gency happens when the widow marries, or when the grantee obtains a benefice-the respective estates are absolutely determined and gone. Yet, while they subsist, they are reckoned estates for life, because the time for which they will endure being uncertain, they may by possibility last for life, if the contingencies upon which they are to determine do not sooner happen. And, moreover, in case an estate be granted to a man for his life generally, it may also determine by his civil death; as if he be attainted. It is, therefore, usual in conveyances to say "during the term of his natural life.”

The incidents to a tenancy for life are:

1. Every tenant for life, unless restrained by covenant or agreement, may, of common right, take upon the land demised to him reasonable estovers or botes; that is, an allowance of wood for fuel, repairs, and the like; for he has a right to the full enjoyment and use of the land, and all its profits, during his estate therein; but he is not permitted to cut down timber or do other waste upon the premises, for such things are not the temporary profits of the tenement, nor is the destruction necessary for the tenant's complete enjoyment of his estate, but tends to the permanent and lasting loss of the person entitled to the inheritance.

2. A 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 in law, that actus Dei nemini facit injuriam. But if an estate for life be determined by the tenant's own act, as, by forfeiture for waste committed; or, if a female tenant holding during her 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, and other annual artificial profits; but it is otherwise of fruit trees, grass, 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; for when a man plants a tree, he cannot be presumed to plant it in contemplation of any present profit, but

merely with a prospect of its being useful to himself in future and to future successions of tenants.

3. A third incident to estates for life relates to the undertenants or lessees, who have the same, nay, greater indulgences than their lessors, the original tenants for life. As in the case of a woman who holds durante viduitate, her taking a husband is her own act, and therefore deprives her of the emblements; but if she leases her estate to an under-tenant, who sows the land, and she then marries, this act shall not deprive the tenant of his emblements, who is a stranger, and could not prevent her. As regards tenants at rack-rent (that is, tenants who pay full value for the land) holding under landlords entitled for life or other uncertain interest, it is enacted by stat. 14 & 15 Vict., c. 25, that in such cases when the lease or tenancy shall determine by the death or by cessor of the estate of any landlord, entitled for his life or any uncertain period, the tenant shall, instead of claims to emblements, continue to hold until the expiration of the then current year of his tenancy, and shall then, without being required to give or receive any notice, quit upon the terms of his lease or holding in the same manner as if his tenancy were determined by effluxion of time or other lawful means during the continuance of his landlord's estate. The Act also contains provisions dealing with the rights and interests of succeeding owners.

By the Settled Estates' Acts, stat. 19 & 20 Vict., c. 120, amended by 21 & 22 Vict., c. 77, and 27 & 28 Vict., c. 45, a tenant for life may, when the instrument does not contain an express declaration to the contrary, demise the premises for any term not exceeding twenty-one years; but such demise must be made without impeachment of waste, and with other covenants prescribed by the Act. Also by stat. 8 & 9 Vict., c. 56, tenants for life are empowered to apply to the Court of Chancery, with consent of the occupier, to get leave to make permanent improvements on the lands; the money expended on such improvements to be charged upon the inheritance; and by a more recent Act, 9 & 10 Vict., c. 101,* tenants for life, and other owners of land, may obtain advances from Government for works of drainage, such advances to be repaid by a rent-charge on the land.

* See also 27 & 28 Vict., c. 114.

The next estate for life is of the legal kind, as contradistinguished from conventional, viz., that of "tenant in tail after possibility of issue extinct.” This happens where one is tenant in special tail, and a person, from whose body the issue was to spring, dies without issue; or, having left issue, that issue becomes extinct. In either of these cases the surviving tenant in special tail becomes tenant in tail after possibility of issue extinct. The possibility of issue is always supposed to exist in law unless extinguished by the death of the parties, even though the donees be each of them a hundred years old. The Court of Chancery may, however, modify this rule of law according to the circumstances of the case.

