard a man's personalty in a light nearly, if not quite, equal to his realty: and have adopted a more enlarged and less technical mode of considering the one than the other; frequently drawn from the rules which they found already established by the Roman law, whereever those rules appeared to be well-grounded and apposite to the case in question, but principally from reason and convenience, adapted to the circumstances of the times; preserving withal a due regard to antient usages, and a certain feodal tincture, which is still to be found in some branches of personal property. But things personal, by our law, do not only include law deems per- things moveable, but also something more: the whole of which is comprehended under the general name of chattels, which, Sir Edward Coke says (a), is a French word signifying goods. The appellation is in truth derived from the technical Latin word catalla; which primarily signified only beasts of husbandry, or (as we still call them) cattle, but in its secondary sense was applied to all moveables in general (6). In the grand coustumier of Normandy (c), a chattel is described as a mere moveable, but at the same time it is set in opposition to a fief or feud: so that, not (b) Dufresne, II. 409. (c) C. 87. (a) 1 Inst. 118. only goods, but whatever was not a feud, were accounted chattels. And it is in this latter, more extended, negative sense, that our law adopts it; the idea of goods, or moveables only, being not sufficiently comprehensive to take in every thing that the law considers as a chattel interest. For since, as the commentator on the coustumier (d) observes, there are two requisites to make a fief or heritage, duration as to time, and immobility with regard to place; whatever wants either of these qualities is not, according to the Normans, an heritage or fief; or, according to us, is not a real estate: the consequence of which, in both laws is, that it must be a personal estate, or chattel. two kinds Chattels, therefore, are distributed by the law into two Chattels are of kinds; chattels real, and chattels personal (e). 1. Chattels real, saith Sir Edward Coke (ƒ), are such as 1. Chattels real. concern, or savour of, the realty; as, terms for years of land, wardships in chivalry (while the military tenures subsisted), the next presentation to a church, estates by statute-merchant, statute-staple, elegit, or the like; of all which we have already spoken. And these are called real chattels, as being interests issuing out of, or annexed to, real estates: of which they have one quality, viz. immobility, which denominates them real; but want the other, viz. a sufficient, legal indeterminate duration: and this want it is, that constitutes them chattels. The utmost period for which they can last, is fixed and determinate, either for such a space of time certain, or till such a particular sum of money be raised out of such a particular income; so that they are not equal in the eye of the law to the lowest estate of freehold, a lease for another's life: their tenants were considered upon feodal principles, as merely bailiffs or farmers; (d) Il conviendroit quil fust non mouuable et de duree a tousiours. fol. 107 a. (e) So too, in the Norman law, Caleur sont meubles et immeubles: sicomme vrais meubles sont qui transporter se peuvent, et ensuivir le corps; im meubles sont choses qui ne peuvent en- (f) 1 Inst. 118. and the tenant of the freehold might at any time have destroyed their interest, till the reign of Henry VIII. (g) (1). A freehold, which alone is a real estate, and seems (as has been said) to answer to the fief in Normandy, is conveyed [ *387] by corporal investiture and *livery of seisin (2); which gives the tenant so strong a hold of the land, that it never after can be wrested from him during his life, but by his own act, of voluntary transfer or of forfeiture; or else by the happening of some future contingency, as, in estates pur auter vie, and the determinable freeholds mentioned in a former chapter (h). And even these, being of an uncertain duration, may, by possibility, last for the owner's life; for the law will not presuppose the contingency to happen before it actually does, and till then the estate is, to all intents and purposes, a life-estate; and, therefore, a freehold interest. On the other hand, a chattel interest in lands, which the Normans put in opposition to fief, and we to freehold, is conveyed by no seisin or corporal investiture, but the possession is gained by the mere entry of the tenant himself; and it will certainly expire at a time prefixed and determined, if not sooner. Thus, a lease for years must necessarily fail at the end and completion of the term; the next presentation to a church is satisfied and gone the instant it comes into possession, that is, by the first avoidance and presentation to the living; the conditional estates by statutes and elegit are determined as soon as the debt is paid; and so guardianships in chivalry expired, of course, the moment that the heir came of age. And if there be any other chattel real, it will be found to correspond with the (g) See p. 142. (h) Page 120. (1) This, of course, must be understood as relating only to terms of years; and that, with some restrictions: the statute of Gloucester (passed in the 6th of Edw. I.) gave some, though not complete, protection to termors, (see ante, p. 142, note (5) to chap. 9. (2) See ante, p. 104, with notes (2) and (3) annexed thereto; and also note (8) to p. 143. rest in this essential quality, that its duration is limited to a time certain, beyond which it cannot subsist. sonal. 2. Chattels personal are, properly and strictly speaking, 2. Chattels per things moveable; which may be annexed to, or attendant on the person of the owner, and carried about with him from one part of the world to another. Such are animals, household stuff, money, jewels, corn, garments, and every thing else that can properly be put in motion, and transferred from place to place. And of this kind of chattels it is, that we are principally to speak in the remainder of this book; having been unavoidably led to consider the nature of chattels real, and their incidents, in the former chapters which were *employed upon real estates: that kind of property [ *388] being of a mongrel amphibious nature, originally endowed with one only of the characteristics of each species of things; the immobility of things real, and the precarious duration of things personal (3). Chattel interests being thus distinguished and distributed, it will be proper to consider, first, the nature of that property, or dominion, to which they are liable; which must be principally, nay solely, referred to personal chattels: and, secondly, the title to that property, or how it may be lost and acquired. Of each of these in its order. (3) See ante, p. 16, and note (2) annexed thereto. 389 CHAPTER XXV. OF PROPERTY IN THINGS PERSONAL. al may be either in action: the Property in PROPERTY, in chattels personal, may be either in possession; chattels person- which is where a man hath not only the right to enjoy, but in possession, or hath the actual enjoyment of, the thing: or else it is in acformer is divid- tion; where a man hath only a bare right, without any occupation or enjoyment. And of these the former, or property in possession, is divided into two sorts, an absolute and a qualified property. ed into two sorts: I. An absolute extends to all inanimate moveable chattels, and to all vegetable productions, when severed from the ground; I. First then, of property in possession absolute; which property, which is where a man hath, solely and exclusively, the right, and also the occupation, of any moveable chattels; so that they cannot be transferred from him, or cease to be his, without his own act or default. Such may be all inanimate things, as goods, plate, money, jewels, implements of war, garments, and the like: such also may be all vegetable productions, as the fruit or other parts of a plant, when severed from the body of it; or the whole plant itself, when severed from the ground; none of which can be moved out of the owner's possession without his own act or consent, or at least without doing him an injury, which it is the business of the law to prevent or remedy. Of these therefore there remains little to be said. And also to animals in their nature tame or domestic; but not to wild animals. But with regard to animals, which have in themselves a principle and power of motion, and (unless particularly confined) can convey themselves from one part of the world to another, there is a great difference made with respect to |