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or other deed, and inhabiting for forty days under such binding either in the same parish where the service takes place, or a different one. But no settlement can be acquired by being apprenticed in the sea service, or to a householder exercising the trade of the seas, as a fisherman or otherwise. The deed must in all cases be executed by the apprentice, except in the case of parish apprentices. 6. A settlement is gained of a temporary kind in any parish by having an estate of one's own there of whatever value, and whether the interest be legal or equitable. 7. A settlement may be gained by being charged and paying the public taxes and levies of the parish, excepting those for scavengers and highways, and the duties on houses and windows. But it is provided by 35 Geo. 3, c. 101, s. 4, that no person shall gain a settlement on this ground in respect of any tenement or tenements not being of the yearly value of £10, and by 6 Geo. 4, c. 57, that a settlement shall not be acquired by paying parochial rates for any tenement (not being the person's own property), unless it consists of a separate and distinct dwelling-house or building, or land, or both, bonâ fide rented by him for £10 a year at the least for a whole year, and be occupied under such hiring for a year at least. Prior to the Poor Law Amendment Act (4 & 5 Will. 4, c. 76), a settlement might also have been obtained by 40 days' residence if accompanied by-1. Having service for a year; 2. By executing a public annual office or charge within the parish for 12 months. Further, a settlement by renting might have been had without payment of, or being assessed to, the poor rate. Questions frequently arise as to these modes of settlement, and will do so for some time to come (o). The poor are to be confined to their respective parishes, so that each parish may bear its

own burthens, though as between the parishes of a union for settlement this is unimportant. An order of removal to the proper parish may be obtained by the overseers from two justices of the peace. Notice of the order and of the examinations must be sent to the parish to which the removal is to be made, who may appeal to the quarter sessions against it within 21 days from notice, and then the pauper is not to be removed until the question is decided. The appeal may be also after actual removal. The sessions may reserve a special case for the superior Court of Queen's Bench (p).

It should be stated, however, that by the 9 & 10 Vict. c. 66 (amended by 10 & 11 Vict. c. 110), no person (with certain exceptions) is to be removed, nor is any warrant to be granted for the removal of any person from any parish in which such person shall have resided for five years next before the application for the warrant (q).

CHAP. XII.

CORPORATIONS.

[See 1 Black. Com. ch. 18; 3 Steph. Com. Bk. IV., pt. 3, ch. 1.]

Having enumerated the several characters under which persons in their relative capacities are considered as public officers, we proceed to consider those persons distinguished by the name of corporations, or bodies politic.

A corporation is a person, in a political capacity, created by the law, and is a body politic framed by policy and fiction to endure in perpetual succession; for as all personal rights die with the natural person, and as the necessary forms of investing a series of individuals one after another with the same individual rights would be very inconvenient, if not impracticable, it has been found necessary, when it is for the advantage of the public to have any particular rights kept on foot and continued, to constitute artificial persons, who may maintain a perpetual succession, and enjoy a kind of legal immortality. The first division of corporations is into aggregate and sole.

Corporations aggregate.]-Corporations aggre

gate consist of many persons united together into one society, and are kept up by a perpetual succession of members, so as to continue for ever, as mayor and commonalty, dean and chapter, master and fellows of a college, &c.

Corporations sole.]-Corporations sole consist of one person only and his successors in some particular station, who are incorporated by law, in order to give them some legal capacities and advantages, particularly that of perpetuity, which in their natural persons they could not have had—as a king, a bishop, a dean of some chapter, an archdeacon, a prebendary, parson, vicar, the chamberlain of London, and the heads of several hospitals.

Another division of corporations, either sole or aggregate, is into ecclesiastical and lay.

Ecclesiastical corporations.]-Ecclesiastical corporations are when the members that compose it are entirely spiritual persons, such as bishops, certain deans, prebendaries, archdeacons, parsons, and vicars, which are sole corporations; deans and chapters, and the like, which are bodies aggregate.

Lay corporations.]-Lay corporations are of two sorts, civil and eleemosynary. The civil are such as are erected for a variety of temporal purposesas the King, to prevent any interregnum or vacancy of the throne; a mayor and commonalty, bailiff and burgesses, and the like, for the advancement and regulation of manufactures and commerce. The eleemosynary sort are such as are constituted for the perpetual distribution of free alms, or bounty of the founder of them, to such persons as he has directed as all hospitals, colleges, &c.

CREATION OF CORPORATIONS, ETC. 111 Creation of corporations.]—A corporation may be created by the common law, by the King's charter, by act of Parliament, and by prescription. When a corporation is created, a name is always given to it, and by that name alone it must sue and be sued, and do all legal acts; for the name is the very being of its constitution, and though it is the will of the King that erects the corporation, yet the name is the knot of its combinations, without which it could not perform its corporate functions (a).

Rights, privileges, &c., of corporations.]—When a corporation is duly created, all other incidents are tacitly annexed to it-as, 1. To have perpetual succession, and therefore all aggregate corporations have a power, necessarily implied, of electing members in the room of such as go off. 2. To sue and be sued, implead or to be impleaded, grant or receive by its corporate name, and do all other acts, as natural persons may. 3. To purchase lands, and hold them for the benefit of themselves and their successors, and to have a common seal. 4. To make bye laws, or private statutes, for the better government of the corporation. An aggregate corporation must always appear by attorney; it cannot be made plaintiff or defendant in action of battery, or for the like personal injuries; but it may maintain an action for slander and libel on them when carrying on trade; also for breach of contract, and in some cases may be sued in such action as a defendant; it is also liable to an action for damages in respect of any tortious acts committed by its agents, and is even liable in certain cases to an indictment, as where it allows a bridge, the repair of which belongs to it by law, to fall into decay (b). It cannot commit treason or felony or other crime in its corporate capacity, though its members may in their individual capacities; it is not capable of suffering a

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