are aggregates of persons or of rights, or even objects, which for convenience the law treats as subjects of legal rights and hence as persons. The most important form is the corporation, which may be public,-e. g., municipalities, such as cities and towns, school districts, irrigation districts, sanitary districts, etc., or private, including public service corporations, such as railway companies, and ordinary business corporations. MARKBY, ELEMENTS OF LAW, secs. 131-132. Persons are human beings capable of rights. To constitute a human being capable of rights two things are necessary, birth and survival of birth. There are expressions to be found in English law books which look as if the foetus, or even the embryo, in the mother's womb were capable of rights. Thus we find it said that the unborn child may take by devise or inheritance. But I think the true meaning of this is, not that the unborn child really takes, but that the right is reserved for the child until the moment of its birth. BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES, I, 130. An infant in ventre sa mere, or in the mother's womb, is supposed in law to be born for many purposes. It is capable of having a legacy, or a surrender of a copyhold estate, made to it. It may have a guardian assigned to it; and it is enabled to have an estate limited to its use, and to take afterwards by such limitation, as if it were then actually born. And in this point the civil law agrees with ours. BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES, I, 132. These rights of life and member can only be determined by the death of the person; which was formerly accounted to be either a civil or natural death. The civil death commenced, if any man was banished or abjured the realm by the process of the common law, or entered into religion; that is, went into a monastery, and became there a monk professed: in which case he was absolutely dead in law, and his next heir should have his estate. For such banished man was entirely cut off from society: and such a monk, upon his profession, renounced solemnly all secular concerns: and besides, as the popish clergy claimed an exemption from the duties of civil life and the commands of the temporal magistrate, the genius of the English laws would not suffer those persons to enjoy the benefits of society who secluded themselves from it and refused to submit to its regulations. A monk was therefore counted civiliter mortuus, and when he entered into religion might, like other dying men, make his testament and executors; or if he made none, the ordinary might grant administration to his next of kin, as if he were actually dead intestate. And such executors and administrators had the same power, and might bring the same actions for debts due to the religious, and were liable to the same actions for those due from him, as if he were naturally deceased. Nay, so far has this principle been carried, that when one was bound in a bond to an abbot and his successors, and afterwards made his executors, and professed himself a monk of the same abbey, and in process of time was himself made abbot thereof; here the law gave him, in the capacity of abbot, an action of debt against his own executors to recover the money due. In short, a monk or religious was so effectually dead in law, that a lease made even to a third person, during the iife (generally) of one who afterwards became a monk, determined by such his entry into religion; for which reason leases, and other conveyances for life, were usually made to have and to hold for the term of one's natural life. But, even in the times of popery, the law of England took no cognizance of profession in any foreign country, because the fact could not be tried in our courts; and therefore, since the Reformation, this disability is held to be abolished as is also the disability of banishment, consequent upon abjuration, by Statute 21 Jac. I, c. 28. TOWN OF BALTIMORE V. TOWN OF CHESTER, Supreme Court of Vermont (1881). (53 Vt. 315.) Veazey, J.: The term civil death, as used in the books, seemed to involve, first, a total extinction of the civil rights and relations of the party, so that he could neither take nor hold property, but his estate passed to his heirs as though he were really dead, or was forfeited to the crown; and of this kind were the cases of monks professed, and abjuration of the realm. Second, an in capacity to hold property, or to sue in the king's courts attended with forfeiture of the estate and corruption of blood; and the king took the property to the exclusion of the heirs. There were cases in the English law where the party was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment or perpetual banishment for an offense not attended with forfeiture of his estate. . And it would seem that perpetual imprisonment or perpetual banishment, without forfeiture of the estate, did not in England produce civil death. As crimes do not work a forfeiture of the estate or corruption of blood in this State, there is lacking that taint from crime which seems to have constituted, at common law, one of the essential elements of civil death. We have statutes providing what shall be the effect of imprisonment for crime in certain respects. A life sentence operates as the natural death of a person, so far as it in any way relates to his marriage or the settlement of his estate. Gen. Stats. ch. 120, 19. A sentence for three years or more is a cause for divorce. Ch. 70, 18. For certain purposes the wife is deemed a feme sole while the husband is in state prison. Ch. 71, 13. These seem to be all based on the principle that