CHAPTER XXVII.

OF TITLE BY PREROGATIVE AND FORFEITURE.

1. May property be acquired in personal chattels by the king's prerogative ?—408.

Yes; a right in them may accrue to the crown, or to such as claim under the title of the crown; as by the king's grant, or by prescription, which supposes an ancient grant.

2. Is there a property of this species in tributes, taxes and customs?

-408.

Yes; in these the king acquires, and the subject loses, a property the instant they become due; if paid, they are a chose in possession; if unpaid, a chose in action.

3. What if the titles of the king and a subject, in a chattel, concur?-409.

The king shall have the whole.

4. In what books hath the king a prerogative copyright ?—410. There is a kind of prerogative copyright subsisting in certain books, which is held to be vested in the crown: 1. Acts of parliament, proclamations, and orders of council; 2. Liturgies, and books of divine service; 3. Such law-books, and other compositions, as were compiled or translated at the expense of the crown.

5. In whom is the property of such animals feræ naturæ as are known by the denomination of game, with the right of pursuing, taking, and destroying them ?—-410.

It is vested in the king alone, and from him derived to such of his subjects as have received the grants of a chase, a park, a free warren, or free fishery. No person whatever, but he who has such derivative right from the crown, is by common law entitled to take or kill any beasts of chase, or other game what

soever.

6. Who can justify hunting or sporting on another man's soil ?—

417.

No man but he only who has a chase or free warren, by grant from the crown or prescription, which supposes one, can justify hunting or sporting upon another man's soil; nor, indeed, in thorough strictness of common law, either hunting or sporting at all.

7. For what are all the goods and chattels of the offender forfeited to the crown ?-421,

They are totally forfeited by: Conviction of high treason or misprision of treason, of petit treason, of felony in general, and particularly of felo de se, and of manslaughter; nay, even by excusable homicide, outlawry for treason or felony, &c.

8. When does this forfeiture commence ?-421.

From the time of conviction; not the time of committing the fact, as in forfeitures of real property.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

OF TITLE BY CUSTOM.

1. What is title by custom ?—422.

It is that whereby a right vests in some particular persons, either by the local usage of some particular place, or by the almost general and universal usage of the kingdom.

2. What three sorts of customary interests obtain pretty generally throughout most parts of England ?—422.

Heriots, mortuaries, and heir-looms.

3. What are heriots ?-422.

They are defined to be a customary tribute of goods and chattels, payable to the lord of the fee on the decease of the owner of the land.

4. Into what sorts are heriots usually divided?—422.

Into heriot-service, and heriot-custom.

5. What is heriot-service?—422.

It amounts to little more than a mere rent; it is due

a special reservation in a grant or lease of lands.

6. Upon what does heriot-custom arise?—422.

upon

Heriot-custom depends merely upon immemorial usage and custom, and arises upon no special reservation whatsoever.

7. To what species of tenures is heriot-custom, now, for the most part confined ?-423.

To copyhold tenures; and is due by custom only, which is the life of all estates by copy.

8. Of what does the heriot now consist ?—424.

Sometimes of the best live beast, or averium, which the tenant dies possessed of; sometimes, the best inanimate good, under which a jewel or piece of plate may be included; but it is always a personal chattel.

9. Why can no heriot be taken on the death of a feme-covert?

424.

Because she can have no ownership in things personal.

10. Can a heriot be compounded for by the payment of money?

-424.

In some places there is a personal composition in money.

11. What are mortuaries ?——425.

They are a sort of ecclesiastical heriots, being a customary gift claimed by and due to the minister, in very many parishes, on the death of his parishioners.

12. What are heir-looms ?-427, 428.

Heir-looms are such goods and personal chattels as, contrary to the nature of chattels, shall go by special custom to the heir

along with the inheritance, and not to the executor of the last proprietor. They are, generally, such things as cannot be taken away without damaging or dismembering the freehold.

13. What are heir-looms by special custom ?-428.

In some places, carriages, utensils, and other household implements may be heir-looms; but such custom must be strictly proved.

14. What are heir-looms by general custom?-428.

By almost general custom, whatever is strongly affixed to the freehold or inheritance, and cannot be severed from thence without violence or damage, are heir-looms.

15. What other personal chattels are there which descend to the heir in the nature of heir-looms?—428, 429.

A monument or tombstone in a church, or the coat of armor of his ancestor there hung up, with the pennons and other ensigns of honor suited to his degree. Charters, likewise, and deeds, court-rolls, and other evidences of the land, with the chests in which they are contained.

16. May heir-looms be devised away from the heir by will?-429. They cannot.

17. Has the heir any property in the bodies or ashes of his ancestors?-429.

He has none.

CHAPTER XXIX.

OF TITLE BY SUCCESSION, MARRIAGE, AND
JUDGMENT.

1. To what is title by succession applicable ?-430.

In strictness of law, only to corporations aggregate of many, as dean and chapter, mayor and commonalty, master and fellows,

and the like; in which one set of men may, by succeeding another set, acquire a property in all the goods, movables, and other chattels of the corporation.

2. What is the reason of this ?—430

The true reason is, because in judgment of law a corporation never dies; and, therefore, the predecessors who lived a century ago, and their successors now in being, are one and the same body corporate.

3. What sole corporations, also, have this power of gaining a property in chattels by succession?-431.

If such a corporation sole be the representative of a number of persons, as the master of an hospital, who is a corporation for the benefit of the poor brethren; an abbot, or prior, by the old law before the reformation, who represented the whole convent, such sole corporations as these have the same power as corporations aggregate have, to take personal property in succession.

4. Why cannot sole corporations, which represent no others but themselves, as bishops, parsons, and the like, take chattel interests in succession?-431.

The reason is the law looks upon goods and chattels as of too low and perishable a nature to be limited, and, if any interest in them were allowed to descend to successors, the property thereof must be in abeyance from the death of the present owner until a successor be appointed.

5. Is this the case in corporations aggregate?--432.

No; there the right is never suspended, or in abeyance.

6. What exceptions are there to the rule, that no chattel can go to, or be acquired by, corporations merely sole, in succession ?-432.

There are two one in the case of the king, in whom a chattel may vest, by a grant of it formerly made to a preceding king and his successors. The other exception is where, by a particular custom, some particular corporations sole have acquired a power of taking particular chattel interests in succession.