upon condition that the devisee shall not alien, the condition is void."

The law at the present day is the same, and may be stated to be that a condition in general restraint of alienation, or that the grantee shall not alien during his life, is void. With regard to conditions imposing partial restraints upon alienation, the authorities are, however, not at one. A long line of cases holds that a condition imposing a partial restraint as to time, so long as the time is not unreasonably long, will be sustained. Cornelius v. Ivins, 2 Dutch. 376.

ID., 136. An estate granted on condition, until it is forfeited for a breach thereof, differs in no respect from an estate absolute of the same extent, and may be used and enjoyed in precisely the same manner, except so far as the condition itself expressly curtails the free use and enjoyment of the land.

GRAY, PERPETUITIES, § 282, note. In the time of Lord Coke words of condition restraining the use of land, although manifestly imposed for the benefit of other land in the neighborhood, would undoubtedly have been deemed to create a condition enforceable by entry. In England, however, for nearly, if not quite, two centuries, the remedy by entry for breach of condition attached to a conveyance in fee simple has been practically obsolete. In mortgages all remedies have been had in equity, and if in devises clauses in the form of a condition have been inserted to secure the payment of legacies to the heir or third persons, the right to such legacies has not been enforced by entry. The practice of entry undoubtedly fell into disuse, because when the condition was for the payment of money, which it generally was, equity would restrain a forfeiture, and would in many cases enforce the payment as a trust. Yet it was a bold statement for Sugden to make in his treatise on Powers (1st ed.), 96 (1808), "That what by the old law. was deemed a devise upon condition would now, perhaps, in almost every case, be construed a devise in fee upon trust,

and by this construction, instead of the heir taking advantage of the condition broken, the cestui que trust can compel an observance of the trust by a suit in equity." But this statement, which is repeated by the learned author in all the subsequent editions-see 8th ed., p. 106 (1861)—though bold, was prophetic. In 1860 the Court of Queen's Bench and on appeal the Exchequer Chamber, held, in the case of Wright v. Wilkin, 2 B. & S. 232, 259, that upon a devise on condition that the devisee should pay certain legacies, the heir could not enter for breach of condition, but that the devisee took the land on trust; and this view was adopted by the House of Lords in A. G. v. Wax Chandlers' Co., L. R. 6 H. L. I (1873). The same doctrine has been adopted in the Supreme Court of the United States, after elaborate argument, in Stanley v. Colt, 5 Wall. 119. So in Massachusetts. Sohier v. Trinity Church, 109 Mass. 1, 19; Episcopal City Mission v. Appleton, 117 Mass. 326; Ayling v. Kramer, 133 Mass. 12. To the same effect is Fuller v. Arms, 45 Vt. 400. And in Connecticut it is said that all conditions which are not for the benefit of some individual or the public are void. Mitchell v. Leavitt, 30 Conn. 587. And see Barrie v. Smith, 47 Mich. 130. But see Blanchard v. Detroit, &c., R. R. Co., 31 Mich. 43; Underhill v. Saratoga R. R. Co., 20 Barb. 455; Aikin v. Albany, &c., R. R. Co., 26 Barb. 289; Douglas v. Hawes, Ritchie, Eq., Dec. 146, 152.

IV. Future Estates.

CHAPTER I.

PRESENT AND FUTURE ESTATES.

2 BL. COм., 163. Hitherto we have considered estates solely with regard to their duration, or the quantity of interest which the owners have therein. We are now to consider them in another view; with regard to the time of their enjoyment, when the actual pernancy of the profits (that is, the taking, perception, or receipt, of the rents and other advantages arising therefrom) begins. Estates therefore with respect to this consideration, may either be in possession, or in expectancy; and of expectancies there are two sorts; one created by the act of the parties, called a remainder; the other by act of law, and called a reversion.

Of estates in possession (which are sometimes called estates executed, whereby a present interest passes to and resides in the tenant, not depending on any subsequent circumstance or contingency, as in the case of estate executory), there is little or nothing peculiar to be observed. All the estates we have hitherto spoken of are of this kind; for in laying down general rules, we usually apply them to such estates as are then actually in the tenant's possession. But the doctrine of estates in expectancy contains some of the nicest and most abstruse learning in the English law.

LEAKE, LAND LAW, 45-49. In the common law of freehold tenure seisin signifies the possession of the fee or freehold estate; the freeholder was described in law as seised, or invested with the seisin. The tenant in the actual possession or seisin was presumptively seised of an estate in fee

simple. If entitled only for a particular estate, he held the seisin not only in his own right, but also in right of all the estates in reversion or remainder under the same title; the owners of which participated in the seisin in order of succession, and were described as seised in reversion or in remainder; for the actual seisin represented the fee, or all the estates into which it might be subdivided.

The seisin, as representing the fee, was also used as the means of conveyance. Feoffment or the conveyance of a freehold estate was effected by livery of seisin, that is, by an actual delivery of possession. This originally constituted the efficient and essential act of conveyance, words being required only to explain the act, and, when necessary, to limit and direct the estates for which it was intended the seisin should be held.

A feoffment might be made with an express appropriation of the seisin to a series of estates in the form of particular estate and remainders, and the livery to the immediate tenant was then effectual to transfer the seisin to or on behalf of all the tenants in remainder, according to the estates limited. But future estates could only be limited in the form of remainders, and any limitations operating to shift the seisin otherwise than as remainders expectant upon the determination of the preceding estate were void at common law. Thus, upon a feoffment, with livery of seisin, to 4. for life or in tail, and upon the determination of his estate to B., the future limitation takes effect as a remainder immediately expectant upon A.'s estate. But upon a feoffment to A. in fee or for life, and after one year to B. in fee— or to A. in fee, and upon his marriage to B. in fee-or to A. in fee or for life, and, upon B. paying A. a sum of money, to B. in fee-the limitations shifting the seisin from A. to B. at the times and in the events specified, as they could not take effect as remainders, were wholly void at common law. Such limitations became possible in dealing with uses and in dispositions by will, as will appear hereafter.

The exigencies of tenure required that the seisin or im

mediate freehold should never be in abeyance, but that there should at all times be a tenant invested with the seisin ready, on the one hand, to meet the claims of the lord for the duties and services of the tenure, and, on the other hand, to meet adverse claims to the seisin, and to preserve it for the successors in the title.

This rule had important effects upon the creation of freehold estates; for it followed as an immediate consequence of the rule, as also from the nature of the essential act of conveyance by livery of seisin, that a grant of the freehold could not be made to commence at a future time, leaving the tenancy vacant during the interval. "Livery of seisin must pass a present freehold to some person and cannot give a freehold in futuro." "If a man makes a lease for life to begin at Michaelmas it is void, for he cannot make present livery to a future estate, and therefore in such case nothing passes."

As a consequence of the same rule if a feoffment were made to A. for life and after his death and one day after to B. for life or in fee, the limitation to B. was void, because it would leave the freehold without a tenant or in abeyance for a day after the death of A.

The seisin or freehold in remainder might be in abeyance during the continuance of the particular estate; for the present seisin of the tenant of that estate was sufficient to satisfy all the requirements of tenure, and it represented and supported all the future estates and interests in the fee.

Accordingly, a remainder might be limited to take effect upon a condition, or in a person not ascertained, as an unborn child, so as to be in abeyance or uncertainty until the condition happened or the person became ascertained. Such a limitation was good and might remain in uncertainty so long as the particular estate continued, as it was supported by the seisin of that estate. But it was essential that it should have become certain and absolute at the time when 'Co. Litt. 217, a; 5 Co. 94, b, Barwick's Case.