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CHAPTER THE TWENTY FOURTH.

OF THINGS PERSONAL.

UNDER the name of thins perfonal are included all forts of thins moveable, which may attend a man's perfon wherever he goes; and therefore, being only the objects of the law while they remain within the limits of it's jurifdiction, and being alfo of a perifhable quality, are not efteemed of fo high a nature, nor paid fo much regard to by the law, as things that are in their nature more permanent and immoveable, as lands, and houfes, and the profits iffuing thereout. Thefe being conftantly within the reach, and under the protection of the law, were the principal favourites of our firft legiflators: who took all imaginable care in afcertaining the rights, and directing the difpofition, of fuch property as they imagined to be lafting, and which would anfwer to pofterity the trouble and pains that their anceftors employed about them; but at the fame time entertained a very low and contemptuous opinion of all perfonal eftate, which they regarded only as a tranfient commodity. The amount of it indeed was, comparatively, very trifling, during the fcarcity of money and the ignorance of luxurious refinements, which prevailed in the feodal ages. Hence it was, that a tax of the fifteenth, tenth, or fometimes a much larger proportion, of all the moveables of the fubject, was frequently laid without fcruple, and is mentioned with much unconcern by our antient hiftorians, though now it would juftly alarm our opulent merchants and ftockholders. And hence likewife may be derived the frequent forfeitures inflicted
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by the common law, of all a man's good and chattels, for mifbehaviours and inadvertencies that at prefent hardly feem to deferve fo fevere a punifhment. Our antient law-books, which are founded upon the feodal provifions, do not therefore often condefcend to regulate this fpecies of property. There is not a chapter in Britton or the mirroir, that can fairly be referred to this head; and the little that is to be found in Glanvil, Bracton, and Fleta, feems principally borrowed from the civilians. But of later years, fince the introduction and extenfion of trade and commerce, which are entirely occupied in this fpecies of property, and have greatly augmented it's quantity and of courfe it's value, we have learned to conceive different ideas of it. Our courts now regard a man's perfonalty in a light nearly, if not quite, equal to his realty: and have adopted a more enlarged and lefs technical mode of confidering the one than the other; frequently drawn from the rules which they found already eftablifhed by the Roman law wherever thofe rules appeared to be well-grounded and appofite to the cafe in queftion, but principally from reafon and conveyance, adapted to the circumftances of the times; preferving withal a due regard to antient ufages, and a certain feodal tincture, which is ftill to be found in fome branches of perfonal property.

BUT things perfonal, by our law, do not only include things moveable, but alfo fomething more. The whole of which is comprehended under the general name of chattels, catalla; which, fir Edward Coke fays ^a, is a French word fignifying goods. And this is true, if underftood of the Norman dialect; for in the grand couftumier ^b, we find the word chattels ufed and fet in oppofition to a fief or fued: fo that not only goods, but whatever was not a feud, were accounted chattels. And it is, I apprehend, in the fame large, extended, negative fenfe, that not fuffficiently comprehenfive to take in every thing that our law con-

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^a 1 Inft. 118.
^b c. 87.
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fiders

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fiders as a chattel intereft. For fince, as the commentator on the couftumier obferves, there are two requifites to make a fief or heritage, duration as to time, and immobility with regard to place; whatever wants either of thefe qualities is not, according to the Normans, an heritage or fief ^c; or, according to us, is not a real eftate: the confequence of which in both laws is, that it muft be a perfonal eftate, or chattel.

CHATTELS therefore are diftributed by the law into two kinds; chattels real, and chattels perfonal.

1. CHATTELS real, faith fir Edward Coke ^d, are fuch as concern, or favour of, the realty; as terms for years of land, wardfhips in chivalry (while the military tenures fubfifted) the next prefentation to a church, eftates by ftatute-merchant, ftatute-ftaple, elegit, or the like; of all which we have already fpoken. And thefe are called real chattels, as being interefts iffuing out of, or annexed to real eftates: of which they have one quality, viz. immobility, which denominates them real; but want the other, viz. a fufficient, legal, indeterminate duration: and this want it is, that conftitutes them chattels. The utmoft period for which they can laft is fixed and determinate, either for fuch a fpace of time certain, or till fuch a particular fum of money be raifed out of fuch a particular income; fo that they are not equal in the eye of the law to the loweft eftate of freehold, a leafe for another's life: their tenants were confidered, upon feodal principles, as merely bailiffs or farmers; and the tenant of the freehold might at any time have deftroyed their intereft, till the reign of Henry VIII^e. A freehold, which alone is a real eftate, and feems (as has been faid) to anfwer to the fief in Normandy, is conveyed by corporal inveftiture and livery of feifin; which gives the tenant fo ftrong a hold of the land, that it never after can

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^c Cateux fent meubles et immeubles: vrais meubles font qui tranfporter fe peuvent, et enfuivir le corps; immeubles font chofes qui ne peuvent enfuivir le corps, nieftre tranfportees, et tout ce qui n' eft point en heritage. LL. Will. Nothi, c. 4. apud Durrefne. II. 409.
^d 1 Inft. 118.
^e See pag. 141, 142.
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be wrefted from him during his life, but by his own act, of voluntary transfer or of forfeiture; or elfe by the happening of fome future contingency, as in eftates pur auter vie, and the determinable freeholds mentioned in a former chapter ^f. And even thefe, being of an uncertain duration, may by poffibility laft for the owner's life; for the law will not prefuppofe the contingency to happen before it actually does, and till then the eftate is to all intents and purpofes a life eftate, and therefore a freehold intereft. On the other hand, a chattel intereft in lands, which the Normans put in oppofition to fief, and we to freehold, is conveyed by no feifin or corporal inveftiture, but the poffeffion is gained by the mere entry of the tenant himfelf; and it is fure to expire at a time prefixed and determined, if not fooner. Thus a leafe for years muft neceffarily fail at the end and completion of the term; the next prefentation to a church is fatisfied and gone the inftant it comes into poffeffion, that is, by the firft avoidance and prefentation to the living; the conditional eftates by ftatutes and elegit are determined as foon as the debt is paid; and fo guardianfhips in chivalry were fure to expire the moment that the heir came of age. And if there be any other chattel real, it will be found to correfpond with the reft in this effential quality, that it's duration is limited to a time certain, beyond which it cannot fubfift.

2. CHATTELS perfonal are, properly and ftrictly fpeaking, things moveable; which may be annexed to or attendant on the perfon of the owner, and carried about with him from one part of the world to another. Such are animals, houfehold-ftuft, money, jewels, corn, garments, and every thing elfe that can properly be put in motion, and transferred from place to place. And of this kind of chattels it is, that we are principally to fpeak in the remainder of this book; having been unavoidably led to confider the nature of chattels real, and their incidents, in the former chapters which were employed upon real eftates: that

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^f pag. 121.
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kind of property being of a mongrel amphibious nature, originally endowed with one only of the characteriftics of each fpecies of things; the immobility of things real, and the precarious duration of things perfonal.

CHATTEL interefts being thus diftinguifhed and diftributed, it will be proper to confider, firft, the nature of that property, or dominion, to which they are liable; which muft be principally, nay folely, referred to perfonal chattels: and, fecondly, the title to that property, or how it may be loft and acquired. Of each of thefe in it's order.