An estate pur autre vie is a life estate, held not for the life of the tenant, but of some other person, and the person for whose life it is held is called cestui que vie. The estate may be limited to a man and his heirs, or to a man without any addition of words of limitation.*

Explain Tenancy by the Curtesy of England, Tenancy in Dower, and Tenancy in Jointure.

Tenancy by the Curtesy of England, is where a man marries a woman seised of an estate of inheritance; that is, of lands and tenements in fee-simple or fee-tail, and has had by her, issue born alive, which was capable of inheriting her estate. In this case, he shall, on the death of his wife, hold the lands for his life, as tenant by the curtesy of England. For if a woman seised of lands has issue by her husband and dies, the husband is the natural guardian of the child, and as such is in reason entitled to the profits of the lands in order to maintain it; and this estate being once vested in him by the birth of the child, was not suffered to determine by the subsequent death of the infant.

There are four requisites necessary to make a tenancy by the curtesy:-1. Marriage.- -2. Seisin of the wife, which must be an actual seisin or possession of the land; not a bare right to possess, which is a seisin in law; but an actual possession, which is a seisin in deed.- -3. Issue, born alive.- 4. The Death of the Wife, as the estate is not consummate till her death.

* See 7 Wm. IV., and 1 Vict. c 26, ss. 3, 6.

TENANT IN DOWER-JOINTURE.

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If the lands be in gavelkind, his title attaches, whether he has issue or not; but he has only a moiety of the wife's lands, and he loses his estate if he marries again.

Tenancy in Dower is where the husband of a woman was solely seised of an estate of inheritance, and dies. In this case, the wife shall have the third part of all the lands and tenements whereof he was seised at any time during the marriage to hold to herself for the term of her natural life for her own sustenance and the nurture and education of her children. If in gavelkind, she has a moiety, conditionally that she remains chaste and unmarried; and of lands held by the tenure of borough-English, she takes the whole for her life.

The inconvenience arising out of the ancient law was that dower attached, though the husband had parted with the land before his death; but now by stat. 3 & 4 Wm. IV., c. 74, the husband may by will or by deed bar or defeat the wife's dower; and no widow coming within the Act, that is, who was married since January 1, 1834, can be endowed of any land which shall have been disposed of by her husband or by his will, so that she can only be endowed out of lands of which he died intestate, or concerning which he has made no declaration against her dower.*

Jointure, strictly speaking, signifies a joint estate limited to both husband and wife; but in common acceptation it is a sole estate limited to the wife on her surviving her husband, and must be either expressed or averred to be in satisfaction of dower. It may be made either before or after marriage. If after marriage, she may waive it, and claim her dower, unless it be provided by Act of Parliament.

Settlements upon the wife have long been in use, so that few widows have been able to claim dower under their general right.

* See Dower Act, 3 & 4 Wm. IV., c. 105; also 23 & 24 Vict., c. 126.

I

CHAPTER VII.

ESTATES LESS THAN FREEHOLD.

The Estates that now come under our consideration are termed "Estates less than Freehold," of which there are three sorts:-1. An Estate for Years, which is an interest in the possession of lands or tenements for some determinate period.

-2. An Estate at Will; that is, where lands and tenements are let by one man to another, to hold at the will of the lessor.-3. An Estate by Sufferance, which is when one comes into possession under a lawful demise, and afterwards wrongfully continues in possession.

Explain those three Estates that come under the head of "Estates less than Freehold."

1. 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 lets them to another for the term of a certain number of years, agreed upon between the lessor and the 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 considered a tenant for years, a year being the shortest term of which the law in this case takes notice.

Every such estate must expire at a period certain and prefixed, by whatever words created; and, therefore, this estate is frequently called a term, terminus, because its duration or continuance is bounded, limited, and determined; it must have a certain beginning, and a certain end; so if a man make a lease to another, for so many years as A. shall name, it is a good lease for years, for though it is at present uncertain, yet when A. has named the years, it is then reduced to a certainty; and, if no day of