a prisoner's legal rights, subject to his personal restraint, are unaffected by the imprisonment, except as specially provided by statute. In several states there are statutes providing that persons adjudged to imprisonment for life shall be civilly dead. See In re Nerac, 35 Cal. 392, 95 Am. Dec. 111; Avery v. Everett, 110 N. Y. 317, 6 Am. St. Rep. 368, 1 L. R. A. 264, 18 N. E. Rep. 148. Complete loss of legal personality must be distinguished from incapacity to perform legally valid acts. A person who is civilly dead has lost his legal identity; the old legal personality is extinct, and there is either a new one or none at all in its place. But a person whose legal personality is unaffected may have lost or may not have attained legal capacity to act in some or all cases. (Accordingly we distinguish normal persons,-persons of full and complete capacity, and abnormal persons,-persons of partial or limited capacity. Ancient law conceded full legal capacity to comparatively few. Modern law aims to confer full legal capacity as widely as possible, and in general creates legal incapacities only where there are natural incapacities also. The only substantial exception in our modern law is that for historical reasons married women still labor under a partial legal incapacity in many jurisdictions. In such jurisdictions they have only a limited power of contracting. With this exception, the legal incapacities recognized in modern law coincide substantially with natural incapacities. In the common law there are now five conditions which create legal incapacity, total or partial: (1) Infancy or minority, (2) coverture, (3) idiocy and lunacy or insanity, (4) conviction of treason or felony, (5) alienage. BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES, I, 464. 3. Infants have various privileges, and various disabilities: but their very disabilities are privileges; in order to secure them from hurting themselves by their own improvident acts. An infant can 3 married nomau 34 READINGS ON THE COMMON LAW. not be sued but under the protection, and joining the name, of his With regard to estates and civil property, an infant hath many privileges, which will be better understood when we come to treat more particularly of those matters: but this may be said in general, that an infant shall lose nothing by non-claim, or neglect of demanding his right; nor shall any other laches or negligence be imputed to an infant, except in some very particular cases. It is generally true, that an infant can neither alien his lands, nor do any legal act, nor make a deed, nor indeed any manner of contract that will bind him. But still to all these rules there are some exceptions: part of which were just now mentioned in reckoning up the different capacities which they assume at different ages: and there are others, a few of which it may not be improper to recite, as a general specimen of the whole. And, first, it is true, that infants cannot alien their estates: but infant trustees or mortgagees, are enabled to convey, under the direction of the court of chancery or exchequer, or other courts of equity, the estates they hold in trust or mortgage, to such person as the court shall appoint. Also it is generally true, that an infant can do no legal act. An infant may also purchase lands, but his purchase is incomplete: for, when he comes to age, he may either agree or disagree to it, as he thinks prudent or proper, without alleging any reason; and so may his heirs after him, if he dies without having completed his agreement. It is further, generally true, that an infant, under twenty-one, can make no deed but what is afterwards voidable: yet in some cases he may bind himself apprentice by deed indented or indentures, for seven years; and he may by deed or will appoint a guardian to his children, if he has any. Lastly, it is generally true, that an infant can make no other contract that will bind him: yet he may bind himself to pay for his necessary meat, drink, apparel, physic, and other necessaries; and likewise for his good teaching and instruction whereby he may profit himself afterwards.) And thus much, at present, for the privileges and disabilities of infants. BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES, I, 442. By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law) that is, the very being or (legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage) or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs everything; and is therefore called in our law-french a feme-covert, faemina viro co-operta; is said to be covert-baron, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture. Upon this principle, of a union of person in husband and wife, depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities, that either of them acquire by the marriage. (I speak not at present of the rights of property, but of such as are merely personal. For this reason, a man cannot grant anything to his wife, or enter into covenant with her: for the grant would be to suppose her separate existence; and to covenant with her, would be only to covenant with himself and therefore it is also generally true, that all compacts made between husband and wife, when single, are voided by the intermarriage. A woman indeed may be attorney for her husband; for that implies no separation from, but is rather a representation of, her lord. And a husband may also bequeath any thing to his wife by will; for that cannot take effect till the coverture is determined by his death. (The husband is bound to provide his wife with necessaries by law, as much as himself; and, if she contracts |