2. When only are they objects of the law ?-384.

While they remain within the limits of its jurisdiction.

3. Do things personal include things movable only?—385. Things personal do not only include things movable, but also something more; the whole of which are comprehended under the general name of chattels.

4. How are chattels distributed by the law?-386. Into chattels real and chattels personal.

5. What are chattels real?-386.

Such as concern, or savour of, the realty.

6. Why are they so styled?-386.

As being interests issuing out of, or annexed to, real estates; of which they have one quality, viz., immobility, which denominates them real; but want the other, viz., a sufficient legal indeterminate duration, and this want it is that constitutes them. chattels.

7. What are chattels personal ?—387.

They are, properly and strictly speaking, things movable, which may be annexed to, or attendant on, the person of the

owner.

CHAPTER XXV.

OF PROPERTY IN THINGS PERSONAL.

1. How does property in chattels personal exist ?-389.

Either in possession, where a man hath not only the right to enjoy, but hath the actual enjoyment of the thing; or else it is in action, where a man hath only a bare right, without any occupation or enjoyment.

2. Into what two sorts is property in chattels personal of the former nature divided ?-389.

Absolute and qualified property.

3. When is property in possession absolute ?—389.

When a man hath, solely and exclusively, the right, and also the occupation, of any movable chattels, so that they cannot be transferred from him, or cease to be his, without his own act or default. Such may be all inanimate things, as goods, plate, money, jewels, implements of war, garments, and the like. Such, also, may be all vegetable productions, as the fruit or other parts of a plant, when severed from the body of it; or the whole plant itself when severed from the ground.

4. Into what classes are animals distinguished?—390.

Into such as are domite, and such as are feræ naturæ, some being of a tame, and others of a wild disposition.

5. What property can a man have in such animals as are domitæ, and what in such as are feræ naturæ ?-390.

In the former an absolute; in the latter a qualified property.

6. How may a man be invested with this qualified property in animals feræ naturæ ?-391-395.

In three ways: 1. Per industriam; by a man's reclaiming and making them tame, or by so confining them within his own immediate power, that they cannot escape and use their natural liberty. 2. Ratione impotentiæ, on account of their own inability; as when birds build in a man's trees, or other creatures make their nests or burrows in his land, and have young ones there, he has a qualified property in those young ones, till they can fly or run away, and then it expires. 3. Propter privilegium; that is, a man may have the privilege of hunting, taking and killing them, in exclusion of other persons.

7. Are bees feræ naturæ ?-392.

They are; but, when hived and reclaimed, a man may have qualified property in them

8. What animals feræ naturæ is it felony to steal?—393,

It is as much a felony, at common law, to steal such of them as are fit for food, as it is to steal tame animals; but not so, if they are only kept for pleasure, curiosity or whim. Then stealing them is such an invasion of property as may amount to a civil injury, and be redressed by a civil action.

9. How may property subsist in the elements of fire, air, earth and water?-395.

A man can have no absolute permanent property in these. They admit only of a precarious and qualified ownership, which lasts only so long as they are in actual use and occupation. If a man disturbs another and deprives him of the lawful enjoyment of these; as if one obstructs another's ancient windows, corrupts the air of his house or gardens, fouls his water, or unpens and lets it out, or if he diverts an ancient water-course, the law will animadvert thereon as an injury, and protect the party injured in his possession.

10. Hath a servant, in the care of his master's goods or chattels, any property in them?-396.

He hath not any property, or possession, in them, either absolute or qualified, but only a mere charge or oversight.

11. What is a chose in action ?-396, 397.

It is the mere right to a thing incorporeal, as an annuity: money due on a bond, is a chose in action.

12. How may property in action be reduced to possession ?—396,

397.

;

The possession may be recovered by suit, or action, at law from whence the thing so recoverable is called a thing, or chose, in action.

13. Upon what does all property in action depend ?-397.

It depends entirely upon contracts, either express or implied; which are the only regular means of acquiring a chose in action.

14. Are limitutions of personal goods and chattels in remainder allorced?-398.

Yes; in last wills and testaments, after a bequest for life, they are permitted.

15. May things personal belong to their owners in joint-tenancy, in common, and in coparcenary ?—399.

They may so belong in joint-tenancy and in common, but not in coparcenary.

16. Is stock used in a joint undertaking, as by way of partnership in trade, considered as common or joint property ?—399.

It shall always be considered as common property, and there shall be no survivorship therein.

CHAPTER XXVI.

OF TITLE TO THINGS PERSONAL BY OCCUPANCY.

1. What are the means of acquiring and losing such property as may be had in things personal ?—400.

The methods of acquisition and loss are principally twelve: 1. By occupancy; 2. By prerogative; 3. By forfeiture; 4. By custom; 5. By succession; 6. By marriage; 7. By judgment; 8. By gift; 9. By contract; 10. By bankruptcy; 11. By testament; 12. By administration.

2. What restrictions are there upon the right to seize the goods and person of an alien enemy?—401, 402.

The right of taking the goods of an alien enemy is restrained to such captors as are authorized by the public authority of the state, residing in the crown. As to his person, a man may acquire a sort of qualified property by taking him a prisoner of war; at least, till his ransom be paid.

3. What is the doctrine of property arising from accession by nat ural or artificial means, (as by the growth of vegetables, the preg

nancy of animals, the embroidering of cloth, or the conversion of wood or metal into vessels and utensils,) grounded upon ?-404.

On the right of occupancy.

4. What is understood by "confusion of goods" ?—405.

It is where the goods of two persons are so intermixed that the several portions can be no longer distinguished. If the intermixture be by consent, the proprietors have an interest in common, in proportion to their respective shares. But if one willfully intermixes his money, corn, or hay with that of another man, without his approbation or knowledge, our law, to guard against fraud, gives the entire property, without any account, to him whose original dominion is invaded.

5. What is property in copyright founded on ?—406.

Being grounded on labor and invention, it is more properly reducible to the head of occupancy than any other; since the right of occupancy itself is supposed, by Mr. Locke and many others, to be founded on the personal labor of the occupant. And this is the right which an author may be supposed to have in his own original literary compositions; so that no other person, without his leave, may publish or make profit of the copies.

6. In what consists the identity of such a composition ?-406. Entirely in the sentiment and the language; the same conceptions, clothed in the same words, must necessarily be the same composition; and whatever method be taken of exhibiting that composition to the ear or the eye of another, by recital, by writing or by printing, in any number of copies, or at any period of time, it is always the identical work of the author which is so exhibited.

7. What hath the statute declared as to literary and other copyrights ?-407.

That the author and his assigns shall have the sole liberty of printing and reprinting his works for the term of fourteen years, and no longer. But if, at the end of the term, the author himself be living, the right shall then return to him for another term of the same duration.