course unable to take advantage of the conditions of re-entry, which the monks had inserted in the leases of their tenants. A parliamentary remedy was therefore applied, for the benefit of the favourites of the Crown; and the opportunity was taken for making the same provision for the public at large. A statute was accordingly passed (7), which enacts, that as well the grantees of the Crown as all other persons being grantees (m) or assignees, their heirs, executors, successors, and assigns, shall have the like advantages against the lessees, by entry for non-payment of rent, or for doing of waste, or other forfeiture as the lessors or grantors themselves, or their heirs or successors, might at any time have had or enjoyed; and this statute is considered to be in force in New South Wales (n).

(3). Action at law. A landlord may also bring an action at law against his tenant for obtaining payment of rent.

4. Rent passes by grant of reversion. Being incident to the reversion, the rent-service passes without any express mention thereof in an alienation of the reversion (o). By the common law no grant could be made of any reversion without the consent of the tenant, expressed by what was called his attornment to his new landlord (p). It was thought reasonable that a tenant should not have a new landlord imposed upon him without his consent; for, in early English times, the relation of lord and tenant was of a much more

(1) 32 Henry VIII. c. 34; Co. Litt. 215a; Isherwood v. Oldknow, 3 M. & S. 382, 394.

(m) A lessee of the reversion is within the act, Wright v. Burroughes, 3 C. B. 685.

(n) Oliver's Statute Index,

121; Watkins' Real Est. Acts, 101.

(0) Litt. ss. 228, 229, 572; Perkins, s. 113.

(p) ss. 551, 567, 568, 569; Co. Litt. 309a, n. (1), 309b.

personal nature than it is at present. The tenant was therefore able to prevent his lord from making a conveyance to any person whom he did not choose to accept as a landlord; for he could refuse to attorn tenant to the purchaser, and without attornment the grant was invalid. The landlord, however, had it always in his power to convey his reversion by the expensive process of a fine duly levied in the Court of Common Pleas. This method of conveyance, being judicial in its nature, was carried into effect without the tenant's concurrence; and the attornment of the tenant, which for many purposes was desirable, could in such case be compelled (9). It can easily be imagined, that a doctrine such as this was found inconvenient when the rent paid by the tenant became the only service of any benefit rendered to the landlord. The necessity of attornment to the validity of the grant of a reversion was accordingly abolished by a statute passed in the reign of Queen Anne (r). But the statute very properly provides (s) that no tenant shall be prejudiced or damaged by payment of his rent to the grantor, or by breach of any condition for nonpayment of rent, before notice of the grant shall be given him by the grantee. And by a further statute (t), any attornment which may be made by tenants without their landlords' consent, to strangers claiming title to the estate of their landlords is rendered null and void. The enactments of the statute of Anne are in force in New South Wales (u), and the enactment of Geo. II. appears certainly to be so (v), although such does not seem to have been expressly decided. Hence nothing

(1) Shep. Touch. 254.
(r) 4 & 5 Anne, c. 16, s. 9.
(8) s. 10.

(t) 11 Geo. II. c. 19, s. 11.

(u) Mate v. Kidd, 3 S.C.R. 196, 200.

(v) Glasson v. Egan, 6 S.C.R. 85,87.

is now necessary for the valid alienation of any rentservice, but a grant by deed, or a transfer under the Real Property Act, of the reversion to which such rent is incident. When a conveyance is made to the tenant himself it is called a release (w).

5. Destruction of the reversion. The doctrine that rent-service, being incident to the reversion, always follows such reversion, formerly gave rise to the curious and unpleasant consequence of the rent being sometimes lost when the reversion was destroyed. For it is possible, under certain circumstances, that an estate may be destroyed and cease to exist. For instance, suppose A to have been a tenant of lands for a term of years, and B to have been his under-tenant for a less term of years at a certain rent; this rent was an incident of A's reversion, that is, of the term of years belonging to A. If, then, A's term should by any means have been destroyed, the rent paid to him by B would, as an incident of such term, have been destroyed also. Now, by the rules of law, an alienation of the immediate fee simple to A would at once have destroyed his term, it not being possible that the term of years and the estate in fee simple should subsist together. In legal language the term of years would have been merged in the larger estate in fee simple; and the term being merged and gone, it followed as a necessary consequence, that all its incidents, of which B's rent was one, ceased also (x). This unpleasant result was, by a statute of Geo. II (y) which is considered to be in force in New South Wales (z), provided for and obviated with respect to leases surrendered in order to be renewed, the owners of the new leases being

(w) Ante, pp. 208, 209.

(c) Webb v. Russell, 3 T.R. 393.

(y) 4 Geo. II. c. 28, s. 6.

(z) Oliver's Statute Index, 124; Watkins' Real Est. Acts, 55.

invested with the same right to the rent of undertenants, and the same remedy for recovery thereof, as if the original leases had been left on foot (a). But in all other cases the inconvenience has continued, except that by the Real Property Act it is provided that the bringing of any leasehold under the provisions of the Act shall not be held to extinguish the reversion expectant on any lease, and the person named in any certificate of title as entitled to the land therein described shall be held in every court of law and equity to be seised of the reversion expectant upon any lease that may be noted by memorial thereon, and to have all powers, rights, and remedies, to which a reversioner is by law entitled, and shall be subject to all covenants and conditions therein expressed to be performed on the part of the lessor (b).

II. A Remainder. The two more prominent distinctions between a remainder and a reversion have reference to the manner of their creation, and their mode of tenure.

1. Manner of creation. As already pointed out a reversion arises merely on the grant of a particular estate, and without specific limitation, being the portion of his estate which the owner of the fee simple has not disposed of. If at the same time with the grant of the particular estate, this remaining interest, or any part thereof, should also be disposed of by him to some other person, it is then termed a remainder (c). Thus a remainder always has its origin in express grant. Whilst a reversion arises merely incidentally, and is created by the law, a remainder springs only

(a) 3 Prest. Conv. 138; Burton's R.P. s. 1062; Cousins v. Phillips, 3 H. & C. 892.

(b) Act No. 25, 1900, ss. 14

(2) (b), 40 (3).

(c) Litt. ss. 215, 217.

from the act of the parties, and may be defined as an estate limited to take effect, and be enjoyed after another estate is determined (d).

We have seen that the powers of alienation possessed by a tenant in fee simple enable him to make a lease for a term of years, or for life, or a gift in tail, as well as to grant an estate in fee simple. But these powers are not merely in the alternative, for he may exercise all of them at one and the same moment; provided, of course, that his grantees come in one at a time, in some prescribed order, the one waiting for liberty to enter until the estate of the other is determined. Thus land may be granted to A. for a term of years, and from and after the determination of the said term, to B. for life; and, from and after the determination of B's estate for life to C. and his heirs for ever. In such a case the ordinary mode of conveyance or transfer is alone made use of. Should a feoffment have been employed, the seisin would, on delivery of possession to A, and registration of the deed (e), have immediately vested in B, the prescribed owner of the first estate of freehold, whose bailiff A, as tenant for years, would be accounted to be. On the determination of B's estate, the seisin would devolve on C, the remaining grantee. So long as a regular order is thus laid down, in which the possession of the lands may devolve, it matters not how many kinds of estates are granted, or on how many persons the same estate is bestowed. Thus, for example, a grant may be made at once to fifty different people separately for their lives. In such case the grantee for life who is first to have possession is the particular tenant to whom, on a feoffment, seisin would

(d) 2 Bl. Com. 163.

(e) Litt. s. 60; 2 Bl. Com. 167; Act No. 17, 1898, s. 31.