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qualities on the paternal or maternal side (a) will equally operate under this act to cause all consideration of the estate being ancestral to be rejected (b). This question may arise in various shapes: thus if the intestate had sold the estate, there can be no doubt that the proceeds, though earmarked, would go as personal estate under the Statute of Distributions. If the proceeds were laid out in other real estate, this would have no ancestral quality in it, and under no circumstances would there be a preference to ancestral paternal or maternal side. It would seem to follow, especially on applying the former law (c), that the result would be the same if the intestate had conveyed to some one, and forthwith, or at any time afterwards, obtained a re-conveyance and consequently that there would be the same result if the estate revested through the medium of the Statute of Uses, as on conveyance by the intestate to a grantee to uses to his own use. If, however, the intestate should not have made disposition of his entire interest, but merely of a portion, leaving a reversion to come by act of law to himself and his heirs, it is apprehended this reversion would be imbued with the former qualities of the estate. The meaning of blood relationship and of the words "of the blood of," is considered in treating of sec. 36.

SECTION 27.

&c.

27. In case the intestate dies without lawful descendants, and If the intestate leaving a father, then the inheritance shall go to such father, leave no descendants, unless the inheritance came to the intestate on the part of his rights of famother, and such mother be living; and if such mother be dead, ther, mother, the inheritance descending on her part shall go to the father for life, and the reversion to the brothers and sisters of the intestate and their descendants, according to the law of inheritance by collateral relatives hereinafter provided; and if there be no such brothers or sisters, or their descendants, living, such inheritance shall descend to the father. 14, 15 Vic., c. 6, s. 5.

(a) Ante pp. 127, 152, 153. (b) On this head see the

1 Paige 561.

American cases, Champlin v. Baldwin,
(c) See last note.

the father

S. 27. if no The first clause provides that if the intestate die descendants, without descendants, the inheritance shall go to the father, takes, unless if living, unless the inheritance came to intestate on the came on the part of the mother, and the mother be living; what shall be the descent in the latter event, if the mother be living, is provided for not by this section, but by sec. 28.

inheritance

part of the

mother, &c.

Meaning of expression

intestate on

mother and

the mother be living."

First however should be explained what is meant by the "if the inheri- expression in this section as to the inheritance coming to tance come to the intestate on the part of his mother, and the mother the part of his being living. Taking the word inheritance in the sense in which in reference to descents it is frequently used (as in the 7th common law canon), as referring to or as synonymous with, course of descent, or the descent itself, instead of the subject matter thereof, it is difficult to understand how an inheritance as such can come to a child as from a living mother. Mr. Justice Blackstone and others. express the 7th common law canon thus: "In collateral inheritances, the male stocks shall be preferred to the female, unless the lands have descended from a female;" in sec. 27, the word inheritance is not used in the sense in which it is used in the 7th canon, but in the sense in which the word lands is there made use of; for the 50th section declares that the word inheritance shall be understood to mean in the prior twenty-seven sections," real estate;" and the 52nd section declares, that the words " where the estate shall have come to the intestate on the part of the father or mother," shall be "construed to include every case in which the inheritance shall have come to the intestate by devise, gift, or descent, from the parent referred to, or any relation of the blood of the parent" (a).

Instance of operation of 8. 27.

is

This section may perhaps be best explained by illustrating it by the table of descents. Thus assume John Stiles to be actually a purchaser for money; (for money said, because the 52nd section, as above explained, has altered the meaning and implication of the word purchaser,

(a) See as to blood relationship under American acts, and that a father is within the meaning of the act of the blood of a child, Cole v. Batley, 2 Curtis, C. C. 562. See also remarks under sec. 36 and sec. 52.

as formerly understood, by excluding from it the case of a man taking by gift or devise from some relative on the father's or mother's side;) in such case, on John's death without issue, the father if living, would take under the first clause. The case of the inheritance coming ex parte materna, and the mother being living, is provided for in the 28th section, and that therefore is passed for the present, and the next clause proceeded to, viz., the like case of inheritance ex parte materna, and the mother being dead, and the father Geoffrey, living, and also the brothers and sisters of intestate of the whole blood, Francis, Oliver, Bridget, and Alice: here the father would take a life estate, and the reversion would go equally among the brothers and sisters. If also at the time of death of John, his halfbrothers and sisters ex parte materna had been alive, Nos. 38 and 39, and also his half-brothers and sisters ex parte paterna, Nos. 8, 9 and 9 then, under the 36th section, the half-blood ex parte materna would have been entitled equally per capita with the brothers and sisters of the whole blood. The half-blood ex parte paterna would not have taken, if the estate came from a maternal ancestor : descendants of any brothers and sisters deceased would have taken per capita and per stirpes, as the case might be, as explained in the 30th section.

