equitable uses, I propose to abolish them by one and the same enactment. The first proviso is meant to preserve active or operative trusts, agreeably to the distinction I have already taken. Within this latter class will fall all trusts for sale, whereby the land will in effect be aliened; or for creditors, whether by the same means, or by the appropriation of rents and profits; or for management of the property on behalf of any class of persons, such as a joint stock company; or of an owner going abroad, or any donee during infancy, &c. Of the laws by which these trusts should be regulated, I shall have further suggestions to make hereafter.

On the subject of the last proviso, see further art. 88, post, and the comment.

6.

When his Majesty shall have issued his royal proclamation, pursuant to the 4th article, and from the period for abolition to be fixed thereby, all the laws now in force respecting real property shall cease; except such as relate exclusively to tithes.

7.

From henceforth, until the period to be so fixed by such proclamation, all such of the laws now in force respecting real property, as are inconsistent with the preceding ar ticles, and the code subjoined, shall cease; except as in the preceding article.

OUTLINE

OF A

CODE OF THE LAWS OF REAL PROPERTY,

IN THOSE PARTS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, CALLED ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND WALES, AND IN THE FOREIGN POSSESSIONS AND DEPENDENCIES OF THE SAID UNITED KINGDOM.

TITLE I.

OF REAL PROPERTY IN GENERAL.

1.

THE expression land comprises the land itself, all buildings and other articles erected upon and affixed to the same; all trees and underwood growing thereon; and all minerals, quarries, and fossils in and under the same.

As the phrases" manors, tenements," and whatever else savours of feudality, will vanish with that system, the object here proposed is, to describe real property throughout the articles by a single

word, well defined. With respect, however, to fixtures, the distinctions vary between heir and executor, landlord and tenant, &c., and it may hereafter be judged expedient to declare these by an additional article.

2.

Land may be enjoyed and disposed of, either in perpetuity, or for a limited period, as for a term of life or years. Dispositions respecting land may be made either in possession or expectancy, and upon events either certain or contingent. Land is also susceptible of a charge or a servitude. But all modifications of interests affecting land are subject to the regulations hereafter established.

It would be proper to subjoin here the leading regulations respecting servitudes; as, rights of way, water, light, party-walls, &c. Some excellent institutions on this subject may be found in the Code Napoleon, lib. ii. tit. 4.

3.

Where land is not limited in interest by the disposition either of the law or of man, every owner is entitled to it in perpetuity.

On this article see the observations subjoined to a. 40.

4.

Land, or limited interests in it, may be acquired, 1. By descent. 2. By the legal rights of marriage. 3. By disposition by deed or will. 4. Under the rights of creditors. 5. By adverse possession, or lapse of time. 6. By lapse to the crown, for want of heirs.

190

TITLE II.

OF DESCENT (a).

5.

LAND is descendible, first, to the children and other issue of an intestate; then to his parents and other ancestors, and to his collateral relations, according to the respective proximities of kindred of each class, after the following rules.

(a) In Part I. of this essay, the modifications of interests in real property precede the different means of acquiring it. This course was adopted, partly on account of the technical and varied characters which our present subdivisions of real property assume, from the three distinct sources of tenures, uses, and trusts, forming, as they do, a disproportionately large part of the whole system; and partly because it has been the arrangement pursued by our commentators on real property, from Littleton down to Blackstone, and therefore the most familiar to the legal world. In reality, however, land, and the means of acquiring it, are the integral points. Modified interests in land are merely fractional parts, and those produced by some only of these means; reduced, also, as such interests will be, to their due proportion, by the extinction of the three main causes of complexity already noticed. It seems, therefore, the better analysis, that the means of acquiring land should form the principal heads; and that fractional interests, acquired by any of these means, should be noticed under such of their heads as are productive of them. Of these, by far the greater part originate in alienation by deed or will.