INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. HAVING considered the various kinds of estate which may exist in property, and their legal incidents, we are 9 naturally led, in the next place, to examine the means by which they may be transferred from one person to another. This transfer may be effected by act of law; as, if the owner die intestate, his real estate descends to his heir,his personal is distributable, after payment of his debts, mong his next of kin; if he die without heirs, his property escheats; if he be convicted of treason or felony, it s forfeited; if the owner, being a female, marry, the law ives to her husband her real estate during the coverture, nd, where curtesy attaches, for the further period of his life, a the event of his being the survivor; and her personal estate bsolutely, subject, as to choses in action, to the condition f his reducing them into possession during the coverture. The transfer may also be effected by public general statute, as under the bankrupt and insolvent acts, the statutes relating to crown debts, &c.; or by private act of parliament, which is in the nature of a conveyance between the parties; or, finally, by the express act and design of the owner, and this may be either by deed or will, or, in the case of copyholds, other tantamount assurance; and, in each case, this assurance may operate either on the estate of the grantor or testator by force of his ownership, or it may take effect by virtue of the exercise of a power over property legally vested in others. In treating of these various topics, no great inconvenience would be experienced in adopting the order in which they have been here mentioned; but, on the whole, perhaps the following will be found most convenient for the gradual developement of the means by which the right to property may be changed:- Besides these modes of transfer there are others which it will be necessary to advert to. The legal estate in the public stocks and funds, for example, passes not by deed or other formal conveyance, but by transfer in the books of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England; and that in railroad, canal, and navigation shares, and other property of an analogous description, passes, for the most part, by a short deed, the form of which is prescribed by the statute incorporating the company, and which the act generally directs to be registered in the office. Till within a re |