NEW COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND. BOOK II. OF RIGHTS OF PROPERTY-(continued). PART II. OF THINGS PERSONAL. THE subjects of property were divided, as we may recollect, into things real, and things personal (@). The first of these being sufficiently discussed—so far at least as concerns the division of rights, as distinguished from wrongs (b),-we proceed now to the consideration of the second. (a) Vide sup. vol. 1. p. 166. VOL. II. (b) Ib. p. 135. B CHAPTER I. OF THINGS PERSONAL IN GENERAL, AND OF "THINGS personal" fall under the larger and more general denomination of chattels, or goods and chattels (a)—the term "chattel" being also applicable to any interest in land which does not amount to freehold, and which we have had already occasion to examine in former chapters, under the appellation of chattels real (b). With chattels real, however, we have not at present any direct concern. For these are not properly the subjects of property, but rather modifications of property, or species of estates in a certain kind of subjects, viz. in things real. When considered, indeed, in reference to the distinction between real and personal estate, they are held to fall under the latter denomination, their incidents being in general the same with those of property in moveables; but as regards the distinction between things real and things personal, they appertain to the division of things real, and have consequently been allotted to the First Part of the present Book. Things personal, therefore, to which our immediate attention is invited, include only moreables, and the rights connected with them; and these, as put in contradistinction to chattels real, sometimes receive the appellation of chattels personal (c). Things personal then (so understood) comprise in the first place all sorts of things moveable, that is, such as may (a) Co. Litt. 118b; Ryal v. Rolle, 1 Atk. 183. (b) Co. Litt. ubi sup.; Com. Dig. Biens, D. 2; vide sup. vol. 1. pp. 166, 279. (c) Co. Litt. ubi sup. attend a man's person wherever he goes; and, being consequently of a perishable quality, are not esteemed of so high a nature, nor paid so much regard to by the law, as things that are in their nature immoveable and more permanent, -as lands and houses and the profits issuing thereout. [Hence, these last were the principal favourites of our first legislators, who took all imaginable care in ascertaining the right, 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 moveables of the subject, was frequently laid without scruple; and is mentioned with much unconcern by our antient historians, though now it would justly 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 misbehaviour and inadvertences that at present hardly seem to have deserved so severe a punishment (d). Our antient law books, which are founded on the feudal provisions, do not therefore often condescend to regulate personal property. There is not a chapter in Britton or the Mirrour 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 in modern times, since the introduction and extension of trade and commerce, which are entirely occupied in this species of property, have (d) It will be borne in mind, that, when Blackstone wrote, the law of forfeiture was very severe. As to the present law on this subject, vide sup. vol. 1. p. 443. [greatly augmented its quality and value, we have learned to conceive different 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 technical 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. Moveables consist, in the first place, of inanimate things, as goods, plate, money, jewels, implements of war, garments and the like; or vegetable productions, as the fruit or other parts of a plant, when severed from the body of it, or the whole plant itself when severed from the ground. And these require, for the present, no particular remark. But under the same division of moveables we have also to arrange animals-which have in themselves a principle and power of motion, and (unless particularly confined) can convey themselves from one part of the world to another. And as to these, there is a great difference made with respect to their several classes, not only in our law, but in the law of nature and of all civilized nations. They are distinguished, then, into such as are domitæ and such as are feræ naturæ; some being of a tame, and others of a wild disposition. In such as are of a nature tame and domestic-as horses, kine, sheep, poultry, and the like—a man may have as absolute a property as in any inanimate beings; as they continue perpetually in his occupation, and will not stray from his house or person, unless by accident or fraudulent enticement, in either of which cases the owner does not lose his property in them.] But with animals feræ naturæ, the case is different. These are, generally speaking, not the subjects of absolute property, at least while living (d). Yet, under certain circumstances, a man (d) See Hannam v. Mockett, 2 B. & C. 934; Reg. v. Townley, Law Rep., 1 C. C. R. 315; Reg. v. Read, ib., 3 Q. B. D. 131. |