115 



( H.UUTABLB AND SUPERSTITIOUS. 



( HAUITABLE AND SUPERSTITIOUS. 





called tliftimy or Kcoadary and tprinying utti ; and future or 

 linarot tart. 



Sti/nit'i or Secondary Viet are properly such aa take effect in deroga- 

 tion of some other estate, and are either limited expressly by the 

 deed, or ore authorised to be created by some penon named in the 

 deed : u if an estate were limited to the use of A and hia heirs, w itli a 

 prwviso that if B jay Id/, the estate ahall go to B and hia heirs. Shift 

 teg urea teem to nave existed before the statute, when, as the legal 

 estate remained in the feoffees, the rule of the common law, which 

 did not allow the fee to change from one to another except u|.n 

 breach of a condition annexed to the estate at its creation, was not 

 violated. They are now of constant occurrence in settlements of 

 property. [SETTLEMENT.] The rules against perpetuities in settle- 

 ments of property are applicable to shifting uees, which must be 

 limited to take effect within the same period, namely, that of a life or 

 Urea in being, and twenty-one years afterwards, unless where they are 

 to take effect after an estate tail, in which case, as the tenant in tail 

 may defeat the use by barring the estate tail, such a limitation has no 

 tendency to a perpetuity. 



Springing Vtet, though often confounded with shifting uses, are 

 more properly such as are limited to arise in a future event 

 where no previous use is limited ; as in the case of a bargain and 

 sale to take effect ten years hence, where the use in the mean time 

 remains in the grantor. They are subject to the same limits as shift- 

 ing uses. 



Future or Contingent Vta are properly such as are limited to take 

 effect as remainders ; such as a use to the first unborn son of A, after 

 a limitation to him for life or for years determinate with his life. 

 The rule of law, that a vested freehold must precede a contingent 

 remainder, did not apply before the statute to contingent uses, 

 because the freehold remained in the feoffees ; but, since the statute, 

 they are subject in this respect to the rules of contingent remainders. 

 [REMAINDER.] 



As the Statute of Uses was made previously to the Statute of Wills 

 (82 ft 34 Hen. VIII.), it has been questioned whether the former can 

 be held to apply to the latter ; but as, before the statute, devises of 

 the use were permitted, so, since the statute, the courts have uniformly 

 held that, where a devise is made to a use, the intention of the testa- 

 tor must be taken to be that the devisee of the use should have the 

 legal estate 



By a construction of the Statute of Uses, adopted soon after it was 

 passed, the grounds of which it is not easy to understand, it was 

 settled that a use could not be limited on a use, that is, that tin- 

 statute wouH operate on the first declaration of use only : so that if, 

 by bargain and sale, a use in lauds were limited to A and his heirs in 

 trust, or to the use of B and his heirs, the statute would vest the legal 

 estate in A without adverting to the use declared in favour of B. The 

 Court of Chancery availed itself of this construction to revive Uses 

 under the name of Trusts ; and it was determined that A was, in tin- 

 case above mentioned, a trustee for B of the beneficial interest in the 

 land. It is not true, however, as hits been said by Lord Hardwicke, 

 that the Statute of Uses ' has had no other effect than to add at most 

 three words to a conveyance ;" for the Court of Chancery, availing itself 

 of its exclusive jurisdiction over trusts, and aware of the mischiefs 

 attendant upon uses before the statute, has gradually established a 

 system well adapted to answer the exigencies of family settlements 

 and provi.-ions, without producing any of those evils which the statute 

 of Henry VIII was intended to remedy. (TRUSTS] 



USES, CHAU1TABLE AND SUPERSTITIOUS. The term 

 " Charitable Use," as understood in law, is of very extt-n 

 tion, and includes dispositions of property which cannot with any pro- 

 priety be described as charitable, but which are so called with reference 

 tu the purjioses enumerated in the statute 43 Eliz , c. 4, or such as are 

 considered analogous to them. That statute enacted that th 

 missioners thereby empowered should inquire as to the lands, &c. given 

 by well-disposed people " for relief of aged, impotent, and poor people ; 

 for maintenance of sick and maimed soldiers and mariners ; schools of 

 learning, free-schools, and scholars in univeisitiea ; for repair of bridges, 

 ports, havens, causeways, churches, sea-banks, and highways; for edu- 

 cation and preferment of orphans ; for or towards the relief, stock, or 

 maintenance of houses of correction ; for marriage of poor maids ; for sup- 

 portation, aid, and help of young tradesmen, handicraftsmen, and persons 

 decayed ; and for relief or redemption of prisoners and captives, and 

 for aid or ease of any poor inhabitants concerning payment of li 

 setting out of soldiers, and other taxes." Many gifts not within tin- 

 letter have been held to be within the equitable construction of this 

 statute; and when the gift is to charity in general, without any |-n 

 ticular pur|xo being specified, it will be carried into effect either by 

 the Crown or the Court of Chancery, upon principles which the deter- 

 minations of that court have established. The term " Charitable Use," 

 in law, u applied exclusively to gifts for what arc called public chari- 

 ties, the object* of which are not particular individuals, but a class or 

 the public in general 



A superstitious use, in iU original sense, was where lands, tenements, 



renU, goods, or chattels were given, secured, or appointed for or towards 



the following purposes, namely : the maintenance of a priest or 



chaplain to say man ; for the maintenance of a priest or other man to 



pray for the oul of any dead man in such a church or cl*ewh> 



have or maintain perpetual obits, lumps, torches, IK., to be used at cer- 

 tain time*. t<> help to save the souls of men out . ; i See the 

 lll.,e. 1"; and 1 Kd. V I , c'. 14.) The 



statute of Richard II. was pawed for Uie purpose of subjecting 

 conveyed to uses to the law of mortmain. The statute of Henry V 1 1 1. 

 relates only to assurances of lands to churches and chapels, wi. 

 for a lon,;.-r t.-rm than twenty years, it declares to be absolute! . 

