fully employed in apprehending and arresting any person accused of the crime of larceny or robbery, or as accessary therein, to seize and secure the money, goods or other articles, alleged to be stolen or to have been obtained by such larceny or robbery, and which shall be found in the possession of such accused person, or which shall be waived by him or her in flying from justice.

And of the money, goods, or other articles aforesaid, which shall be so found and secured, a true inventory or schedule shall be made in, or annexed to the return of such sheriff or other officer, upon the warrant or process, which shall have been issued for the arrest of any person accused as aforesaid; and such sheriff or other officer shall be accountable for the money, goods, or other articles thereby seized and secured.

And whenever the conviction of any person accused, shall be had upon the prosecution, and by the care and dilligence of the owner of any money, goods, or other articles, found and seized as aforesaid, such owner shall and may have restitution thereof immediately after such conviction, by an order in open court, or by a writ of restitution, as the case may require.

NOTE. For the law relating to RECEIVERS OF STOLEN GOODS, See title ACCESSARIES.

TITLE XCVI.

LEASES.

LEASE is properly a conveyance of any lands or tenements, (usually in consideration of rent or other annual recompense) made for life, for years, or at will; but always for a less time than the lessor hath in the premises for if it be for the whole interest, it is more properly an assignment than a lease. The usual words of operation in it are," demise, grant, and to farm let."

Leases for life or years must be in writing, otherwise, they will have the effect of estates at will only: for, by statute it is enacted, that all leases, estates, interests of freehold, or term of years, or any uncertain interests of, in, or out of, any messuages, lands, tenements or hereditaments, made and created by livery and seizin only, or by parole, and not put in writing, and signed by the parties so making or creating the same, or their agents. thereunto lawfully authorized by writing, shall have the force and effect of leases or estates at will only; and shall not, either in law or equity, be deemed or taken to have any other or greater force or effect; any consideration for making any such parole leases or estates, notwithstanding.

So also must the assignment or surrender of a lease be in writing for the same statute further provides, that no leases, estates, or interests, either of freehold or term of years, or any uncertain interests of, in, to, or out of, any messuages, lands, tenements, or hereditaments, shall, at any time, be assigned, granted or surrendered, unless it be by deed or note in writing, signed by the party so assigning, granting or surrendering the same, or their

2 Bl. Com. 317.

Stat. 1783, c. 37, s. 1.

Ibid.

Ibid. 122.

1bid. 123.

Ibid.

Ibid.

is absolutely determined and gone. Yet while it subsists, it is reckoned an estate for life; because the time for which it will endure being uncertain, it may, by possibility, last for life, if the contingency, upon which it is to determine, does not happen.

Tenant for life, or his representatives, shall not be prejudiced by any sudden determination of his estate, because such a determination is contingent and uncertain. Therefore if a tenant for his own life sows the lands, and dies before harvest, his executors shall have the emblements or profits of the crop: for the estate was determined by the act of God; and it is a maxim of law, that actus Dei nemini facit injuriam. The representatives, therefore, of the tenement for life, shall have the emblements, to compensate for the labour and expense of tilling, manuring, and sowing the lands; and also for the encouragement of husbandry, which, being a public benefit, tending to the increase of provisions, ought to have the utmost security and privilege that the law can give it. So it is also, if a man be tenant for the life of another, and cestuy que vie, or he on whose life the land is held, dies after the corn sown, the tenant pur auter vie shall have the emblements. The same is also the rule, if a life estate be determined by the act of law.

But if an estate for life be determined by the tenant's own act, (as by forfeiture for waste committed; or if a tenant during widowhood thinks proper to marry ;) in these and similar cases, the tenants, having thus determined the estate by their own acts, shall not be entitled to take the emblements.

The doctrine of emblements extends not only to corn sown, but to roots planted, or other annual artificial profits. But it is otherwise of fruit-trees and the like, which are not planted annually at the expense and labour of the tenant, but are either a permanent or natural profit of the earth.

II. Of leases for years.

An estate for years is a contract for the possession of lands or tenements, for some determinate period: and it takes place where a man letteth them to another for the term of a certain number of years, agreed upon between the lessor and lessee, and the lessee enters thereon. If the lease be but for half a year, or a quarter, or any less time, this lessee is respected as a tenant for years, and is styled so in some legal proceedings; a year being the shortest term which the law, in this case, takes notice of.

A lease for "twelve months" is only for forty-eight weeks: for a month in law is a lunar month, or twentyeight days, unless otherwise expressed; not only because it is one uniform period, but because it falls naturally into a quarterly division by weeks. But if the lease be for "a twelve-month," in the singular number, it is good for the whole year. (2)

Every estate which must expire at a period certain and prefixed, by whatever words created, is an estate for years. And, therefore, this estate is frequently called a term, because its duration or continuance is bounded, limited and determined: for every such estate must have a certain beginning, and certain end. But id certum est quod certum reddi potest; therefore, if a man make a lease to another, for so many years as J. S. shall name, it is a good lease for years; for though it is, at present, uncertain, yet when J. S. hath named the years, it is then reduced to a certainty.

If no day of commencement is named in the creation of this estate, it begins from the making or delivery of the lease.

(2) In Avery & al. v. Pixley, 4 Mass. Rep. 460. the court said, that, in this state, a month, mentioned generally, in any statute, is considered as a calendar month.

So where a note is made payable at a month, or months after date, the computation must be (contrary to the general rule of law) by calendar, and not by lunar months.

Selw. 997.

Ibid. 140.

Ibid. 141.

Ibid. 143.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Thil. 145.

Ibil.

Ibid.

Ibid.

A lease for so many years as J. S. shall live, is void from the beginning; for it is neither certain, nor can be reduced to a certainty, during the continuance of the lease. But a lease of twenty or more years, if J. S. shall so long live, is good: for there is a certain period fixed, beyond which it cannot last; though it may determine sooner, on the death of J. S.

With regard to emblements, or the profits of lands, sowed by tenant for years, there is this difference between him and tenant for life, that where the term of tenant for years depends upon a certainty, as if he holds from mid-summer for ten years, and in the last year he sows a crop of corn, and it is not ripe and cut before midsummer, the end of the term, the landlord shall have it; for the tenant knew the expiration of his term, and, therefore, it was his own folly to sow what he never could reap the profits of.

But where the lease for years depends upon an uncertainty, as upon the death of the lessor, being himself only tenant for life, or being a husband seized in right of his wife; or if the term of years be determinable upon a life or lives; in all these cases, the estate for years not being certainly to expire at a time fore-known, but merely by the act of God, the tenant, or his executors, shall have the emblements in the same manner that a tenant for life or his executors shall be entitled thereto.

Not so, if it determine by the act of the party himself; as if tenant for years does any thing that amounts to a forfeiture in which case the emblements shall go to the lessor, and not to the lessee, who has determined his estate by his own default.

:

III. Of leases at will.

An estate at will is where lands and tenements are let by one man to another, to have and to hold at the will of the lessor; and the tenant, by force of this lease, obtains possession. Such tenant hath no certain indefeasible