be admitted, e.g., when they are infants or married. women, it has been provided by the Infants' Property Act, 1830, that the lord may (on their failure to come in and be admitted) himself appoint an attorney for them to take admittance, and may admit them by such attorney accordingly, and proceed thereupon to recover his fine. And the like provisions are applicable also to the case of lunatic copyholders (ƒ).

But though, in the case of an admittance upon surrender, no copyhold estate is vested in the surrenderee until he is admitted, and it is distinguishable in this respect from an admittance upon descent; yet it is material to observe, that even an admittance upon surrender, when made, has a retrospective relation, in point of time, to the surrender itself. And therefore, if the surrenderor dies after the surrender, and before admittance, though his heir will take by descent in the interim, yet, on the admittance of the surrenderee, the heir's estate will be defeated (g). In conclusion, we should observe that it is only the legal estate that is considered upon a surrender and admittance (h); and that the steward may, in the absence of special custom, reject any surrender which purports to disclose a trust (i).

[Such is, in general, the nature of a surrender and admittance, in the simplest form; and the only variation upon the proceeding, which it is material at present to notice, relates to a conveyance by way of mortgage. Here the surrender is made upon condition that the money remains unpaid at the time appointed; but in the meantime no admittance takes place, at least in general. If the money be paid at the time appointed, the surrender, not having been perfected by admittance, is void without further ceremony; nor is it the usual course to complete

(f) Lunacy Act, 1890, ss. 125, 126.

(g) Doe v. Hall, (1812) 16 East,

208.

(h) Hall v. Bromley, (1887) 35 Ch. D. 642.

(i) Flack v. Downing College, (1853) 13 C. B. 945.

[the copyhold estate by admittance, even supposing the money to remain unpaid, unless the mortgagee wishes to take possession. The conditional surrender constitutes the security, and continues to do so until the mortgage is satisfied. An entry of such satisfaction is then made on the court rolls, after which the original title of the mortgagor is considered as remaining in full force. The conditional surrender is usually preceded by a deed, containing the covenant to surrender, and the other clauses and stipulations usual in a mortgage.

The admittances of which we have hitherto spoken are those used to complete an inchoate title by surrender or descent. It is to be observed, however, that there is another kind of admittance, viz., that which is connected with an original voluntary grant from the lord himself, and not with any preceding surrender or devise or descent. And this occurs chiefly in the case where the lord has himself acquired the copyhold interest, in consequence of some escheat, forfeiture, descent, surrender to his own use, or other circumstance, so that the freehold and copyhold interest are united in his person. In such latter case, the lord may, if he thinks proper, grant the lands out de novo to hold by copy; but if he does this, he is bound to observe the antient custom precisely in every point, and can neither in tenure nor in estate introduce any kind of alteration. For that were to create a new copyhold, which, as this tenure depends on immemorial custom, cannot be done. Thus, if a copyhold for life falls into the lord's hands and he grants it out again by copy, he can neither add to nor diminish the antient rent, nor make any the minutest variation in other respects (k); nor is the tenant's estate, so granted, subject to any charges or incumbrances by the lord (). Formerly the lord might, where there was a special custom in the manor to that effect, make grants of

(k) Co. Cop. 41.

(1) Swayne's Case, (1608) 8 Rep.

63 b.

[portions of the waste, to be held for the first time by copy of court roll; usually, however, only with the assent of the homage.] But it is now provided, by the Copyhold Act, 1894, that no such grants shall be made in any case, without the previous consent of the Board of Agriculture, and that all such grants shall, ipso jure, operate as enfranchisements.

Again, admittance may also take place in the case of a devise; for a copyhold estate is now as devisable by will as a freehold. Formerly, copyholds were not directly devisable, even after lands of freehold tenure had become so; but when a man wished to devise his copyhold, he made a surrender of it to the use of his will, and afterwards in his will designated the person to be admitted as devisee (m). However, by a statute of the year 1815 (commonly called Preston's Act), every disposition made by will, by a person dying after the passing of that Act, was made as effectual without a surrender to the use of his will, as it would have been if such a surrender had taken place. And now, by the Wills Act, 1837, it is provided that all the real estate of the testator may be devised; and under that description, all his copyholds, though he should not have surrendered them to the use of his will, nor have even been admitted to them himself, are expressly included (n). The devisee is accordingly admitted on production of the will.

