meceffity of the office was not at all material: for by the common law, the utility or neceffity of an office was no requifite towards rendering the bishop's grant of it, confirmed by his dean and chapter, good and valid.

THE bishop of Chichester's cafe too, came before the court on a demurrer.-There was no allegation in the pleadings of either fide as to the office being necessary or not; the question turned folely on the addition of a new fee.

THE cafe of the register of Rochefter (a), came before the court on a special verdict. There was not a word as to the office or reverfionary grant of it being neceffary; but it was found to have been usually granted in reverfion; and therefore the court adjudged fuch a grant in reversion to be good against the fucceffor.

THUS ftood the conftruction of this ftatute, on the reafon and words of the law, the practice and the judicial determinations. But it happened that befide the real grounds of the judgment, in the bishop of Salisbury's cafe, they echoed the reasoning of the bishop of Ely's, without diftinguishing the effential difference between the two cafes; and laboured to prove," that the office was neceffary."

UNDER the great authority of the reporter, the fame reasoning had been repeated in the fubfequent cafes and where the grant was good, because it was warranted by the ufage before the 1 El. they had, ex abundanti, laboured to fhew, that the office was neceffary, by arguments fo inconclufive, and fo contradictory, that one was forry to read or repeat them. "It is neceflary to grant for one life, but not necessary to grant for two, or in reverfion;" and then, "It is neceffary to grant in reversion, that when the first

(a) Here is meant the fecond cafe, Young v. Fowler. Cro. Car. 557.

life drops, there may be another immediately to fill the office." Whereas, in real truth, few of these patent offices, except the judicial, are useful, or neceffary in any sense; fewer are neceffary, or even expedient, to continue beyond the bishop's own time; none neceffary, by any colour of argument, to be granted in reverfion, or for more than one life. But if they exifted before the 1 El. they are not within the ftatute, they are governed by the common law; and therefore grants of them bind the fucceffors, how ufelefs foever they may happen to be.

In the case of Ridley and Pownell, the special verdict had found the office to be a necessary one, which was the first instance where it appeared judicially to the court that the office was necessary.-But by the opinion of my Lord Hale, finding it to be neceffary, was totally immaterial.

WITH respect to the cafe of Jones and Beau, he observed, "that no man alive would say, that it was neceffary that the office of a bishop's chancellor fhould be granted to two."

THE office in queftion, he faid, was found, "never to have been more useful or necessary than it was at the time of the verdict; and yet all the bishops of Winchester from the El. had thought the grants of it valid; and every fucceeding bifhop had submitted to the grant made by his predeceffor: and the greatest men of the kingdom, or the nearest relations to the bishops, had fucceffively held the office. The prefent bifhop had thought this grant good for eleven years; but had conceived a doubt, from the mifapplication and repetition of inconclufive and contradictory arguments about the office being necessary, which are to be found in the reports of the cases before the 27th of Charles the fecond.

THE Court was unanimoufly of opinion, that an office and fee, which existed before the first of Elizabeth, was

not within the ftatute; but might be granted fince precifely in the fame manner in which it was granted before.

In order to prove the usage previous to the making of the ftatutes, it is not abfolutely neceffary that direct evidence of its existence before that time should be produced; it is fufficient to produce fuch evidence of ufage fubfequent to the statutes as to raise a legal presumption that it existed before.

IN the cafe of Jones and Beau, before mentioned (a), the plaintiff produced four grants of the office to two perfons, of which three were made in the time of one bifhop; the laft was made in the year 1620, and the earliest was fifty years after the first of Eliz. it appeared likewise, that fubfequent to the year 1620 no fuch grant had been made till 1672, when the one in question was made; an objection being taken to this evidence, Justice Dolben faid, he recollected, that in the case of the register of Bristol (b), Lord Hale was of opinion, that if it could be fhewn that fuch grants were made fome time after 1 Eliz. it would be an evidence that fuch were also made before the statute. The jury found a special verdict, and the court thought there was enough to induce them to be of opinion that the office was ufually granted to two before the ftatute.

WHERE the fucceffion, in the cafe of a charitable corporation, is vested in truftees, thefe, of course, have no intereft, but are only employed as inftruments to effectuate the purposes of the inftitution; in fuch a cafe, if, at the

(a) Vid. ante, page 173, 178.

(b) Vid. ante, page 172. N 2 foundation,

foundation, the annual income of the land appointed for the maintenance of the objects of the founder's bounty amount to a certain fum, and be distributed in a certain proportion by him, and if afterwards the revenues increase by a rife in the rents of land, the increase shall be employed in making a proportionable increase in the allowance to the objects of the charity (a).

THE capacity of a corporation, and of the members Of Grants of which it is compofed, as individuals, is totally dif tinct (b); the corporation at large may therefore grant uy Corpor to any individual member: thus the dean and chapter may present any of the prebendaries to a living, or make a leafe to him of the chapter lands; and a mayor and commonalty may make a grant to any ordinary member of the corporation. But the head of a corporation differs in this refpect from any other member: a lease cannot be made by the chapter without the concurrence of the dean; therefore the chapter cannot by themselves make a lease to the dean, and he cannot take it as from dean and chapter, because, being an integral part of the corporation, he would in fuch a cafe be both leffor and leffee; neither can they prefent the dean; nor can the mayor and commonalty

grant to the

grant to the mayor: because the corporation is complete to the Sexyou without any particular individual member, and his concurrence is not neceffary to any act of the corporation;

(a) Vid. the cafe of Thetford School, 8 Co. 130. Att. Gen. v. Johnson, Ambler, 190. Att. Gen. v. Sparks, Id. 201. (b) Vid. 8 H. 6, 1, 14. Bro. Corpor. 24. 19 H. 6, 64. Bro. Cor. 27.

but

but it is not complete without the head (a). But if a lease for years be made to A. one of the commonalty of London, and afterwards he become mayor, this leafe is not extinct; and so it is of a dean and chapter; for the member of the corporation in this cafe does not make the body corporate, nor, at the time of the leafe made, was he head of the corporation (b).

If a corporation confist of two bailiffs and burgeffes, one of the bailiffs and burgeffes cannot make a leafe of the corporation lands in their politic capacity to the other bailiff in his natural capacity: for the bailiffs are an integral part of the corporation, and they both make but one officer; and therefore where one is fevered in any corporate act, that act becomes void; for if one bailiff could do a corporate act separately, this inconvenience would follow; they might act directly contrary to one another: the meaning and intent of the charter in making two bailiffs was, that they should be both present, and concur in every corporate act; one, therefore, with the burgeffes, cannot make a leafe to any one, much less to the other; and if both concur, the one to whom the lease is made will be both leffor and leffee (c).

IF J. S. be dean of P. land, it is faid, may be given to him by the name of dean and his fucceffors, and J. S. clerk, and his heirs; in which cafe he will take in two capacities, as dean and as a private man, and will be tenant in common with himself (a). The fame law will

(a) Vid. 14 H. 8, 2. 29 Bro. Corpor. 34. Salk. 398. 8 Mod. 2 Ld. Raym. 778.

304.

(b) Jenk. 200.

(c) Salter, v. Grosvenor, 8 Mod. 304. Lord Hardwicke held it to be a good rule, that no member of the committee of city lands should be a buyer or feller of them. 3 Atkyns, 483, (516).

(d) Vid. ante, page 72.

N 3

hold