be indicted and tried. Infancy does not protect fraudulent acts. If a minor takes an estate, and agrees to pay rent, he will be liable for its payment when he shall have arrived at his majority. If he receives rents, he cannot demand them again when of age. If he pays money on contract, and enjoys the benefit of it, and then avoids it when he comes of age, he cannot recover back the consideration paid. And if he avoids an executed contract when he comes of age, on the grounds of infancy, he must restore the consideration.

§ 625. The relation of guardian and ward, is nearly the same as that of parent and child. A father may dispose of the custody and tuition of his child during his minority, or for a less time, to another person, who thereupon becomes the guardian, and the infant is called ward. By the statute of New York, a minor having no guardian, may, at the age of fourteen years, apply to a surrogate for the appointment of such guardian as the minor may nominate. If the minor be under the age of fourteen years, a relative or other person, in his behalf, may so apply for the appointment of a guardian. A guardian who has charge of a minor's property, as well as of his person, is required to keep safely such property, and to deliver the same to his ward when he arrives at full age.

§ 626. By the statute of New York, male infants, and unmarried females under eighteen years of age, with the consent of proper persons, may bind themselves, in writing, to serve as apprentices to some art or trade; if males, until the age of twenty-one years, and if females, until the age of eighteen years, or for a shorter time. Consent shall be

given by the father; or, if dead, or not in legal capacity, by the mother; and if she refuse, or be not in legal capacity, then, by a guardian duly appointed; or, if there be no guardian or other person, by the overseers of the poor, or two justices of the peace of the town, or a judge of the county court.

§ 627. County superintendents of the poor may bind

becoming of age? 625. What is the relation between guardian and ward? How is this relation created? § 626. To what age, and by whose consent, may apprentices be bound? § 627. What obliga.

out any child under the ages above specified, who may be sent to the county poor house, or who is become chargeable to the county. In all indentures by the officers of any town or county, binding poor children as apprentices or servants, a covenant must be inserted to teach them to read and write and if a male, the general rules of arithmetic. 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.

§ 628. 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, in respect either to contracts or injuries, when the act is done by the authority of the master. If the 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.

CHAPTER IV.

Right of Property.-Real Property.

§ 629. A MATERIAL object of government is to secure the right to acquire property, and to make use of it.

tions are imposed upon masters and apprentices in indentures by public officers? § 628. What relation subsists between a master and hired servant? How far is the former bound by the contracts of the latter? § 629. What is real property? Personal property? § 630. How

Property, is either personal or real; the former consisting of what is movable from place to place, the latter, of lands and things built or growing thereon. Fruit, grain, trees, minerals, &c. become personal property, when separated from the land.

§ 630. 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 suf ferance. An estate of inheritance is termed a fee simple, or fee. A fee is an estate of inheritance in law, belonging to a person, 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.

§ 631. 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.

§ 632. 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,

are estates in land divided? What is an estate of inheritance? What is meant by a fee in this use of the term? Has the word fee any other meaning? § 631. What is an estate for life? An estate for years? An estate at will? An estate by sufferance? § 632. What is the order in which the real estate of an intestate descends to his

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.

§ 633. 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.

§ 634. 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 descends, in equal shares, to the brothers and sisters of the intestate.

§ 635. Persons become possessed of real estate in various ways; but evidence of such possession consists, usually, 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 prepared for that purpose.

heirs? 633, 634. What is the order of descent when the intestate has no lawful descendants? § 635. How is the proof of the title to real estate obtained? What is the effect of a deed without being re

§636. A mortgage is the conveyance of an estate, by way of pledge for the security of debt, and is to become void on the payment of it. The condition upon which the land is conveyed, is usually put in the deed of conveyance, but the condition, or 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.

§ 637. 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 mort. gagee, and should be discouraged.

638. When the condition of a mortgage shall have been fulfilled, 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.

§ 639. 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 exe. cuted the same; and the commissioner subscribes a certifi cate of the acknowledgment on the margin or back of the instrument. In New York, commissioners of deeds, of

corded? 636. What is a mortgage? How is it executed? § 637. What rule is to be observed in the registering or recording of a deed of mortgage, and the defeasance? § 638. How is a mortgage discharged, when its conditions are fulfilled? § 639. What is essential to a deed or mortgage before it is recorded? By whom are acknowledgments taken?