In manors where a custom to entail existed, an estate tail might have been barred by a customary recovery, founded on a fictitious action in the lord's court, according to the analogy of a common recovery in the Court of Common Pleas; or such customary estate tail might (according as the custom was) have been barred by a surrender. But now, by the Fines and Recoveries Act, 1833, a disposition by tenant in tail of the legal estate in a copyhold must in every case be by surrender (0), (m) Co. Cop. s. 36.

(n) Sect. 3; Garland v. Mead,

L. R. (1871) 6 Q. B. 441.

(0) Sect. 50.

subject to provisions as to the consent of the protector of the settlement (where there is one), analogous to those which the statute introduced in relation to the disentailing of freehold lands (p). And the surrender requires no enrolment, otherwise than by entry on the court rolls (q). The Act also contains provisions with respect to the copyholds of a married woman (tenant in tail or otherwise) (r); but, regard being had to the operation of the Married Women's Property Acts, hereafter to be dealt with, these provisions have now little importance.

The preceding remarks relate, it will be observed, to the manner of conveying the legal estate in copyhold lands. With regard to equitable interests in lands of this tenure, they do not in general pass by surrender, (none but the owner of the legal estate being tenant to the lord, nor consequently entitled to surrender), but by any ordinary mode of conveyance sufficient to pass an equitable interest in freeholds. As regards equitable cuba estates tail, however, it is provided by the Fines and Recoveries Act, 1833, that they shall pass either by surrender, or by disentailing or other deed, attended with the same formalities in general which are prescribed by that Act with reference to transactions affecting legal estates (s).

It now remains to notice, briefly, the results of a long series of Copyhold Acts passed in the course of the nineteenth century, having for their main objects the facilitating of the process of commutation of the casual incidents of copyhold tenure into fixed annual payments, and the gradual extinction of the tenure itself by the process of enfranchisement (t).

In promotion of these views, the earlier Acts established a Board of "Copyhold Commissioners," now merged in

(p) Sects. 51, 52.

(9) Sect. 54.

(r) Sects. 77, 91.

(s) Sects. 50, 53, 90.

(t) The unrepealed provisions of these statutes were consolidated and re-enacted by the Copyhold Act, 1894.

the Board of Agriculture, and they enacted: First, with regard to commutations, that by way of a general scheme for the whole manor, the future rents, fines, and heriots, and the lord's rights in timber, and also (if so expressed) in mines and minerals, might in all cases be commuted by agreement, the parties to such agreement being respectively interested to the extent of three-fourths at least in value, and the number of the tenants parties to the agreement being, at least, three-fourths of the whole. And although such general commutations ceased to be made (u), still particular commutations between the lord of the manor and any one or more of his tenants continue to occur, and (after confirmation by the Board of Agriculture) are binding on the parties and on all other persons connected with them in title. After a commutation duly effected, the lands, although still remaining copyhold for most purposes, cease to be subject to any customary mode of descent or to any custom relating to dower, freebench, or tenancy by the curtesy, except as to persons married before the commutation took place (a).

Secondly, certain improvements in copyhold tenure were introduced by the earlier Copyhold Acts, chiefly by the Copyhold Act, 1841; and these improvements have been continued by the Copyhold Act, 1894. Thus, to remove doubts before existing on the subject, it is provided, that it shall be lawful for the courts to make partition of copyhold lands, as well as of lands of freehold tenure, and to do so by the like order as in the case of freehold lands (y). And to obviate certain inconveniences previously attaching to the practice upon surrenders, admittances, and grants, it is enacted, that lords of manors (or their stewards or deputy stewards), may hold

(u) The provisions authorizing them were repealed by the Copyhold Act, 1858.

(x) Copyhold Act, 1894, s. 79.

(The custom of gavelkind is expressly reserved.)

(y) Ibid., s. 87.