THINGS PERSONAL. [Book HI.

to make use of; though, whenever those have first occurred, I have generally
attempted a short explication of their meaning. These are indeed the more
numerous, on account of the different languages which our law has at different
periods been taught to speak; the difficulty arising from which will insensibly
diminish by use and familiar acquaintance. And therefore I shall close this
branch of our inquiries with the words of Sir Edward Coke: (y) "Albeit the
student shall not at any one day, do what he can, reach to the full meaning of
all that is here laid dlown, yet let him no way discuae himself, but proceed:
for on some other day, in some other place " (or perhaps upon a second perusal
of the same), "1his doubts will be probably removed.

CHAPTER XXIV.
OF' THINGS PERSONAL.
UNDER the name of things personal are included all sorts of things movable,
which may attend a man's person wherever he goes; (1) and, therefore, being
only the objects of the law while they remain within the limits of its jurisdic-
tion, and being also of a perishable quality, are not esteemed of so high a nature,
nor paid so and
permanent much the law,
regard to asbylands
immovable, and as things that are in their nature more
houses and the profits issuing thereout.
These being constantly within the reach, and under the protection, of the law,
were the principal favourites of our first legislators: who took all imaginable
care in ascertaining the rights, and directing the disposition, of such property
as they imagined to be lasting, and which would answer to posterity the trouble
and pains that their ancestors employed about them; but at the same time
entertained a very low and contemptuous opinion of all personal estate, which
they regarded as only a transient commodity. The amount of it indeed was
comparatively very trifling, during the scarcity of money and the ignorance of
luxurious refinements, which prevailed in the feudal ages. Hence it was, that
a tax of the fifteenth, tenth, or sometimes a much larger proportion, of all the
movables of the subject, was frequently laid without scruple, and is mentioned
with much unconcern by our ancient historians, though now it would justly
[*385] alarm our opulent merchants and stockholders. And hence, *likewise,
may be derived the frequent forfeitures inflicted by the common law, of
all a man's goods and chattels, for misbehaviours and inadvertencies that at
(y) Proeme to I Inst.

