requires, but payment of the debt which it represents is postponed indefinitely or for a very long period. Yet it is important even here to remember, in connection with dividends, interest instalments, and the income generally of personal chattels incorporeal.1 Stock certificates may continue outstanding until the company is wound up; mortgages, bonds, and long loans, until a future distant date specified; patent-rights and copyrights during the statute period conferring the monopoly; insurance policies for the stated term of the risk; leases so long as they run. But in all kinds of incorporeal personalty, some future period when the money right or valuable thing represented will mature for full collection or expire altogether is indicated. CHAPTER V. HEIRLOOMS AND EMBLEMENTS. § 94. Border Line between Real and Personal; Heirlooms, Emblements, and Fixtures. Among chattels personal of a corporeal nature there are some which form an exception to the general rule of transfer and alienation noticed in the last chapter, and which, indeed, are treated in certain respects as real rather than personal property. Instead of following the person of the owner wherever he goes, they remain stationary; and instead of devolving, after he dies, upon his executor or administrator, in the first instance, like other personal chattels, they are permitted to descend with the land and vest at once in his heirs as part of the inheritance. On the other hand, there are certain things annexed to the land, chancery courts may not allow themselves to be hampered. 1 In the foregoing chapter we have touched upon many doctrines whose full treatment must be postponed for the present; since they come under the heading of "Title to Personal Property," an extensive subject, to which our later volumes are exclusively devoted. See vol. ii., Personal Property, Schoul. Bailments, etc. which become under special circumstances capable of severance and removal like ordinary chattels personal. Here we find ourselves at the border line which separates real from personal; and we shall do well to examine these special kinds of property somewhat at length. First, then, as to heirlooms; next, as to emblements; and, lastly, as to fixtures. The physical nature of an annexation, custom, the presumed or the express mutual understanding of the parties, the inherent fitness of the thing's association with the land or the unfitness, are all found elements for consideration in such a discussion. § 95. Heirlooms, their Nature and Incidents.- - Heirlooms are such personal chattels as descend to the heir along with the inheritance, contrary to the usual rule, instead of passing to the executor or administrator of the last owner.1 The word "heirloom" is probably compounded of "heir" and the Saxon loma or geloma, which signifies utensils or vessels generally; thus indicating simply the heir's utensils or goods. But some prefer the word "heir" and "loom;" that is, a frame to weave in. That would be a fanciful derivation enough; but Blackstone gives one which is even more so, by which he makes out an heirloom to be "nothing else but a limb or member of the inheritance."2 "In some places," says Coke, "chattels, as heirlooms (as the best bed, table, pot, pan, cart, and other dead chattels movable), may go to the heir ;" and he further adds that "the heirloom is due by custom and not by the common law."3 The ancient jewels of the British crown were heirlooms from early times. it would seem, are public documents which the peers of England were wont to receive by way of gratuitous distribution. In short, heirlooms, wherever found, may be con 1 2 Bl. Com. 427; Wms. Pers. Prop. 5th Eng. ed. 12; Co. Lit. 18 b; Bouv. Dict. "Heirloom;" Webster's Dict. ib.; Worcester's Dict. ib. 22 Bl. Com. 427. And see Byng v. Byng, 10 H. L. 183, per Lord Cranworth. 3 Co. Lit. 18 b. 1 Wms. Ex'rs, VOL. I. So, sidered as attending the inheritance, not because of any inherent characteristics which likened them to immovable property (as some seem to have supposed), but merely because some local custom favored the heir rather than the executor in this respect. Though not by nature inheritable, the heritable character is conferred by law upon it. And we all know that law and custom strongly foster family pride, wherever family relics are the subject of dispute. The modern tendency, certainly in the United States, is against what are, strictly speaking, heirlooms; we do not prefer the first-born; and it is not to be presumed that the ordinary rules which regulate the transmission of personal property are to be thus turned aside for the gratification of individuals, where the chattels possess an intrinsic value, apart from that which affection may set upon them.1 Heirlooms, it is held, cannot be devised or bequeathed by will; for the technical reason that the will cannot operate until after death, whereas the ancient custom takes effect the instant one dies; so that, the law preferring custom to the devise or bequest, they vest in the heir at once.2 But, during his life, the owner may, of course, sell or dispose of chattels which would otherwise descend as heirlooms.3 § 96. Heirlooms, their Nature and Incidents; The Subject continued. -There are some kinds of chattels which are treated as being in the nature of heirlooms, and which accordingly are permitted to pass to the heir with the inheritance. Thus, the coat-armor of an ancestor hung in a church, his sword, and other insignia of rank; ancient portraits and family pictures in a house, though not fastened to the walls, all these have been withheld from the executor; and although, in some cases of this sort, annexation to real estate might seem to have determined the decision of the court, yet we are reasonably safe in supposing that the executor was required to leave them alone, from deference rather to that custom 1 See notes of Chitty and others, to 2 Bl. Com. 427, 428. 