Modern personal estate.

Mortgages.

Bills, notes, and cheques.

distinguished from an equitable, right to the thing assigned, and is entitled to sue therefor in his own name (y): but it should be noted that the statute requires an absolute (2) assignment in writing (a) under the hand of the assignor, and notice thereof in writing; without which the assignment is left to take effect under the previous law. The Act moreover makes no change in the nature of the assignment of a chose in action (b), the old rule, that it shall be subject to all equities between the person liable and the assignor, being expressly preserved (c).

In modern times several species of property have sprung up which were unknown to the early common law. Mortgages became common when the lending of money at interest had been recognized as legal, and the modern equitable jurisdiction over the redemption of mortgages was firmly established (d). The development of modern commerce and banking has sent bills of exchange, bank-notes (e), and latterly cheques into Government general circulation. The funding of the National Debt, after the revolution of 1688, first afforded means for the permanent investment of capital in Government annuities or stock; in which the investor looks rather to the enjoyment of the perpetual annuity secured to him under government guarantee, by way of interest, than to the repayment of his capital (ƒ). Companies of merchants putting their money into a joint stock for

annuities or stock.

(y) Read v. Brown, 22 Q. B. D. 128.

(z) See Tancred v. Delagoa Bay &c. Ry. Co., 23 Q. B. D. 239; Comfort v. Betts, 1892, 1 Q. B. 737.

(a) Which must be stamped as an assignment; Buck v. Robson, 3 Q. B. D. 686; see stat. 54 & 55 Viet. c. 39, ss. 54 et seq., 86 et seq., and First Schedule.

(b) Ante, p. 31.

(c) See Young v. Kitchin, 3 Ex. D. 127; Brice v. Bannister, 3 Q. B. D. 569, 578; Walker v. Bradford Old Bank, 12 Q. B. D. 511. (d) See Williams, R. P. 500 and n. (e), 501-503, 17th ed.

(e) Ante, pp. 24, 32.

(f) See Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, vol. ii. (Modern Times), 290.

companies.

the purposes of a trading or mercantile adventure were occasionally incorporated by royal charter in the seventeenth century, or even earlier (g). But the Shares in prominence of shares in joint-stock companies as a form joint stock of property belongs to the present century, in which so many railway and other companies have been constituted by special Act of Parliament, and which has witnessed, since 1862, the incorporation of countless companies, for pursuing all kinds of schemes of profit, under the Companies Acts (h). Again, the borrowings of companies have given rise to debentures and debenture Debentures. stock, which sometimes merely secure a debt against the company, but more frequently give a charge on the company's property as well. Whilst loans offered for subscription by foreign and colonial governments, and municipal authorities of every description have produced Stock a host of other securities-taking the form sometimes Exchange of written instruments (i), promising the payment of a certain sum and interest, frequently to the bearer (k), and sometimes of stock inscribed in books kept at some bank. The importance of copyright in books and of patents for invention is also obviously modern. All these kinds of property are classed as personal estate, on the ground of their passing to the executor or administrator, not the heir (i); indeed, many of them have been expressly declared to be and to descend as personal estate by the statutes creating them (m).

(g) Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, vol. ii. (Modern Times), 24-27, 118-127, 267 et seq.; 280-284, 289; and see vol. i. (Early and Middle Ages), 371-372, 438, 448, 468; Gardiner's History of Eng. land, ii. 310.

(h) Stat. 25 & 26 Vict. c. 89, and amending Acts of 1867, 1877, 1879, 1880 and 1890.

(1) Commonly called bonds, though differing from what is called a bond at common law; post, Part II. ch. III.

(k) Ante, p. 24.

(1) Ante, p. 5.

(m) See stats. 8 & 9 Will. III. c. 20, s. 33, as to stock in the Bank of England; 9 & 10 Will. III. c. 44, s. 71, as to shares in the East India Co.; 1 Geo. I. st. 2, c. 19, s. 9, now replaced by 33 & 34 Vict. c. 71, s. 9, as to Government annuities; 5 & 6 Vict. c. 45, s. 25, as to copyright; 8 & 9 Vict. c. 16, s. 7; 25 & 26 Vict. c. 89, s. 22, as to shares in companies.

securities.

Copyrights and patents.

But they do not always fit easily into the classification of personal things as being in possession or in action. Thus a debt is a thing in action, although it be secured by mortgage, bill of exchange, or promissory note. But the charge created by a mortgage of land in fee (n), although personal estate in equity, is not to be comprehended in any classification of chattels. On the other hand, bills and notes seem to share the characteristics of things both in possession and in action. In regard to the debts they secure, they are things in action (0) but as the tangible evidence of the right to sue, their possession is of supreme importance. And this remark applies to all negotiable securities (p). A sum of government stock, which is properly the right to receive a perpetual annuity redeemable on payment of a certain sum, as 100l. for every 2l. 158. of annuity, has been judicially declared to be of the nature of a mere right of action in the personalty (q). And a share in a joint stock company has also been ascertained to be a mere chose in action (r). The exclusive privileges known as copyrights and patents are rights of a different kind. They are in fact monopolies (s), in the former case of the right of multiplying copies of a book or other work of art, in the latter of working a new invention. Thus, they are mere rights unaccompanied with the possession of anything corporeal (t); they are also in a manner realizable

(n) See Williams, R. P. 499, 503, 17th ed.

