Engravd by TTrotter from an Original Picture, painted by Cornelius Jansen, in the Hall of the Inner Temp Dec 10th 1792, Published as the Act directs, by T Cadell, Strand. CHAPTER THE NINTH. OF ESTATES LESS THAN FREEHOLD. OF Feftates that are lefs than freehold, there are three forts: 1. Eftates for years: 2. Eftates at will: 3. Efforta; 1. for years: 2. at 3. tates by fufferance. I. AN eftate for years is a contract for the poffeffion of lands or tenements, for fome determinate period; and it takes place where a man letteth them to another for the term of a certain number of years, agreed upon between the leffor and the leffee, and the leffee enters thereon b. If the leafe be but for half a year, or a quarter, or any lefs time, this leffee is refpected as a tenant for years, and is ftiled fo in fome legal proceedings; a year being the shortest term which the law in this cafe takes notice of. And this may, not improperly, lead us into a fhort digreffion, concerning the divifion and calculation of time by the English law. THE space of a year is a determinate and well-known period, confifting commonly of 365 days: for, though in We may here remark, once for all, that the terminations of "or" and "-ee" obtain, in law, the one an active, the other a paffive fignification; the former ufually denoting the doer of any act, the latter him to whom it is done. The fe ffor is he that maketh a fe fiment; the feoffee is he to whom it VOL. II. is made the donor is one that giveth M biffextile biffextile or leap years it confifts properly of 366, yet by the ftatute 21 Hen. III the increasing day in the leap-year, together with the preceding day, fhall be accounted for one day only. That of a month is more ambiguous; there being, in common use, two ways of calculating months; either as lunar, confifting of twenty-eight days, the fuppofed revolution of the moon, thirteen of which make a year: or, as calendar months of unequal lengths, according to the Julian divifion in our common almanacs, commencing at the ca lends of each month, whereof in a year there are only twelve. A month in law is a lunar month, or twenty-eight days, unless otherwife expreffed; not only because it is always one uniform period, but because it falls naturally into a quarterly divifion by weeks. Therefore a lease for "twelve months" is only for forty-eight weeks; but if it be for "a twelvemonth" in the fingular number, it is good for the whole year. For herein the law recedes from it's usual calculation, because the ambiguity between the two methods of computation ceases; it being generally understood that by. the space of time called thus, in the fingular number, a twelvemonth, is meant the whole year, confifting of one folar revolution (1). In the fpace of a day all the twenty-four d 6 Rep. 61. (1) In bills of exchange and promiffory notes a month is always a calendar month; as if a bill or note is dated on the 10th of January, and made payable one month after date, it is due (the three days of grace being included) on the 13th of February. The fix months in cafes of lapfe and quare impedits, are also calendar months. 6 Co. 61. It is fomewhat remarkable, that the difference between fix calendar months and half a year does not feem to have been confidered by legal writers. Lord Coke fays, half a year confifts of 182 days. 1 Inft. 135. But fix calendar months will be two or three days lefs or more than half a year, accordingly as February is reckoned, or not, one of the fix. Lord Coke, in his report of Catesby's cafe, clearly confiders the tempus femeftre to be fix calendar months (6 Co. 61.); yet fir George Croke in his report of that cafe, hours are usually reckoned; the law generally rejecting all fractions of a day, in order to avoid difputes. Therefore, if I am bound to pay money on any certain day, I discharge the obligation if I pay it before twelve o'clock at night; after which the following day commences (2). But to return to eftates for years. THESE eftates were originally granted to mere farmers or husbandmen, who every year rendered fome equivalent in money, provifions, or other rent, to the leffors or landlords; but, in order to encourage them to manure and cultivate the ground, they had a permanent intereft granted them, not determinable at the will of the lord. And yet their poffeffion was esteemed of fo little confequence, that they were rather confidered as the bailiffs or fervants of the lord, who were to [142] receive and account for the profits at a settled price, than as having any property of their own. And therefore they were not allowed to have a freehold estate: but their interest (such as it was) vested after their deaths in their executors, who were to make up the accounts of their teftator with the lord, and his other creditors, and were entitled to the stock upon the farm. The leffee's eftate might also, by the antient law, be at any time defeated by a common recovery suffered by the tenant of the freehold ; which annihilated all leafes for f Co. Litt. 46. e Co. Litt. 135. cafe, ftates it as confidently to confift of 182 days; and in neither report is the difference taken notice of. From the cafes in 3 Wilf. 21. and 1 T. R. 159. it appears that a notice to a tenant from year to year to quit the premises, must be half a year, and not fix calendar months, though the computation by the latter would be more fimple and convenient; and that was understood to be the proper notice by the court of common pleas in 2 Bl. Rep. 1224. (2) See 4 T. R. 170. where there was a difference of opinion in the court upon the queftion, whether a bill of exchange could be protested for non-payment on the fame day that it was due, or the acceptor had the whole of the day to discharge it in ? |