tenements, and hereditaments, in trust to the use of parish churches, chapels, churchwardens, guilds, fraternities, companies, or brotherhoods, erected from devotion, or by common affent of the people without incorporation, or for the maintenance of perpetual obits, or for the continual service of a priest for ever, or for the long periods of fixty or eighty years.

THE ftatute of Richard the fecond, it was fuppofed, extended only to bodies formally incorporated, or confidered as legitimate corporations; but it being conceived that the fame or fimilar inconveniencies refulted from conveyances to the use of such bodies, as from alienations in mortmain, it was by the prefent ftatute enacted, that "all conveyances to fuch and other fimilar uses, should, for the future, be utterly void; and that the provifions of this statute might not be eluded by any collateral affurance, it was further enacted, that if any one should bind his heirs or fucceffors, or any other perfon or perfons, to fuffer fuch uses to endure and continue, under the penalty of lofing other lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or any thing elfe; or fhould attempt or devife by any colour, craft, or means, to make fuch uses prevail, against the meaning of the act, fuch penalty, craft, or colour, fhould be utterly void; and that the statute should always be expounded as beneficially as poffible for the avoidance of fuch uses.

It was, however, provided, that any one feifed of any manors, lands, tenements, or hereditaments to his own proper ufe, or having feoffees, recoverors, or conufees to his ufe, might create any of the ufes above specified, in the fame manner as he might have done before the making of the act, on condition that they should not be made to continue beyond the term of twenty years from the time of their creation.

IT was also provided that the ftatute fhould not affect any good and lawful authority by ancient custom in cities. and towns corporate, to devife in mortmain lands, tenements, and hereditaments, within the fame cities and towns corporate.

THE ftatutes of the 32d and 34th H. 8. (a) commonly called the ftatutes of wills, give free liberty to every perfon having a fole estate in fee simple, of any manors, &c. "to give, difpofe, will, or devife, to any person or perfons, except to bodies politic and corporate, by his last will and teftament in writing, or otherwife by any acts lawfully executed in his life-time, all his manors, &c. at his own free will and pleasure, any law, ftatute, custom, or other thing, theretofore had, made, or used, to the contrary notwithstanding."

BECAUSE bodies politic and corporate are alone excepted in these ftatutes, it has been argued, that bodies of men not incorporated were tacitly included, and therefore the prohibition in the ftatute of 23 H. 8. was virtually repealed by them (b). Whether this opinion was well or ill founded, however, it is now become immaterial to inquire, because by a subsequent statute (c), all fuperftitious uses are taken away; and it has been exprefsly decided (d) that the statute was meant to extend to these alone, and not to fuch uses as had for their object the advancement of religion, the promotion of learning, or works of charity, or any other beneficial public purpose; fo that a man might after that statute have given lands to any person and his heirs for the finding of a preacher, maintenance of a school, the relief and comfort of maimed foldiers, the sus

(a) 32 H. 8, c. 1. and 34 H. 8. c. 5.
(b) 1 Co. 25. a. Porter's cafe.
(d) 1 Co. 25. b.

(c) 1 Ed. 6, c. 14.

tenance

tenance of the poor, reparation of churches, highways, bridges, caufeways, difcharging the poor inhabitants of a town of common charges; for making a stock for poor labourers in husbandry, and poor apprentices, and for the marriage of poor virgins, or for any other charitable uses: and this decifion is ftrengthened by the preamble of the ftatutes 1 Ed. 6, c. 14. and 43 El. c. 4. which clearly recognize the legality of donations to fuch uses.

I

THIS general liberty, however, had produced many of the political inconveniencies against which it was the object of the ftatutes of mortmain to guard; particularly from the improvident difpofition of property to a very confiderable extent, made by many perfons on their deathbeds to charitable uses to take place after their deaths: in the course of time, therefore, it became an object of policy with the legiflature to throw fome difficulties in the way of fuch benefactions.

It was therefore enacted (a), that after the 24th day of June, 1736, no manors, lands, tenements, rents, advowfons, or other hereditaments, corporeal or incorporeal, nor any fum or fums of money, goods, chattels, ftocks in the public funds, fecurities for money, or any other perfonal estate, to be laid out or difpofed of in the purchase of any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, fhould be given, granted, aliened, limited, released, transferred, affigned, or appointed, or any way conveyed or fettled to or upon any perfon or perfons, bodies politic or corporate, or otherwife, for any eftate or intereft whatever, or any way charged or incumbered by any perfon or perfons whatever, in trust, or for the benefit of any charitable ufes; unless under these restrictions, That in all cafes, except that of ftocks in the public funds, fuch gift, conveyance, appoint

ment, or fettlement, fhould be made, by deed indented, fealed and delivered in the presence of two or more cre→ dible witneffes, twelve calendar months at least before the death of the donor or grantor, including the days of the execution and death, and that the deed should be inrolled in the Court of Chancery within fix months after the execution and in the cafe of ftocks, that they should be transferred in the public books, ufually kept for the transfer of ftocks, fix calendar months at least before the death of the donor or grantor, including the days of the transfer and death; and that every fuch gift should be made to take effect in poffeffion for the charitable use intended, immediately from the making of it, and without any power of revocation, refervation, truft, condition, limitation, clause, or agreement whatever, for the benefit of the donor or grantor, or of any perfon or perfons claiming under him (a), and that every gift, &c. made in any other manner or form fhould be abfolutely void (b).

FROM the manner in which this act is penned, it is apparent, that the reftrictions imposed by it were intended to be confined to the cafe of a voluntary gift for charitable ufes; but in order to prevent all doubts on that fubject, it was expressly provided, that nothing relating to the fealing and delivering of any deed or deeds twelve calendar months, or to the transfer of any stock fix, calendar months before the death of the grantor, fhould extend to any purchase of any eftate or intereft in lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or to the transfer of any flock, to be made really and bona fide for a full and valuable confideration actually paid, at or before the making of fuch conveyance or transfer, without fraud or collufion (c).

IT is alfo manifeft that money, goods, chattels, stocks in the public funds, fecurities for money, or any other personal estate, if not directed to be laid out in the purchase of lands, tenements, or hereditaments, may, notwithstanding this ftatute, be given in truft, or for the benefit of any charitable ufes, without the restrictions therein mentioned.

Ir is equally clear, that real as well as perfonal property, may be given either by deed or by will to any corporation, as well as to private persons, if not given in trust or for the benefit of charitable uses, in the fame manner as they might have been before this ftatute.

It is also provided by an express clause (a), that this act fhould not extend to make void the difpofition of any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or of personal estate, to be laid out in the purchase of any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, though not made according to the directions of the act, to or in truft for either of the two universities, or any, of the colleges within either of them, or the colleges of Eton, Winchester, or Weftminster, for the better fupport and maintenance of the scholars only upon the foundation of the three latter; but, that no college fhould, by virtue of this exemption, be enabled to hold or enjoy more advowsons than fhould be equal in number to the moiety of the fellows or students on its foundation, exclufively of the advowfons annexed to its headship (b).

THOUGH bodies politic and corporate are expressly excepted from the ftatute of wills, and are therefore incapable of taking directly by will; yet it has been held, that they were not, by means of that exception, rendered totally incapable of taking the benefit of a devise made in their favour; for that if a man devised that his executors fhould, by the advice of learned counfel, convey his lands