1843. DOE d. Governors of v. NORTON. ing for some other interpretation. Now it is to be ob- Exch. of Pleas, served, that what the preamble states as expedient to be done, is not to affect the ownership of charity estates, but only to keep the administration of them distinct from that of the borough fund; and for this purpose it certainly would not be matter of necessity that the legal interest should be affected. The subsequent enactment was assumed in the argument to be, that all the estate and interest of the corporation in the charity lands should be transferred to the individuals who, at the time of the passing of the act, constituted the body corporate, and should so continue until the 1st of August, 1836, and should then cease. This, however, is by no means the necessary meaning of the words used: by reading the words all the estate, &c., and all the powers, &c., as under a vinculum, the whole sentence, i. e., the estate, &c., as well as the powers, &c., will have reference to the latter words, "in respect of the said uses and trusts;" and the meaning will then be, that the estate and interest in the trust only, and not in the legal estate, shall continue in those in whom it was then vested. The language, it must be admitted, is far from clear, and might, if the context so required, have been taken to transfer the legal estate in the lands affected by the trusts; but we thus see that it may also be taken to refer to the charitable trust only, i. e., the right or duty of administering the fund; and this, as it appears to us, is all which was meant, and is, consequently, the construction which we adopt. The clause, thus construed, presents nothing obscure or incongruous. For a short period the administration of the trusts is left in the hands of those who would, for the most part, have been previously administering them; and after the lapse of a few months, the whole management is made to devolve on the Lord Chancellor. These are provisions plain in themselves, easy to be acted upon, and well calculated to effect all which the preamble states as being expedient. Whereas on the con 1843. DOE BRISTOL HOSPITAL v. NORTON. Exch. of Pleas, struction contended for by the defendant, we are driven to impute to the legislature the anomalous intention, first, of vesting the fee simple in an indefinite, unascertained numGovernors of ber of persons, and then, after the lapse of a few months, destroying the interest of those persons, without pointing out what was to become of the fee from that time. No doubt but that, even on that construction, the Lord Chancellor would have the power of getting in the legal fee, but this could only be done by means of a petition or bill in Chancery, entailing on the charity costs, without, as we can discover, any benefit whatever; and these considerations well warrant us in endeavouring to find some other meaning fairly attributable to the language used. It does not appear to us that the case of Bignold v. Springfield (a), referred to by the defendant, assists him in his view of this case. The only point really in dispute there was, whether the powers given to the Lord Chancellor came into operation on the 1st of August, 1836. The House of Lords decided that they did; and it will be seen that Tindal, C. J., in delivering the opinion of the Judges, does not say that any estate ceased or was derested on the 1st of August, 1836, but that the administration of the charity estates, given by the clause in question, ceased on that day: a construction of the clause in strict accordance with our opinion. The only further argument of the defendant which it remains to notice, is that which was founded on the Irish Municipal Act, which was passed in the year 1840, 3 & 4 Vict. c. 108. The 112th section of that act makes provision for charitable trusts similar or nearly similar to those in the English act. But in the Irish act express provision is made as to the legal estate, and the difficulties which had occurred on this subject in the English act are met and obviated. We do not, however, think that any reliance is (a) 7 Clarke & Fin. 71. Exch. of Pleas, 1843. DOE d. BRISTOL HOSPITAL V. NORTON. to be placed on this circumstance. The Irish act did not become law until a year after the decision in Bignold v. Springfield in the House of Lords; and as C. J. Tindal had in that case pointed out to the attention of the House, that Governors of the clause in the English act was so framed as to give rise to difficulties in its construction, it was very natural, that in making provisions on a similar subject in a subsequent year, the legislature should take care to avoid all ambiguity, and so to word the clause as to prevent the occurrence of those difficulties which the Chief Justice had alluded to. The Irish act, indeed, goes further than the English, by at once vesting the legal estate in the charity trustees; a provision which is certainly very convenient, but which unfortunately does not exist in the clause now under our consideration. The English act must be construed in the same way as if the Irish act had never passed: and for the reasons we have given, we think that, according to its true construction, the legal estate is, and always has been, where it was at the time of the passing of the act; consequently, that the plaintiff is entitled to judgment on the demise from the corporation. Judgment for the plaintiff. See ATTORNEY, III. Costs of Legal Proceedings against In an action for running down a Semble, that the proper question the signature to it was "Cha". Ed. The affidavit was intitled, "In the AGREEMENT. See BANKRUPTCY, II. (2). Assumpsit on a guarantee. Plea, |