 By the 1st of Kilward VI. certain superstitious uses than existing were 

 forfeit..! to the king, but the statute has no prospective operation. 

 There is no statute making superstitious uses void generally, but the 

 king, aa head of the commonwealth, and as intrusted by tin- . <mion 

 law to see that nothing is done in maintenance or propagation of a 

 false religion, was considered entitled to pray a discovery of a trust to 

 a superstitious use, and to order the property to be applied to a proper 

 use. The same principle has been applied to many cases of gifta of 

 property for purposes which cannot properly be cUated aa superstitious 

 uses, but ore either expressly prohibited by the law of the country or 

 contrary to its policy. A change in the doctrine of superstitious uses 

 has been made by the 2 & 3 Wm. IV., c. 115, which puts persons pro- 

 fessing the Roman Catholic religion upon the same footing, with respect 

 to their schools, places for religious worship, education and charitable 

 purposes, as Protestant Dissenters ; with respect to whom the doctrine 

 of the court is, that it will administer a fund to maintain a society of 

 Protestant Dissenters promoting no doctrine contrary to law, though at 

 variance with that of the Established Church. The 243 Wm. IV., 

 c. 115, is retrospective. (2 M. & K. 225.) 



The Court of Chancery has a general jurisdiction over property 

 given for charitable purposes, and the regular mode in which matters 

 relating to charities are brought before it U by information by the 

 attorney-general on behalf of the crown. 



The Court of Chancery adopts a very liberal construction of gifts for 

 charitable purposes ; and there are numerous cases of gifts for objects 

 not within the letter of the statute of Elizabeth, which have been con- 

 sidered to be within the equitable meaning of the word charity an 

 understood in that court, and have been administered accordingly. 

 And when a gift is made for charity generally, without any purpose 

 specified, if the gift be to trustees, the court will order a scheme to be 

 prepared for the direction of the trustees in the administration of the 

 trust ; and where the declared object is charity, but no trust has been 

 interposed, the right to dispose of the property, and to declare the par- 

 ticular charitable purposes to which it is to be applied, belongs to the 

 crown by sign-manual. Where the particular objects which the donor 

 had in view fail, either wholly or in part, the court adopts what is called 

 the principle of administration cy-pret, that is, it directs the property 

 to be applied to worthy objects in its judgment most nearly resembling 

 those which have failed, or when more than one charity has been named 

 by the donor, to such of the others as are still subsisting. When the 

 revenue of the property increases from any cause, the increase goes to 

 the charity, if it appear to have been the intention of the donor that 

 the whole .should be disposed of in that manner ; otherwise the increase 

 will go to the legal representative of the donor. In cases where the 

 revenue of the property was distributable among several charities, the 

 question has been, in what manner the increase of income was to be 

 disposed of among them. The principle established by the cases seems 

 to he. that a charity to which a fixed annual sum has been given has 

 no right to participate in the increase, but that one entitled with the 

 other charities to a proportionate part of the original income will have 

 a right to a similar proportion of the increase. 



\Vlnu property Is given to a superstitious use, or for a charitable 

 purpose which the law will not allow to be carried into effect, the 

 court, upon the not Vcv i-y ground that the property was 



meant for a charity, will apply it to some other charity of which it 

 approves. In the words of Sir William Grant, " Whenever a testator 

 <ed to be charitable in his own way and upon his own prin- 

 ciples, we arc not content with disappointing his intention, if dis- 

 approved by us : but we make him charitable in our way and on our 

 principles. If once we discover in him any charitable intention , that is 

 d to be so liberal as to take in objects not only not within his 

 intention, but wholly adverse to it." (7 Ves., 495.) If the superstitious 

 use be one which the court considers charitable, the fund goes to the 

 king to be disposed of to such charitable uses aa he shall direct by 

 sign-manual : if the use be not charitable, the gift is merely void, 

 and the property will go to the donor's representative. (2 M. A K., 

 684.) 



The regular mode of proceeding in cases of abuse of charitable funds 

 was until recently by way of information in the name of the attorney- 

 general on behalf of the crown. But the act 1C * 17 Viet. 

 known as the Charitable Trusts Act, has, without abolishing the 

 functions of the attorney 'h ii-*]-<-t to charities, provided a 



regular machinery of c<>: and inspector!, whose duty it is 



to investigate all cases that may be brought to their notice, and to 

 institute such 4-1 :u> may be necessary for the rectification 



of abuses. 



The jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery over property given to 

 cliarity mint be distinguished from the authority frequently exercised 

 by the 1 l!or or lord keeper aa visitor of charities. Charities 



i- undi T the management of individual trustees, or are esta- 

 blished by charter as eleemosynary corporations. On the institution 