and mother.

descendants

Under the last clause of the 27th section, if the estate S. 27. Last came on the part of the mother («), and the mother, tate came ex clause, if esbrothers and sisters of John, and the descendants of such parte materna, brothers and sisters were dead, then the estate would go brothers and to the father, Geoffrey. This latter again varies from the sisters and Stat. 4 Wm. IV., under which in case the estate really did dead, the fadescend ex parte materna, that is, by descent to John, from ther takes. Lucy his mother, it would not go in fee to the father, but to Andrew Baker, the father of Lucy, John Stiles' mother, subject to the tenancy by the curtesy of John's father, Geoffrey.

This 27th section varies from the Statute of Distribu- Varies from tions in this; that failing lineal descendants, personalty butions. St. of Distri

(a) See s. 52, and ante p. 162.

If there be no father entitled to inherit.

If no descendants and no father who

a mother, brother and sis

ter.

goes, one-half absolutely to the widow, and the other half to the father; whereas under this statute, the father takes all absolutely, subject to the widow's right to one-third for life, as dowress. If there be no widow, the father as being in the first degree, takes all personal estate absolutely, without regard to how the intestate acquired it; such regard is had, however in the case of reality, for if it came to the intestate on the maternal side, the father only takes a lifeestate.

SECTION 28.

28. If the intestate shall die without descendants and leaving no father, or leaving a father not entitled to take the inheritance under the last preceding section, and leaving a mother and a brother or sister, or the descendant of a brother or sister, then the inheri tance shall descend to the mother during her life, and the reversion to such brother or sister of the intestate as may be living, and the descendants of such as may be dead, according to the same law of inheritance hereinafter provided; and if the intestate in such case leaves no brother or sister, nor any descendant of any brother or sister, the inheritance shall descend to the mother. 14, 15 Vic. c. 6, s. 6.

This section is somewhat explained by what has been said in reference to the 27th. This section provides for the case can take, but of the father being dead, who otherwise would be entitled to take the inheritance; and also for the case of his being alive, and yet not entitled to take under sec. 27, by reason of the estate coming ex parte materna, and the mother or collateral relatives being alive. Thus assume that on John's death his father Geoffrey was either dead, or not entitled to take as above mentioned, and that the mother of John, and his brothers and sisters, Francis, Oliver, Bridget, and Alice, were alive the mother would take for life, and the brothers and sisters per capita, and descendants of deceased brothers and sisters would take as provided for in the 30th section. If the brothers and sisters, and their descendants, were dead, then the estate would go to the mother. It should be mentioned that all the brothers and sisters of the half-blood would take equally with those of

the whole blood under the 36th section; that is, if John were purchaser for money, all the half blood ex parte paterna and materna, viz., Nos. 8, 9 and 9, and 38, 39, 39, would take equally with the brothers and sisters of the whole blood but if John got the estate ex parte paterna or materna, then the half-blood only on that side, would take.

Under the Stat. 1 James II., ch. 17, s. 7, the personalty The right to personalty in of an intestate who leaves no father, wife, or children, will like case. go in equal shares between his mother and brothers and sisters: the above section is on much the same principle, except that the mother takes only a life-estate in all.

SECTIONS 29, 30, 31.

be neither

29. If there be no father or mother capable of inheriting the And if there estate, it shall descend in the cases hereinafter specified to the father nor collateral relatives of the intestate; and if there be several of mother. such relatives, all of equal degree of consanguinity to the intestate, the inheritance shall descend to them in equal parts, however remote from the intestate the common degree of consanguinity may be. 14, 15 Vic. c. 6, s. 7.

sisters and

30. If all the brothers and sisters of the intestate be living, the Succession of inheritance shall descend to such brothers and sisters; and if brothers and any one or more of them be living and any one or more be dead, their descendthen to the brothers and sisters and every of them who are living, ants. and to the descendants of such brothers and sisters as have died, so that each brother or sister who may be living, shall inherit such share as would have descended to him or her, if all the brothers or sisters of the intestate who have died leaving issue had been living, and so that such descendants shall inherit in equal shares the share which their parent, if living, would have received. 14 15 Vic. c. 6, s. 8.

31. The same law of inheritance prescribed in the last section As to such descendants

shall prevail as to the other direct lineal descendants of every in unequal brother and sister of the intestate, to the remotest degree, when- degrees. ever such descendants are of unequal degrees. 14, 15 Vic. c. 6, s. 9.

These sections assume there are no lineal descend- In cases where ants, father, or mother, and provide for cases of descent to rents living,

no issue or pa

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