the common law. Walker v. New Mexico & Southern Pacific Railroad,
2. It is within the power of a legislature of a Territory to provide that, on
a trial of a common law action, the court may, in addition to the gen-
eral verdict, require specific answers to special interrogatories, and,
when a conflict is found between the two, render such judgment as
the answers to the special questions compel. Ib.
3. A territorial legislature has all the legislative power of a state legisla-
ture, except as limited by the Constitution, and by act of Congress;
and, the legislature of New Mexico, having adopted the common law
as the rule of practice and decision, this court is bound by it. Ib.
1. The rule against perpetuities is inapplicable to a trust resulting to the
heirs of a grantor upon the failure of an express trust declared in his
deed. Hopkins v. Grimshaw, 342.
2. By a deed of land from a private person to three others as trustees for
a particular society, not incorporated, but formed for the mutual aid of
its members when sick and for their burial when dead, to have and to
hold to the trustees, "and their successors in office forever, for the sole
use and benefit of the society aforesaid, for a burial ground, and for
no other purpose whatever," the trustees take the legal estate in fee;
and, when the land has ceased to be used for a burial ground, and all
the bodies there interred have been removed to other cemeteries, by
order of the municipal authorities, and the society has been dissolved
and become extinct, the grantor's heirs are entitled to the land by way
of resulting trust; and, after one of those heirs and the heirs of the
trustees have conveyed their interests in the land to another person,
the other heirs of the grautor may maintain a bill in equity against
him to enforce the resulting trust, and for partition of the land, and
for complete relief between the parties.
1. This court looks to the law of the State in which land is situated for
the rules which govern its descent, alienation and transfer, and for
the effect and construction of wills and other conveyances; and in the
District of Columbia those rules are the rules which governed in Mary-
land at the time when the District was separated from it. De Vaughn
v. Hutchinson, 566.
2. Under a will devising real estate in the District of Columbia to M. A. M.
during her natural life, and after her death to be equally divided among
the heirs of her body begotten, share and share alike, and to their heirs
and assigns forever, M. A. M. takes a life estate only, and her children
take an estate in fee. Ib.