ERRATA AND ADDENDA. Page 27, note (c), for C. M. & R. read Cro. & Mee. 98, note (c), for Higgins v. Sarjent, read Higgins v. Sargent. 138, note (d), for Dimsdale v. Robinson, read Dimsdale v. Robertson. The case of Curling v. Flight, animadverted on at p. 303, is now reported in 6 Hare, p. 41. The author understands that, on appeal to the Lord Chancellor, the right to the production of the title to the mines was given up by the defendant, the purchaser, without argument, and that his Lordship was of opinion that the purchaser was entitled to evidence of the constitution of the company, and of the vendor's title to the shares sold according to such constitution. PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF PERSONAL PROPERTY. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. OF THE SUBJECTS AND NATURE OF PERSONAL Real and personal property. THE English law of property is divided into two great branches, the law of real property, and the law of personal property. The feudal rules, which respected the holding and culture of land, were the elements of the common law of real property; the rules relating to the disposition of goods were the origin of the law of personal property. Such property was anciently of little importance, and its laws were consequently few and simple. It did not, however, escape the ecclesiastical influence which spread so widely in the middle ages; and it has thence derived that subjection to the rules The civil law. of the civil law by which it is characterized when transmitted by will or distributed on intestacy. The division of property into real and personal, Chattels real. though now well recognized, and constantly referred to even in the acts of the legislature, is comparatively of modern date. In ancient times, property was divided into lands, tenements and hereditaments on the one hand, B Chattels personal. Reason for the term " personal." and goods and chattels on the other. These two last terms appear to be synonymous. In process of time, however, certain estates and interests in land grew up, which were unknown to the ancient feudal system, and could not conveniently be subjected to its rules. Of these the most important were leases for years. Such interests, therefore, were classed amongst chattels; but as they savoured, as it was said, of the realty, they acquired the name of chattels real (a). In more modern times, chattels real have been classed, with other chattels, within the division of personal property; but as chattels real, though personal property, are in fact interests in land, the laws respecting them have been noticed in the author's treatise on the Principles of the Law of Real Property (b). Chattels real will therefore be only incidentally noticed amongst the subjects treated of in the present work. When leases for years, and other interests in land of the like nature, were admitted into the class of chattels as chattels real, it became necessary that such goods as had previously constituted the whole class, should be distinguished from them by some further name; and the title of chattels personal was accordingly applied to all such chattels as did not savour of real estate. For this title, the choice of two reasons is given to the reader by Sir Edward Coke, "because, for the most part, they belong to the person of a man, or else for that they are to be recovered by personal actions (c)." The former of these two reasons has been chosen by Mr. Justice Blackstone (d). But it is submitted that the latter reason is most probably the true one. When goods and chattels began to be called personal, they had become too numerous and important to accompany the persons (a) Co. Litt. 118b. (b) Principles of the Law of Real Property, 315, et seq. (c) Co. Litt. 118 b. (d) 2 Black. Com. 16, 384; 3 Black. Com. 144. of their owners. On the other hand, the bringing and defending of actions has always been the most prevailing business of lawyers; from the different natures of actions the nomenclature of the law is therefore most likely to have proceeded. Now actions were long divided Actions real, personal, and into three classes,-real actions, personal actions, and mixed. mixed actions. Real actions were brought for the recovery of lands, and, by their aid, the real land was restored to its rightful owner. Mixed actions, as their name imports, were real and personal mixed together. Personal actions were brought in respect of goods, for which, as they are in their nature destructible, nothing but pecuniary damages could with certainty be recovered from the person against whom the action was brought. Accordingly, by the law of England, there never have been more than two kinds of personal actions in which there has been a possibility of recovering, by the judgment of the Court, the identical goods in respect of which the action is brought. One of these is the action of detinue, where goods, having lawfully Action of come into a man's possession, are unlawfully detained by him; in which case, however, the judgment is merely conditional, that the plaintiff recover the said goods, or (if they cannot be had) their respective values, and also the damages for detaining them (e). The other is the action of replevin, brought for goods which have been Action of unlawfully distrained; but in this case the goods have replevin. never been beyond the custody of the sheriff, who is an officer of the law, and their safe return can therefore be secured (f). Goods therefore seem to have been called personal, because the remedy for their abstraction was against the person who had taken them away, or because, in the words of Lord Coke, they were to be recovered by personal actions (g). (e) 3 Black. Com. 152. (f) 3 Black. Com. 146. See Principles of the Law of Real Property, 7. detinue. |