and gates of the college, and the part outside the gates they planted with trees for ornament: the court held that they were liable to be rated for this property; and that as to an objection made, that as a corporation they could not be deemed occupiers within the meaning of the statute of Elizabeth, there was no ground for it, for corporations were as liable to be rated as individuals (k).

So, where a corporation occupy lands, &c., as trustees for others who are beneficially interested in them, they are liable to be rated for them. The corporation of Sudbury appealed against a poor rate, by which they were rated for some pasture land called Portman's Croft; this land had been devised in fee to the corporation, and it was every year depastured by the cattle of the burgesses; the burgesses however paid a certain sum for each beast they put upon it, and the money thus received was distributed among the poorer burgesses; the land was attended to by a person appointed and paid by the corporation, who kept the keys of the gates, cleansed the ditches, preserved the fences, impounded cattle trespassing, &c.: the court held that the corporation were rightly rated; they had the exclusive occupation of the land by their servant, who kept the keys of the gates, &c.; the burgesses put their cattle there merely to agist, and paid for the agistment (1). So, where the freemen of Monk Ward in York were entitled to right of common over some wastes and common fields, upon the inclosure of which under an Act of parliament, certain allotments were vested in the lord mayor, &c., of York, for the freemen of Monk Ward; the mayor and aldermen, as wardens of the pasture, annually appointed a pasture master, who regulated the manner in which the freemen were to enjoy the pasture, kept the gates, &c., in repair, and appointed a herdsman to take care of the cattle, and the freemen contributed certain sums annually to pay the expenses: the court held that the mayor, &c., were rateable for this land; the land was clearly rateable to the poor, and the mayor, &c., the only occupiers who could be rated (m). Where the corporation of Aberavon were seised of certain inclosed lands, which they let to different burgesses at rents, and the burgesses were rated for them; they were also seised of certain uninclosed marsh land, and some mountain land, which were occupied as common lands without stint by such resident burgesses as had stock to occupy them, the other burgesses not deriving any benefit from them; a person who was rated, appealed against the rate, on the ground that the corporation ought to have been rated for these marsh and mountain lands, and the sessions therefore quashed the rate: the court said that the case

(k) R. v. Gardner, Cowp. 79.

(m) R. v. Mayor, &c., of York, (1) R. v. Sudbury, 1 B. & C. 389. 6 Ad. & El. 419.

was not stated with sufficient certainty, to enable them to judge whether the corporation, or the individual burgesses who stocked the uninclosed lands, should be rated for them; but some person ought to have been rated for them, as lands producing profit; and as no person was, the sessions had done right to quash the rate (n). But when it appears in such a case, that individual burgesses, and not the corporation generally, are the occupiers, then such burgesses respectively, and not the corporation, shall be rated. And therefore, where it appeared that the corporation of Huntingdon were the owners of a large tract of land, used by the burgesses as common of pasture for their cattle, according to certain stints which were annually fixed by the leet jury; some of the burgesses did not feed cattle on this land, and were therefore paid a sum of money by those who did: a ratepayer in the parish in which this land was situate, appealed against a poor rate, on the ground that the burgesses who depastured their cattle on this land, were not rated: and the court held that they were rateable; the whole corporation were owners, and they doled it out amongst some of their members; and where these latter were in possession of it, there was nothing to distinguish them from any other tenants in common; that their occupation was beneficial, sufficiently appeared from the circumstance that those who stocked the land, paid a sum of money to those who did not (o).

But where the profits of property in the occupation of a corporation, are by Act of parliament to be applied only to public purposes, the corporation cannot be rated for it. As, where a corporation were empowered by Act of parliament to make a dock, and after payment of the debt incurred in doing so, the dues were to be lowered, so as merely to be sufficient to keep the dock in repair (p); or where a corporation, as commissioners for watching and lighting a borough, were enabled by Act of parliament to purchase gas works, and, after lighting the streets, the profits arising from lighting the shops and houses of individuals were to be applied to the general purposes of the Act (q): in these cases the corporations were holden not to be rateable for their dock and gas works. So, formerly, property in the occupation of any of the corporations in schedules A. & B. of the Municipal Corporation Act (5 & 6 W. 4, c. 76) could not be made the subject of a rate; because the profits (if any) arising from it, were by the 92nd section of that Act made part of the borough fund, and as such applicable only to public purposes (r). But now, by stat. 4 & 5

(n) R. v. Aberavon, 5 East, 453. (0) R. v. Watson, 5 East, 480. (p) R. v. Liverpool, 7 B. & C. 61. (q) R. v. Beverley Gas Works, 6 Ad. & El. 645.