(1) [" Chattels" are real or personal. Co. Lit. 118, b., Chattels real are such as concern the
realty, as a term for years. Itd. Chattels personal are cattle, stuff, &c., fowls, tame or
reclaimed, deer, coneys tame, fish in a trunk, tithes severed from the nine parts, trees sold or
reserved upon a sale,--Hob. 173-and emblements. Com. Dig. Biens, A. 2. The terms "goods
and chattels" include choses in action as well as those in possession. 12 Co. 1; 1 Atk. 182.
But a bill of exchange, mortgage, bond, and banker's receipt, will not pass by a bequest of all
the testator's "property" in a particular house, though cash and bank notes would have
passed, they being quasi cash; for bills, bonds, &c., are mere evidence of title to things out
of the house and not things in it. 1 Sch. and Lef. 318 ; 11 Ves. 662. The term " chattels" is
more comprehensive than "goods," and will include animate as well as inanimate property.
The term "goods" will not include fixtures; but the word " effects" may embrace the same.
7 Taunt. 188; 4 J. B. Moore, 73; 4 B. and A. 206. Invalid exchequer bills are securities and
effects within meaning of 15 Geo. II, c. 13. 1 New. R. I. The terms " effects, both real and
personal," in a will, pass freehold estates, and all chattels real and personal. 3 Bro. P. C.
888. As to trees, see Com. Dig. Biens, H.; 2 Saund. Index, Trees: Bridgm. index, tit. Tim-
ber, when severed or contracted to be severed, from the land passes as personal property.
Rob. 173; 11 Co. 50; Com. Dig. Biens; 1I. Teller's L. Ex. 195, 196.] Upon the general subject,
see the very complete and satisfactory treatise on Personal Property by Mr. Williams.
586
Chap. 24.] CHATTELS REAL. 385
present hardly seem to deserve so severe a punishment. Our ancient law-books,
which are founded upon the feudal provisions, do not, therefore, often condescend
to regulate this species of property. There is not a chapter in Britton or the
Mirror, that can fairly be referred to this head; and the little that is to be found
in Glanvil, Bracton, and Fleta, seems principally borrowed from the civilians.
But of later years, since the introduction and extension of trade and commerce,
which are entirely occupied in this species of property, and have greatly aug-
mented its quantity, and, of course, its value, we have learned to conceive differ-
ent ideas of it. Our courts now regard a man's personalty in a light nearly, if
not quite, equal to his realty: and have adopted a more enlarged and less tech-
nical mode of considering the one than the other; frequently drawn from the
rules which they found already established by the Roman law, wherever those
rules appeared to be well grounded and apposite to the case in question, but
principally from reason and convenience, adapted to the circumstances of the
times; preserving withal a due regard to ancient usages, and a certain feudal
tincture, which is still to be found in some branches of personal property.
But things personal, by our law, do not only include things movable but also
something more: the whole of which is comprehended under the general name
of chattels, which, Sir Edward Coke says, (a) is a French word, signifying goods.
The appellation is in truth derived from the technical Latin word, catalla:
which primarily signified only beasts of husbandry, or (as we still call them)
cattle, but in its secondary sense was applied to all movables in general. (b) In
the grand coustumier of Normandy (c) a chattel is described as a mere mova-
ble, but at the same time it is set in oppositon to a fief or feud: so that not only
goods, but whatever was not a feud, were accounted chattels. *And it
is in this latter, more extended, negative sense, that our law adopts it; [*386
the idea of goods, or movables only, being not sufficiently comprehensive to
take in everything that the law considers as a chattel interest. For since, as
the commentator on the coustumier (d) observes, there are two requisites to
make a fief or heritage, duration as to time, and immobility with regard to
place; whatever wants either of these qualities is not, according to the Normans,
an heritage or fief; or, according to us, is not a real estate; the consequence of
which in both laws is, that it must be a personal estate, or chattel.
Chattels therefore are distributed by the law into two kinds; chattels real,
and chattels personal.(e)
1. Chattels real, saith Sir Edward Coke, (f) are such as concern, or savour
of, the realty; as terms for years of land, wardships in chivalry (while the mili-
tary tenures subsisted), the next presentation to a church, estates by a statute-
merchant, statute-staple, elegit, or the like ; of all which we have already spoken.
And these are called real chattels, as being interests issuing out of, or annexed
to, real estates: of which they have one quality, viz., immobility, which denomi-
nates them real; but want the other, viz., a sufficient, legal, indeterminate
duration; and this want it is that constitutes them chattels. The utmost
period for which they can last is fixed and determinate, either for such a space
of time certain, or till such a particular sum of money be raised out of such a
particular income; so that they are not equal in the eye of the law to the lowest
estate of freehold-, a lease for another's life : their tenants were considered upon
feudal principles as merely bailiffs or farmers; and the tenant of the freehold
might at any time have destroyed their interest, till the reign of Henry VIII.(g)
A freehold, which alone is a real estate, and seems (as has been said) to answer
to the fief in Normandy, is conveyed by corporal investiture and *livery [*387]
of seisin; which gives the tenant so strong a hold of the land, that it never
after can be wrested from him during his life, but by his own act of voluntary
transfer or of forfeiture; or else by the happening of some future contingency,
(a) 1 Inst. 118. (b) Dufresne, IT, 409. (0) C. 87.
(d) II conviendrolt quilfuet non mnuuable et de duree a tou siours,fol. 107, a.
(e) So, too, In the Norman law, Cateux sent meubles et immeubles: si comme vrai meuoes ont qui transporter
Re peuvent et ensulvir le corps; Immeubles sont chos8 quine peuvent en sui i'r Ie corps, n estre transportees8,et tout
Ce qu, n'est point en, heritage. LL. Will. Nothi, c. 4, apud Dufresne, II, 409.
(f) 1 inst. 118. (y) See page 142.
 CHATTELS PERSONAL. [Book IL.
as in estates per auter vie, and the determinable freeholds mentioned in a former
chapter. (h) And even these, being of an uncertain duration, may by possibility
last for the owner's life; for the law will not presuppose the contingency to
happen before it actually does, and till then the estate is to all intents and pur-
poses a life-estate, and therefore a freehold interest. On the other hand, a chat-
tel interest in lands, which the Normans put in opposition to fief, and we to
freehold, is conveyed by no seisin or corporal investiture, but the possession is
gained by the mere entry of the tenant himself; and it will certainly expire at
a time prefixed and determined, if not sooner. Thus a lease for years must neces-
sarily fail at the end and completion of the term; the next presentation to a
church is satisfied and gone the instant it comes into possession, that is, by the
first avoidance and presentation to the living; the conditional estates by statutes
and elegit are determined as soon as the debt is paid; and so guardianship in
chivalry expired of course the moment that the heir came of age. And if there
be any other chattel real, it will be found to correspond with the rest in this
essential quality, that its duration is limited to a time certain, beyond which it
cannot subsist. (2)
2. Chattels personal are, properly and strictly speaking, things'movable;
which may be annexed to or attendant on the person of the owner, and car-
ried about with him from one part of the world to another. Such are animals,
household stuff, money, jewels, corn, garments, and everything else 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 speak in the remainder of this
book; having been unavoidably led to consider the nature of chattels real, and
[*388] their incidents, in the former chapters, which were *employed upon real
estates: that kind of property being of a mongrel, amphibious nature,
originally endowed with one only of the characteristics of each species of things ;
the immobility of things real, and the precarious duration of things personal.
Chattel interests being thus distinguished and distributed, it will be proper to
consider, first, the nature of that property,or dominion, to which they are liable;
which must be principally, nay solely, referred to personal chattels: and, sec-
ondly, the title to that property, or how it may be lost and acquired. Of each
of these in its order.

CHAPTER XXV.
OF PROPERTY IN THINGS PERSONAL.
PROPERTY in chattels personal may be either in possession: which is where
a man hath not only the right to enjoy, but hath the actual enjoyment of, the
thing: or else it is in action; where a man hath only a bare right, without any
occupation or enjoyment. And of these the former, or property in possession,
is divided into two sorts, an absolute and a qualified property.
I. First, then, of property in possession absolute,(1) which is where a man
hath, solely and exclusively, the right, and also the occupation, of any movable
(h) Page 120.

(2) [It is a rule of the law of England, in common with that of most other nations, that
the title by succession to personal property, wherever it is situated, shall be determined by the
law of the domicile of the deceased owner. 1 H. B. 670; 5 Ves. 750; 5 B. and Cr. 451; 1
Hagg. 474, 498; 8 Sim. 310. But it has been denied by a justly esteemed writer that this rule
extends to chattels real, on the ground that the treatment of such property as personalty is
peculiar to our own law. 1 Jarm. on Wills, 4; 2 id. 740. The point appears to be unaffected
by decision, and is perhaps open to argument on both sides. See 2 P. Wins. 622.]
(1) [It is a rule of law, that the absolute or general property of personal chattels, draws to
it the supposed possession. 2 Saund. 47, a.]
588