c. 104. the terms on which such enfranchisement or purchase 14&15 Vict. shall have been effected, and, if refused, the grounds of such refusal, and every year such general reports shall be laid before both houses of parliament within six weeks after the receipt of the same by such principal secretary of state, if parliament be sitting, or if parliament be not sitting, then within six weeks after the next meeting thereof. tion: XI. In the construction of this act, unless such Interpretameaning be repugnant to the context, the following words and expressions shall have the meanings hereby assigned to them respectively; (that is to say) ration:" The expression "ecclesiastical corporation" shall Ecclesiasinclude every archbishop, bishop, dean and tical corpochapter, dean, archdeacon, canon, prebendary, and other dignitary or officer of any cathedral or collegiate church in England and Wales, and every minor ecclesiastical corporation in any such cathedral or collegiate church, but shall not include the dean and canons of the cathedral church of Christ in Oxford, or any college or hospital, or any parson, vicar or perpetual curate, or other incumbent of any benefice: The word "lease" shall include grant by copy of "Lease:" court roll: The word "lands" shall include tithes and tithe "Lands:" rent-charges, and other tenements and heredita ments, corporeal and incorporeal (except ad vowsons): The word "lessee" shall include any person or "Lessee.” XII. That this act be limited in duration to three Duration of years from the end of the present session of parliament. act. APPENDIX. COPYHOLD COMMISSIONERS' DIRECTIONS AS These Forms are intended for the guidance of parties availing to forms of procedure. The following forms will be found to apply to cases Directions as of manorial commutations-to cases of partial commutations, that is, by agreements not being manorial agreements, and not including all the tenants of a manor, and to cases where parties commuting or enfranchising are under disability. Nos. 1, 2, and 3, include the notices and declarations which may serve to bring the parties together at a manorial meeting held for the purpose of effecting a commutation. See ante, pp. 302, 303. No. 4 contains forms of minutes of the various proceedings which may be supposed to take place at such meetings. The most important portion of these forms is that which relates to the minute which is to serve as a basis of an agreement for commutation, No. 4, E. When meetings to commute are assembled, the parties may, in some few cases, find themselves prepared at once to execute fully, or provisionally, a formal agreement, and in such cases they may proceed at once to use the form marked No. 5, and to make the minute given in Nos. 7 or 8; but it will not often happen that the parties are prepared at once to execute such an instrument; the most that will ordinarily be done at the first, and perhaps some subsequent meetings, will be to assent to principles of commutation, the details of which are subsequently to be embodied in an agreement; and when such preliminary assent has been obtained, a minute should be entered on the proceedings, which may serve as a record of it, and furnish the basis of a formal agreement to be afterwards prepared. The forms of such minutes as "the basis of an agreement," with variations to meet different cases, are given in form, No. 4, E. No. 5 is the form of a manorial agreement to commute. Such an agreement may be either perfect or provisional-that is, the signatures of the parties present may be sufficient to give validity to an agreement, or insufficient. In the second case a provisional agreement only can be executed. One name at least must be affixed to such a provisional agreement at the meeting itself, the other parties may sign within six calendar months afterwards, see 4 & 5 Vict. c. 35, s. 16, ante, p. 306. When an agreement, either perfect or provisional, is signed at a meeting, a short minute of that fact should be recorded by the chairman, as in forms Nos. 7 and 8. The form of a manorial agreement, No. 5, is given to meet cases in which the tenants, or three-fourths of the tenants, in number and value, can determine on the joint consideration to be given to the lord, but cannot at once determine unanimously on the precise portion. which is to be contributed by each. In all such cases, a manorial agreement (Form, No. 5), followed by an apportionment under the act, presents the only means of completing the transaction; but if all the tenants can agree amongst themselves, or can trust a valuer to fix for them, the sums to be paid by each of them, and can thus embody the distribution of the whole sum to be given to the lord in a schedule of apportionment, to be annexed to and form part of their agreement they will save much of the trouble and expense necessary to complete a manorial apportionment under the act. To effect this they will use not the form of a manorial agreement (No. 5), but that sort of agreement (see forms, Nos. 9 and 10), which any two or more tenants are authorized to execute under sec. 52 of the 4 & 5 Vict. c. 35. See ante, pp. 334-336. These agreements require no previous meeting to give them validity, and if form No. 10 be used, no subsequent apportionment. The act (sec. 52) allows any one or more tenants thus to commute by agreement partially,—that is, leaving out the other tenants, without previous meetings, and paying no stamp duty (s. 93), and all such agreements may or may not contain schedules of apportionment. If they do not contain schedules of apportionment, then the steward is to frame one which is to go through all the processes of investigation provided for in the case of apportionments consequent on manorial agreements. Under the same section any one tenant may agree with the lord for commutation; but in such case there will of course be no necessity for an apportionment. A form of agreement to enfranchise, and a schedule of apportionment on enfranchisement, are given in Nos. 11 and 12. See ante, pp. 269–274. Although the act authorizes the use of partial agreements without schedules of apportionment annexed, it will be very rarely indeed advisable to use such. Parties who agree to commute or enfranchise, and embody the consideration to be paid by each in a schedule forming part of the instrument itself, will at once close the whole transaction. Those who leave a gross sum to be paid to the lord as a consideration, to be afterwards apportioned among them by others, may involve themselves in subsequent valuations, and instruments of apportionment and investigations, and perhaps conflicts, of which the expense, the delay, and the trouble may be alike formidable. It may again be remarked here, that even where the copyhold or customary lands of a whole manor are commuted or enfranchised, the parties may possibly, in some few cases, agree among themselves as to the consideration to be paid by each, and then the commutation or enfranchisement may at once be effected by an instrument in one of the forms (Nos. 10 or 12), instead of by a manorial agreement in the form No. 5; and if |