be delivered to the plaintiff; to hold, till out of the rents and profits thereof the debt be levied, or till the defendant's interest be expired; as till the death of the defendant, if he be tenant for life or in tail. During this period the plaintiff is called tenant by elegit.

The debtor may, however, have an estate or interest which cannot be delivered under an elegit, as, for instance, a remainder or reversion, or an equity of redemption. But the judgment itself by statute now operates as a charge, which the Court will realize if necessary, on all lands to which the defendant is entitled for any estate or interest whatever, whether in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, or over which he had any disposing power, &c., and is thus binding against him and all claiming under him after the judgment.

By these several writs and proceedings, the whole of the judgment debtor's property, real and personal, may be resorted to, in satisfaction of the judgment.

In some cases, as on recognizances, the lands and goods may be taken by the process called an extent or extendi facias, because the sheriff is to cause the lands, &c., to be appraised to their full extended value, before he delivers them to the plaintiff, that it may be certainly known how soon the debt will be satisfied. Hence crown process of execution is usually the writ of extent; for the debts of the crown, in suing out execution, are preferred to that of every other creditor, who has not obtained judgment before the sovereign commenced his suit; and a judgment for the crown at common law affects all lands which his debtor has at or after the time of contracting his debt. As this rule of law might be productive of very great hardship and injustice, it is now however provided by statute, that no judgment, statute, recognizance, &c., shall avail against purchasers, mortgagees, or creditors, unless and until a memorandum thereof be registered in the proper office of the Common Pleas division; so that everybody has notice thereof, and it is his own fault if any one purchases or lends money on mortgage, without searching for judgments against the seller or mortgagor.

What was formerly considered the most effectual writ of execution, was that under which the body of the defendant was

taken, viz., the capias ad satisfaciendum; so called because the intent of it was to imprison the body of the debtor till satisfaction were made for the debt, costs, and damages. This was an execution of the highest nature, inasmuch as it deprived a man of his liberty, till he made the satisfaction awarded; and therefore, when a man was once taken upon this writ, no other process could be sued out against his lands or goods. If the debtor did not make satisfaction, he remained in prison till he did, or until he was discharged as a bankrupt or insolvent. And at one time he might have remained in custody for life, if his creditors chose to allow him so to do; a state of the law which gave rise to a kind of gaol delivery of debtors, which, recently, was effected once a month by the registrar of the court of Bankruptcy or of the county court of the district within which the prison was situated.

In 1869 imprisonment for debt was abolished, except on: 1. Default in payment of a penalty, or sum in the nature of a penalty, other than a penalty in respect of a contract; 2. Default in payment of any sum recoverable summarily before justices of the peace; 3. Default by a trustee ordered to pay any sum in his possession or under his control; 4. Default by a solicitor in payment of costs, when ordered to pay costs for misconduct as a solicitor or in his character as an officer of the court; 5. Default by a debtor in paying for the benefit of his creditors any portion of a salary or other income, ordered to be paid by a court of bankruptcy; and 6. Default in payment of sums in respect of the payment of which orders are by the Debtors Act, 1869, authorized to be made.

In these excepted cases a person may still be committed to prison, but no person can be imprisoned, in any case, for more than a year. If therefore in the first, third, or fourth of these excepted cases there is a default, the defaulter may be attached. In all other cases of default in paying money, under an order or judgment, the plaintiff may take proceedings under the Debtors Act, which enables any court to commit to prison for a term not exceeding six weeks, or until payment of the sum due, any person who makes default in payment of any debt, or instalment of any debt, due from him in pursuance of any order or judgment of that or any other competent court. It must be proved

that the person making default either has or has had, since the date of the order or judgment, the means to pay the sum in respect of which he has made default, and has refused or neglected, or refuses or neglects, to pay the same.

Hitherto of writs of execution, which put the party who has obtained judgment in possession of the lands or chattels, or of the debt, damages, or costs recovered in an action. When the judgment requires any person to do any act, other than the payment of money, or to abstain from doing any act, it may be enforced by attachment. If, therefore, the repetition or the continuance of a wrongful act is prohibited, or the performance of a contract or duty is required, an injunction, in the nature of a writ of execution, may be obtained, which in case of disobedience will be followed by attachment. This method of proceeding has superseded the writ of mandamus, formerly in use to compel obedience to an order of the superior courts of common law; but which is not to be confounded with the prerogative writ of mandamus, the nature and objects of which were explained in a previous chapter. Instead, however, of proceeding by injunction and attachment, the court may direct that the act required to be performed shall be done by the plaintiff, or some other person appointed by the court, at the expense of the defendunt; and upon its being done, the amount of the expense may be ascertained either by writ of inquiry or otherwise, and payment thereof enforced in the ordinary way.

Judgments between subject and subject related, in respect of the lands of the debtor, at common law, no farther back than the first day of the term in which they were recovered; for the term being one day in contemplation of law, all judgments signed during term, related to the first day of the term. The Statute of Frauds, however, enacted that the judgment should not bind the land in the hands of a bonâ fide purchaser, but only from the day of actually signing the same; which is directed by the statute to be punctually entered on the record; and must now be entered of the very day of the month and year when signed, and has no relation to any other day.

The law has been further modified by recent legislation. No judgment now affects any lands so as to avail against bonâ fide purchasers, mortgagees, or creditors, unless a memorandum

thereof be registered in the proper office; execution issued and similarly registered; and the lands actually delivered in execution before the date of the conveyance, mortgage, or charge.

The object of this legislation, was to put judgments on the same footing as to land, which they previously had as to chattels. A judgment did not bind the debtor's goods and chattels, but from the date of the writ of execution: which, by the Statute of Frauds, binds the goods in the hands of a stranger or a purchaser, only from the actual delivery of the writ to the sheriff, who is therefore ordered to indorse on the back of it the day of his receiving the same. No writ of execution, however, affects goods and chattels, bonâ fide sold for valuable consideration to a purchaser, who had no previous notice that the writ was in the hands of the sheriff.

These are the methods which the law of England has pointed out for the execution of judgments: and when the plaintiff's demand is satisfied, either by the voluntary payment of the defendant or performance by him of what he is commanded to do or by this compulsory process or otherwise, satisfaction ought to be entered on the record, that the defendant may not be liable to be hereafter harassed a second time on the same account.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

OF PUBLIC WRONGS.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE NATURE OF CRIMES; AND THEIR PUNISHMENT.

IN the consideration of public wrongs, with the means of their prevention and punishment, it is desirable to consider, firstly, the general nature of crimes and punishments; secondly, the persons capable of committing crimes; thirdly, their several degrees of guilt, as principals, or accessories; fourthly, the several species of crimes, with the punishment annexed to each; fifthly, the means of preventing their perpetration; and, sixthly, the method of inflicting those punishments.

Firstly, as to the general nature of crimes and their punishment; or the doctrine of the pleas of the crown; so called, because the sovereign is in law the person injured by every infraction of the public rights of the community, and is therefore the proper prosecutor for every public offence.

I. A crime is an act committed, or omitted, in violation of a public law, either forbidding or commanding it. This general definition comprehends both crimes and misdemeanors, which, properly speaking, are synonymous terms. But in common usage the word "crimes" is made to denote such offences as are of a deeper dye; while smaller faults are comprised under the gentler name of " misdemeanors" only; and are so designated in contradistinction to felonies: the former class comprehending