(r) R. v. Liverpool, MS. H. 1839, 9 Ad. & El. 435. R. v. Exminster, 12 Ad. & El. 2.

Vict. c. 48, reciting this, it is enacted, that the said municipal corporations shall be rateable and rated to the relief of the poor, in respect of "lands, tenements, and hereditaments, being the property and in the occupation of such municipal corporations," in the same manner as if they were not corporate property (s); and their occupation shall be deemed beneficial, as if it were for their individual benefit (t); but this shall not extend to cases where the parish is wholly within the corporate town, and the poor of the borough are, or were at the time of passing of the Corporation Act, relieved by one entire rate (u). Lastly, if corporations, instead of occupying such property themselves, let it to others, the tenants will be rateable for it, in the same manner as any other occupier, unless the property be specially exempted from rates by Act of parliament.

(s) 4 & 5 Vict. c. 48, s. 1.

(t) Id. s. 2.

(u) Id. s. 1.

By the stat. 43 El. c. 2, s. 1, the funds for providing for the poor are to be raised "by taxation of every inhabitant, parson, vicar, or other, and of every occupier of lands, houses, tithes impropriate, propriations of tithes, coal-mines, or saleable underwoods, in the said parish." Of the inhabitants, parson, vicar, &c., we have already treated; we shall now notice the remainder of this enactment under the following heads.

Land.] All persons having the beneficial occupation of lands or houses, or of other things which legally come under the acceptation of the word "land," where the profits are not solely applicable to public purposes, are rateable to the poor in respect of them. Even the Electric Telegraph Company have been holden to be rateable to the poor, in respect of the telegraph wires, posts, and the land in which they were fixed (a). And where a brewer paid a rent of 3001. a year for his brewery, and also stipulated in his lease to pay 1507. a year to his landlord for the goodwill and trade of thirty-three public-houses belonging to the latter, which were secured to him (the tenants of these public-houses paying a smaller rent for them on this account than they would if they were free

(a) Electric Telegraph Company v. Overseers of Salford, 24 Law J. 146, m.

public-houses): the court held that this 1501. was to be taken into account in estimating the rateable value of the brewery and premises (b). And even where a steam-boat company rented the ground-floor of a building adjoining the Thames, and attached to it a floating pier for the convenience of embarking and debarking their passengers; the pier consisted of three barges, connected together by wooden bridges, and kept in their places by anchors sunk in the bed of the river; the first barge at the land end was fastened to a platform, and the platform rested on an abutment which was made fast to the building by iron bolts driven into the wall:-being rated for this ground-floor and floating pier in one rate, upon a local Act, very similar in its terms to the stat. 43 El., they contended that as the floating bridge did not come under the denomination of land, they were not rateable for it: but the court held that they were clearly rateable for the ground-floor of the building which they occupied, and the pier being something attached to it which made it additionally valuable, the company were rateable upon the increased value (c). But where a shipwright was possessed of a ship yard in North Shields, on the bank of the river Tyne, and separated from it by a quay or wall thirteen feet high; he had a floating dock, which was a large wooden vessel, capable of containing any ship about to be repaired, which floated when the tide was in, and lay upon the shore when the tide was out, so that the repairs of the ship might be proceeded with at all times of the tide; this was moored by chains and anchors to the bed of the river, and was attached by chains and posts to the ship yard at a distance of about thirteen feet from the quay; the yard itself was in the township of North Shields, the shore outside of the quay was in that township when the tide was out, but in the parish of St. Nicholas, Newcastle, when the tide was in, the water being the boundary between the parish and township, so that this dock lay alternately in the township and parish,-in the former when the tide was out, in the latter when the tide was in:-the shipwright being rated in North Shields, not only for his ship yard, but also for his floating dock, appealed :-and the court held that he was not rateable in respect of the floating dock; that dock was nothing more than a ship at anchor, sometimes afloat, sometimes aground; and from the manner in which it was attached to the yard, it had no necessary connection with it, and might be separated from it at will (d). What amounts to a beneficial occupa