2 Co. Lit. 185 b; 1 Wms. Ex'rs, 6th Eng. ed. 681; Tipping v. Tipping, 1 P. Wms. 730. 81 Wms. Ex'rs, 682; 2 Bl. Com. 429. So the sovereign may dispose of the ancient crown jewels during his life. Cro. Car. 344. which favored the heir, by permitting the family dignities to pass unimpaired so far as was possible.1 Some who have failed to separate these two distinct elements for consideration, — local custom and actual annexation to the freehold, — in passing upon articles which are in controversy between heir and executor, say that heirlooms are in general such things as are essential to the enjoyment of the realty; such as cannot be taken away without damaging or dismembering the freehold; and Lord Holt is reported to have said that a jewel cannot be an heirloom, but only "things ponderous."2 But this statement of Lord Holt is contradicted by what we have just said of crown jewels; and those who speak thus seem to have fallen upon the doctrine of fixtures (aside from custom altogether), which would be found sufficient for itself in determining what shall go as real and what as personal property. And yet we must admit that a local custom may be founded to some extent upon a legal principle; and certainly, whether this be true or not with respect to chattels in the nature of heirlooms, we find the doctrine of things incident to the freehold strangely blended with this of mere custom; so that it would sometimes be hard to say whether a certain chattel were in the nature of an heirloom or of a fixture. § 97. Heirlooms; Doctrine as to Wild Animals. For example, there are some curious rules concerning the transmission of title to wild animals, upon the death of the person who had them in his enclosure. These are said to pass by way of incident to the freehold and inheritance, and not to go to the executor or administrator. Thus, deer in what the law considers a park, conies in a warren, and doves in a dovehouse, will not come to the executor or administrator with the assets. The reason assigned by Coke is, that without them the inheritance would be incomplete; but another 1 See Corven's Case, 12 Co. 105; 1 Wms. Ex'rs, 682. Shroud and coffin, gravestone, &c., cannot be considered as heirlooms. See Teager v. Bowle, 1 Add. 541. 2 Lord Petre v. Heneage, 1 Ld. Raym. 728; 12 Mod. 520. See 2 Bl. 3 Supra, § 95; 5 Ves. 806. reason mentioned by him, and one perhaps equally good (since an inheritance is thought to be complete without the dogs, horses, and other domestic animals, under like circumstances), is that the deceased had no transmissible personal right of property in them. So, if a man buys fish and puts them into a pond, and dies, they pass with the water to the heir, or at all events, they do not go to the executor or administrator. Though, if the deceased had only a term of years in the land, it is said that the deer, conies, doves, and fish will go to the executor or administrator as accessory chattels, following the estate of the principal; 2 which last proposition might be quite true, provided the executor caught them all before the lease under his control ran out, and he had to vacate the premises. All this law seems to us to be best referred to that special or qualified right of property in animals remaining in an unreclaimed or wild state, which we have discussed in a former chapter. it is now the settled rule in England, and we doubt not in this country too, that deer in a park, or other animals upon private premises, when tame and reclaimed from their wild state, will pass to the executors or administrators, like any other domestic animals owned by the decedent.* And § 98. Heirlooms; Doctrine as to Title-deeds, Keys, etc. But there is another example, still more to the point, — that of title-deeds and other muniments of the inheritance. It is an established principle that whoever is entitled to land is entitled also to the deeds and chattels which concern that land, and afford evidence of his title. They have been called the sinews of the land;5 and so closely are they associated with real estate, that they are held to pass, on its conveyance, without being expressly mentioned; the property in these instruments passing from the vendor to the purchaser by the simple grant of the real estate itself. Upon the grantee's 17 Co. 17 b; § 50, supra. See Went. Off. Ex. 127, 14th ed. 2 Com. Dig. Biens, B; Went. Off. Ex. 127. For use, however, and not for waste. See 1 Wms. Ex'rs, 666; Co. Lit. 53 a. 3 Supra, §§ 48-50. 4 Ford v. Tynte, 2 Johns. & H. 150; Morgan v. Abergavenny, 3 C. B. 768. 5 Co. Lit. 6 a. 6 Harrington v. Price, 3 B. & A. 170; Philips v. Robinson, 4 Bing. |