ARGUMENT OF SAMUEL J. ELDER. 1563 



We know what the word " land " means. Land is that which we 

 walk upon, that which we till, and that which the herds graze over. 

 Within the intention of law, however, the things attached to it pass 

 \vith the conveyance of the land, and the title to a house is conveyed 

 by conveying the land. But that is the legal result of the use of the 



word " land " which carries that which is appurtenant to it. 

 946 It is not the natural or ordinary meaning of the word " land." 



If, related to it, but separate from it, you use the word 

 " buildings," then you quite clearly indicate that the word " land " 

 is to be received in its natural meaning, and not in the legal signifi- 

 cance which carries " buildings " along with it. The writer con- 

 tinues : 



" If after imposing a rate on houses, buildings, works, tenements 

 and hereditaments, an Act exempted ' land,' this word would be re- 

 stricted to land unburthened with houses, buildings, or works ; which 

 would otherwise have been unnecessarily enumerated." 



That is too plain to require much exposition. A law imposing a 

 rate upon houses, buildings, works, &c., and then exempting land 

 from its operation means what? It means but one thing, and that is 

 that it is land that does not have houses and buildings on it. Other- 

 wise the word " land " would not except anything from the tax 

 rate. So in regard to the next illustration. It is in regard to lands, 

 houses, tithes, and coal mines. " Land," in the usual sense, does not 

 include the things beneath it, while in law it does. If you speak 

 of " mines " in that connection, it clearly means that you are dealing 

 with coal mines independently of the legal implication that the land 

 includes them. Take the next illustration : 



" In the same way, although the word ' person ' in the abstract, 

 includes artificial persons, that is, corporations, the Statute of Uses, 

 which enacts that when a ' person ' stands seized of tenements to the 

 use of another ' person or body corporate,' the latter ' person or 

 body ' shall be deemed to be seized of them." 



That is to say that the fanciful or implied meaning of the word 

 " person " that the law sometimes attaches to it will not continue to 

 apply if you describe a body corporate separately. So that, it is 

 merely a fiction of law that the word " person " shall have a different 

 meaning. We know what a person is, but when a person is men- 

 tioned separate from a corporate body, or, if, in any statute, you use 

 the word " corporation " independently of the word " person," you 

 clearly say that the word " person " is to be understood in its natural 

 meaning. Not one of these eases is, in the slightest, a contradiction 

 of the contention which we make in this case. We naturally go to 

 England for our law, and it seems to us that there is a doctrine 

 which has been over and over again announced in the English books 

 applicable to this case, and I want to call the attention of the Tri- 



