EJECTMENT ELAIN. 



815 



The view from this castle over an ocean of leaves is 

 clianning. In 1817, many German students assem- 

 bled here, and celebrated the anniversary of the bat- 

 tle of Leipsic, (October 18, 1813). The zeal which 

 they evinced for the union of their divided and 

 lacerated country, together with the burning of 

 various books, the political character of which was 

 offensive to them, displeased the German govern- 

 ments, and gave rise to the prosecution of many stu- 

 dents supposed to be disaffected. The War on the 

 Wartburg is an ancient German poem, of great inte- 

 rest in the history of German literature. Population 

 of Eisenach, about 8,000. 



EJECTMENT, in law, is an action by which a 

 person ousted from the possession of an estate for 

 years, in lands or tenements, may recover that pos- 

 session. But, though the action is intended only for 

 the recovery of a term for years, it is, in fact, used 

 in England to try the title to an estate of inheritance 

 or for life. In the early periods of the English law, 

 the tenant, or person dispossessed of his estate for 

 years, could not recover the possession of it, in this 

 action, in the courts of law ; he could only recover 

 damages for the injury sustained by being driven 

 from the possession ; but the dispossessor kept pos- 

 session of the term, just as is the case at present in 

 the action of trover and conversion, in respect to a 

 chattel, in which the owner does not recover the chat- 

 tel itself, but damages for being deprived of it. But 

 the court of equity, in this case, as in many others, 

 led the way in ameliorating the law, and enlarged 

 the remedy, so that the plaintiff might recover the 

 term itself; and the courts of law, following those of 

 equity, as early as Edward IV., adopted the same 

 remedy, and awarded execution for putting the plain- 

 tiff into repossession of his estate, though no such 

 thing was warranted by the writ, or prayed for by 

 the declaration. 



After taking this step, the next one was to adopt 

 the same form of action for trying the title to the 

 lands. This application of the action of ejectment 

 was made as early as the time of Henry VII. To do 

 this, the person who claimed an estate of inheritance, 

 of which another was in possession, entered upon it, 

 and then made a lease, and the lessee took posses- 

 sion, and remained upon the land in virtue of the 

 lease, until the person claiming under an adverse 

 title put him out ; or, if no such person appeared to 

 expel him from the land, he pretended to be driven 

 off by the first person who happened to pass that way, 

 and who was thence called the casual ejector, who 

 was, in feet, no ejector at all. Being thus ejected 

 in fact, or by fiction, he brought his action of eject- 

 ment, or the party claiming the title brought it in his 

 name, and in this suit the title was necessarily brought 

 into question; for, in order to get possession, he 

 must prove that he had a good and valid lease, wliich 

 he would endeavour to do by showing that the lessor 

 had the right to make such a lease ; that is, that he 

 had the title and right of possession. Besides prov- 

 ing the title of his lessor, he must also prove the 

 lease, his entry under it, and his ouster, or being 

 driven out of possession. When the object was to 

 try the title, the lease, entry, and ouster, were a 

 mere ceremony, and might as well be supposed or 

 imagined as actually to take place. The courts, ac- 

 cordingly, allowed a fiction of the lease, entry, and 

 ouster ; the plaintiff stated them to have taken place, 

 though there had, in fact, been no such thing, nor 

 was there any such person as the one named as being 

 the lessee, who, in England, is always John Doe. 

 Thus the action of Doe ex dem. [demisso] Johnson, 

 against Sampson, means the action of Doe, the lessee 

 t Johnson against Sampson. If the nominal plain- 

 tiff, Doe, were liable to be called upou to show him- 



self to the court, there would be an end of the suit, 

 as there would be no such person to be found. Nor 

 would the demandant succeed any better, were he 

 called upon to prove that there had been any such 

 lease, entry, or ouster ; as all this is a fiction. 



Formerly, the defendant also, the casual ejector, 

 as well as the plaintiff, was a man of straw, or little 

 better ; for he was frequently a person who acci- 

 dentally came in sight at the time of making the 

 lease, if there was any in fact made, and who would 

 not be disposed to trouble himself to prevent the de- 

 mandant from getting possession of land, in which he 

 himself had no interest or concern ; or he might be 

 a friend of the demandant, who had come upon the 

 land at his request, to act as ejector, and would be 

 very willing that the demandant shold recover it. 

 The tenant, therefore, who is in actual possession 

 of the estate, unless his right is defended by some 

 other person than the indifferent defendant whose 

 name appears on the docket of the court, is likely to 

 lose his inheritance. To prevent this, the court 

 allows him to appear and detend himself, against the 

 claim ; and the court always requires that notice 

 shall be served upon him, to give him an opportunity 

 to appear. But, before the court will permit him to 

 appear for this purpose, they require of him to admit 

 all these fictions of a lease to John Doe, his entry 

 and ouster, which he is willing to do rather than lose 

 his land. These being admitted by him, he may 

 then proceed to defend the action, and try the ques- 

 tion whether he has a better right to continue in pos- 

 session than this supposed John Doe has to recover 

 the possession, upon his supposed lease. The titles 

 of the demandant and tenant are thus brought into 

 comparison, and decided upon. But when the object 

 is, hi fact, to recover a term for years, of which the 

 demandant has been dispossessed, the lease, entry 

 and ouster are of importance, and must be proved. 



EL, or AL ; the only article of the Arabian lan- 

 guage. It is contained in many geographical names ; 

 tor instance, Aldjezair (Algiers), the islands ; El- 

 Arisch, the cradle. This syllable has remained hi 

 many names of places in Spain and Portugal, as Al- 

 cantara, the bridge ; Alcazar, the palace ; Algarve, 

 the west. 



ELAIN ; the oily principle of fat, obtained by 

 submitting fat to the action of boiling alcohol, allow- 

 ing the stearin to crystallize, and then evaporating 

 the alcoholic solution ; or, by the simple process of 

 pressing any oily or fatty substance between folds of 

 bibulous paper, the oily matter or elain is absorbed, 

 while the stearin remains. The paper being then 

 soaked in water, and pressed, yields up the elain. 

 It possesses much the appearance and properties of 

 vegetable oil, is liquid at the temperature of 60 

 Fahr., and has an odour derived from the solid fats 

 from which it has been extracted. It is readily so- 

 luble in alcohol, and forms soaps with alkalies ; 

 in doing which, however, it undergoes decomposi- 

 tion, and is converted, according to Chevreul, into 

 a peculiar acid, called by him oleic acid, which com- 

 bines with the alkali employed. This acid is ob- 

 tained by submitting the soap formed by the action 

 of potash on hog's lard to the action of boiling water ; 

 the solution, on cooling, deposits a sediment con- 

 sisting of the margarate of potash, while the oleate of 

 potash remains hi solution. The oleate of potash is 

 decomposed by tartaric acid, again combined with 

 potash, and again decomposed by tartaric acid, when 

 the oleic acid rises to the top in the condition of an 

 oily-like fluid. It is insoluble in water, soluble in 

 alcohol, reddens litmus, and combines with the dif- 

 ferent salifiable bases, forming compounds somewhat 

 analogous to soaps. At a temperature of 35 Fahr. ? 

 it congeals into crystalline needles. 





