case he will still get a judgment for the amount paid him, and hold it over his head as in the case of any other insolvent debtor. Technically too this action can only be sustained upon an implied contract of the infant to repay money received in infancy, which the law has always refused to allow. The right of the other party to recover chattels given the infant in exchange or payment, after the infant's revocation of the transaction, rests on a different footing. (Badger v. Phinney, 15 Mass. 359; 8 Am. Dec. 105.) An infant's contract will not be validated by fraudulent representations inducing the vendor to sell (Studwell v. Shapter, 54 N. Y. 249); nor fraud in representing himself of age. (Sims v. Eberhart, 102 U. S. 300.) But this may constitute a cause of action for the tort, though it will not estop him from repudiating the contract (Brown v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co. 117 Mass. 479); nor will he be estopped from repudiating a note and mortgage given for borrowed money to one who he knew believed him to be of full age (Baker v. Stone, 136 Mass. 405); but when the possession itself of the goods is obtained by fraud in the contract, e. g., by giving a fraudulent check, he will be liable (as an adult would be) in case or trover. (Mathews v. Cowan, 59 Ill. 341.) As a rule the rights and duties of third parties dealing with infants depend on the actual age of the infant, not on their knowledge of it. They cannot meet the plea of infancy by showing that they supposed the party to be of full age; nor does their knowledge of his infancy diminish rights they otherwise would possess. (Cassier v. Fales, 139 Mass. 461; 20 The Reporter, 208.) Even the infant's misrepresentation and fraud as to his age will not make him liable. (Aliter by statute in some states, e. g., Iowa.) In Knapp v. Crosby, 1 Mass. 479, where the costs on a writ of error were in the power of the court, and a judgment was set aside on the ground of defendant's infancy, costs were refused him because plaintiff did not know of his infancy. Infant's domicile is that of parents—father, if living (Cf. Wharton on Conflict of Laws, ? 41; Wheeler v. Burrow, 18 Ind. 14; Davis v. Davis, 30 Ill. 180), mother, if in charge of it (Jenness v. Jenness, 24 Ind. 355; 87 Am. Dec. 335); and that of father remains after his death till legally changed. (Pennsylvania v. Ravenel, 21 How. 103. Bastard has mother's domicile. (Eggleston v. Battles, 26 Vt. 548.) Quære, as to effect of legitimating statute as in Missouri with regard to null marriage? CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH. OF CORPORATIONS.* We have hitherto considered persons in their natural capacities, and have treated of their rights and duties. But, as all personal rights die with the person; and, as the necessary forms of investing a series of individuals, one after another, with the same identical rights, would be very inconvenient, if not impracticable; it has been found necessary, when it is for the advantage of the public to have any particular rights kept on foot and continued, to constitute artificial persons, who may maintain a perpetual succession,† and enjoy a kind of legal immortality.‡ ? These artificial persons are called bodies politic, bodies corporate (corpora corporata), or corporations of which there is a great variety subsisting, for the advancement of religion, of learning, and of commerce; || in order to preserve entire and forever those rights and immunities, which, if they were granted only to those individuals of which the body corporate is composed, would upon their death be utterly lost and extinct.¶ To shew the advantages of these incorporations, let us consider the case of a college in either of our universities, founded ad studendum et orandum, for the encouragement and support of religion and learning. If this was a mere voluntary assembly, the individuals which compose it might indeed read, pray, study, and perform scholastic exercises together, so long as they *Cited, 3 Ohio St. 458. +-+ Quoted, 4 Hill, 406. could agree to do so: but they [468] could neither frame, nor receive any laws or rules of their conduct; none at least, which would have any binding force, for want of a coercive power to create a sufficient obligation. Neither could they be capable of retaining any privileges or immunities: for, if such privileges be attacked, which of all this unconnected assembly has the right, or ability, to defend them? And, when they are dispersed by death or otherwise, how shall they transfer these advantages to another set of students, equally unconnected as themselves? So also, with regard to holding estates or other property, if land be granted for the purposes of religion or learning to twenty individuals not incorporated, there is no legal way of continuing the property to any other persons for the same purposes, but by endless conveyances from one to the other, as often as the hands are changed. But when they are consolidated and united into a corporation, they and their successors are then considered as one person in law: †as one person, they have one will, which is collected from the sense of the majority of the individuals: this one will may establish rules and orders for the regulation of the whole, which are a sort of municipal laws of this little republic; † or rules and statutes may be prescribed to it at it's creation, which are then in the place of natural laws: the privileges and immunities, the estates and possessions, of the corporation, when once vested in them, will be forever vested, without any new conveyance to new successions; for all the individual members that have existed from the foundation to the present time, or that shall ever hereafter exist, are but one person in law, a person that never dies: in like manner as the river Thames is still the same river, though the parts which compose it are changing every instant.‡ * Cited, 34 Iowa, 177; 4 Wheat. 668; Bright. N. P. 370; 1 Ark. 543. The honour of originally inventing these political constitutions entirely belongs to the Romans. They were introduced, as Plutarch says, by Numa; who finding upon his accession, the city torn to pieces by the two rival factions of Sabines and Romans, thought it a prudent and politic measure to subdivide these two into many smaller ones, by [469] instituting separate societies of every manual trade and profession. They were afterwards much considered by the civil law,a in which they were called universitates, as forming one whole out of many individuals; or collegia, from being gathered together: they were adopted also by the canon law, for the maintenance of ecclesiastical discipline; and from them our spiritual corporations are derived. But our laws have considerably refined and improved upon the invention, according to the usual genius of the English nation: particularly with regard to sole corporations, consisting of one person only, of which the Roman lawyers had no notion; their maxim being that "tres faciunt collegium." Though they held, that if a corporation, originally consisting of three persons, be reduced to one, "si universitas ad unum redit," it may still subsist as a corporation, "et stet nomen universitatis."c Before we proceed to treat of the several incidents of corporations, as regarded by the laws of England, let us first take a view of the several sorts of them [see . note 44, page 844]; and then we shall be better enabled to apprehend their respective qualities. *The first division of corporations is into aggregate and sole. Corporations aggregate consist of many persons united together into one society, and are kept up by a perpetual succession of members, so as to continue forever: of which kind are the mayor and commonalty of a city, the head and fellows of a college, the dean and a Ff. 1. 3. t. 4. per tot. b Ff. 50. 16. 8. c Ff. 3. 4. 7. |