(0) Hertford v. Lowther, 7 Beav. 1. At common law, too, bills, notes, and other securities for money, being regarded as concerning mere choses in action, and as not importing any property in possession, were held not to be goods, whereof larceny could be committed; 4 Black. Comm. 234. But they were made the objects of larceny by stat. 2 Geo. II. c. 25, now replaced by 24 & 25 Vict. c. 96, s. 27.

(p) See ante, p. 24; Re Prater, 37 Ch. D. 481; Ke Robson, 1891, 2 Ch. 559.

(q) Dundas v. Dutens, 1 Ves. jun. 196, 198; Wildman v. Wildman, 9 Ves. 174, 177; R. v. Capper, 5 Price, 217, 263, 264.

(r) Humble v. Mitchell, 11 A. & E. 205; Colonial Bank v. Whinney, 30 Ch. D. 261, 286; 11 App. Cas. 426, 439, 446, 447. (s) Black. Comm. ii. 407; iv.

159.

(t) See Williams, R. P. 5, 6, 17th ed.

by action against transgressors. But they differ from
obligations arising from contract or wrong (u) in that
they are rights availing against all the world, and not
against particular persons only (x). They have more-
over always been directly assignable, copyrights by
statute (y) and patent rights at common law and under
the
express words of the royal grants, which create
them (). Stocks and shares too, though held to be
things in action, have in most cases been made directly
assignable by the Acts of Parliament, to which they owe
their existence. And the manner of transferring them
has also been usually prescribed by statute. Thus the
assignment of a sum of Government or Bank of England
stock is made by the entry of the transfer thereof in
the proper books kept at the Bank of England (a);
while shares in joint stock companies are generally
transferred by deed or writing (as required by the
regulations of the company) registered at the office of
the company (b).

chattels differ

Such is the general outline of the nature of personal How personal chattels, and of the objects included in the term. from real As we have seen (c), personal chattels are distinguished property. from real property in being unaffected by the feudal rules of tenure, in passing after death to the executor or administrator, not the heir, and in being recoverable by entirely different actions. Personal chattels are also alienable, in modern times, by methods altogether different from those required in the case of

(u) Ante, pp. 4, 30.

() 1 Austin's Jurisprudence, 48, 400, 4th ed.

(y) 8 Anne, c. 19, s. 1, replaced by 5 & 6 Vict. c. 45, s. 3.

(2) Godson on Patents, 211, 215, 237; Dunnicliff v. Mallett, 7 C. B. N. S. 209; Walton v. Lavater, 8 C. B. N. S. 162; stats. 15 & 16 Vict. c. 83, s. 35 and Schedule; 46 & 47 Vict. c. 57, ss.

23, 33, 36, and First Schedule,
Form D.

(a) Sec stats. 8 & 9 Will. III.
c. 20, s. 34; 1 Geo. I. st. 2, c.
19, s. 11, now replaced by 33 &
34 Vict. c. 71, ss. 5, 22.

(b) See stats. 8 & 9 Vict. c. 16, ss. 14, 15; 26 & 26 Vict. c. 89, s. 22 and First Schedule, Table A (8, 9).

(c) Ante, pp. 1—3.

land. On the first of these characteristics, however, mainly depends the nature of the property which exists in things personal. The first lesson to be learned of the nature of real property is this that our law does not admit of the absolute ownership of land in the hands of the subject; the utmost he can enjoy is an estate in fee simple held of the Crown or some mesne lord. But with regard to personal property, the primary rule is precisely the reverse. Chattels are essentially the objects of absolute ownership, and cannot be held for any estate (d). That chattels are the objects of ownership, not of tenure, was settled in times when they consisted almost exclusively of tangible moveable things, and principally of cattle. And this rule was applied to all things comprised in the class of chattels (e), and remained unchanged in later times, when property of a more permanent nature, such as leases of land for a thousand years and perpetual Government Annuities, were included among chattels. In the first place then we will consider the laws respecting those moveable chattels, or choses in possession, which constitute the most ancient and simple kind of personal property; these chattels having imparted so much of their nature to the rest.

ed.

(d) Williams, R. P. 6-15, 17th

(e) Dial. de Scaccario, II. xiv.;

Stubbs, Select Charters, 236, 2nd ed.; Glanv. VII. 5, X. 6; Bract. fo. 60 b, 129 a, 131 a, 407 b.