metic. For refusal to serve and work, infants may be imprisoned in jail, until they shall be willing to serve as apprentices or servants. The above law in relation to master and apprentice, is supposed to contain the substance of the English statute law on the subject.

560. The relation between a master and a hired servant, rests altogether upon contract. The one is bound to render the service, and the other to pay the stipulated consideration. But if the servant hired for a definite term, leaves the service before the end of it, without reasonable cause, he loses his right to wages for the period he served. And he may be dismissed for cause, before the expiration of the term. The master is bound by the acts of his servant, either in respect to contracts or injuries, when the act is done by the authority of the master. servant does an injury fraudulently, while in the employment of his master, both have been held liable in damages; and if a servant employs another servant to do his business, and, in doing it, the servant so employed is guilty of an injury, the master is liable.

If the

CHAPTER IV.

Of the Right of Property.-Real Property.

561. A material object of government is to secure the right to acquire property, and to make use of it. Property, as stated in a preceding chapter, is either real or personal; the latter consisting of what is movable from place to place, the former, of lands and things built or growing thereon. Fruit, grain, trees, minerals, &c. become personal property, when separated from the land.

tion of poor children provided for? 560. What relation subsists between the master and hired servant?

561. What is real property? Personal property? 562. Who may

562. Every citizen of the United States is capable of holding lands, and of taking the same by descent, devise or purchase; and of aliening or conveying away such estate. Estates in land are divided into estates of inheritance, estates for life, estates for years, and estates at will and by sufferance. An estate of inheritance is termed a fee simple, or fee. A fee is an estate of inheritance in law, belonging to the owner, and transmissible to his heirs. No estate is deemed a fee, unless it may continue forever. Fee simple is a pure inheritance, clear of any qualification or condition, and gives a right of succession to all the heirs generally, provided that they shall be of the blood of the first purchaser, and of the person last seised.

563. An estate for life, is an estate conveyed to a person for the term of his natural life. Estates for life and estates of inheritance, are called freeholds. An estate for years is a right created by a lease, or a contract for the possession and profits of land, for a determinate period, with the recompense of rent. An estate at will is where one man lets land to another, to hold at the will of the lessor. An estate at sufferance is where one has come into the possession of land by lawful title, but holds over by wrong, after his interest has ceased. He is not entitled to notice to quit, and he is not liable to pay rent. The landlord may dispossess such tenant whenever he pleases.

564. The real estate of any person who shall die without devising the same, shall descend, in the following manner: (1.) to his lineal descendants; (2.) to his father; (3.) to his mother; and (4.) to his collateral relatives. If any of the children of an intestate be living, and any be dead, the inheritance shall descend to the children living; and to the descendants of those who are dead; so that such descendants may inherit the share which their parent would have received, if living.

hold real property? How are estates in land divided? What is an estate of inheritance? A fee? 563. What is an estate for life? An estate for years? An estate at will? An estate at sufferance? 564,

565. If the intestate shall die without lawful descendants, and leave a father, the inheritance goes to the father," unless the inheritance came to the intestate on the part of the mother. If he leaves neither father nor descendants, the inheritance descends to the mother; but if he leaves also a brother or sister, the mother holds it only during her life, and on her death, it descends to his brothers and sisters or their descendants. If he leaves neither descendants, nor father nor mother, the estate descends to his brothers and sisters or their descendants.

566. But if there be no heir to take the inheritance in either of the above cases, the same shall descend to the brothers and sisters of the father, if the property shall have come to the intestate on the part of the father. If his father has no brothers and sisters, the estate descends to brothers and sisters of his mother. If the property comes to the intestate on the part of his mother, her brothers and sisters have precedence; and if the inheritance has not come to the intestate, on the part of either the father or mother, it shall descend, in equal shares, to the brothers and sisters of the intestate.

567. Persons become possessed of real estate in various ways; but evidence of such possession consists usu ally in a writing called a deed, signed and sealed by the person who had a right to execute it, acknowledged by a proper person, and recorded in the public registry. Every deed conveying real estate, though it is, when duly executed, binding as between the parties, is nevertheless void as against any person who may subsequently purchase the conveyed estate in good faith, and for a valuable consideration, and whose deed shall be first recorded. Deeds, mortgages, and other securities in the nature of mortgages, are recorded by the clerks of the several counties, in books provided for that purpose.

568. A mortgage is the conveyance of an estate, by way of pledge for the security of debt, and to become

565, 566. How does the title to real estate descend to the heirs of persons having died intestate? 567. How is proof to the title of real estate obtained? Are deeds in any case obligatory before they

void on the payment of it. The condition upon which the land is conveyed is usually put in the deed of conveyance, but the defeasance may be contained in a separate instrument; and if the deed be absolute in the first instance, and the defeasance be executed subsequently, it will relate back to the date of the principal deed, and connect itself with it, so as to render it a security in the nature of a mortgage.

569. In order, however, to render the deed a security against subsequent purchasers and mortgagees, the deed and defeasance should be recorded together. An omission to have the defeasance registered, would make the estate, which was conditional between the parties, absolute against every person but the original parties and their heirs. The practice of placing the conveyance in fee, and the condition or defeasance which is to qualify it, in separate instruments, is liable to accidents and abuse, and injury to the mortgagee, and should be discouraged.

570. If the condition of a mortgage has been satisfied, the person in whose custody it may be, shall cause it to be discharged, whenever there shall be presented to him a certificate, signed by the mortgagee, acknowledged or proved, and certified as the law prescribes to entitle conveyances to be recorded, specifying that the mortgage has been paid. And every certificate of discharge shall be recorded.

571. When a deed or a mortgage has been executed, before it shall be recorded, the party executing it must acknowledge, before a commissioner of deeds, that he executed the same; and the commissioner subscribes a certificate of the acknowledgment on the margin or back of the instrument. In New York, commissioners of deeds, of whom there are at least two in each town, are appointed by the board of supervisors and judges of the

are recorded? 568. What is a mortgage? How is it executed? 569. What rule is to be observed in registering a mortgage? 570. When the condition of a mortgage is satisfied, how is it dis charged? 571. What is essential to a deed before it is recorded? How are commissioners of deeds appointed?

Q

county courts. Judges of the several courts in the state, also, are authorized to take such acknowledgments. If a married woman signs a deed, the acknowledgment must be made to the commissioner, apart from her hus band, that she executed the same freely, and without compulsion from her husband. If any married woman refuses to execute a conveyance, she retains her estate in dower, against any person claiming the conveyed pre

mises.

CHAPTER V.

Of Personal Property-Contract of Sale.

572. PERSONAL property is divided into chattels real and personal. Chattels real concern the realty, as a lease for years of land; and the duration of the time is immaterial. It is only personal estate, if it be for a thous and years. There are, also, many chattels which, though of a movable nature, yet, being attached to the freehold, and contributing to its value and enjoyment, go with it; as the shelves and fixtures in a house, and the posts and rails of an enclosure. But many things are now treated as personal property which seem, in a degree, to be attached to the freehold.

573. It has been established as a general rule, that things which a tenant has fixed to the freehold, for the purposes of trade or manufactures, may be removed, when the removal does not cause any material injury to the estate. Thus fats, coppers, tubs and partitions, belonging to a soap boiler, have been removed. Chimney pieces, and even wainscot, put up by a tenant; or a cider mill and press erected by him, may be removed, if it can be done without material injury to the freehold. On the other

572. What is personal property? What are chattels real? 573. What chattels attached to a freehold may be removed? and what