each year, either on shore or on board ship, and may be required to join any ship the Admiralty think fit. The whole or part of the force may be called into actual service by proclamation or notice to parliament, if sitting. Volunteers liable to serve three years in the navy, same as the crews of the vessels to which they are appointed, or the three years' service may be extended by proclamation two years, entitling to extra pay of twopence per day; or they may be required to serve at intervals, so as to complete actual service of five years, with extra pay. When called out, volunteers to be victualled in the same manner as seamen of the fleet. Volunteers exempt from the militia and parish offices, and under certain regulations eligible for Greenwich Hospital. Provisions in force relating to billeting of marines to extend to volunteers. Admiralty to make regulations as to sums to be paid to volunteers for entering or re-entering under the act. Admiralty may grant pensions, but pensioners, in case of emergency, to join the navy. Pensioners subject to the laws and customs which govern the fleet. Regulations to be made as to form of entering, clothing, and accoutrements. Penalty on re-enlisting £20, s. 16. Penalties on volunteer enlisting into any other force, or vice versa. Penalty on selling or buying clothes, arms, or accoutrements, ss. 18, 19. Penalty of £20 for not attending training and exercise. Not attending when called into actual service may be punished as desertion from the navy. Penalty on inducing volunteers to absent themselves, or harbouring them.

By 26 & 27 V. c. 69, her Majesty may accept the offers of persons who are or have been masters or mates or engineers in the merchant service to serve as officers in the navy, subject to such rules as the Admiralty may frame. If called out for training or actual service to receive pay, and entitled to allowances if disabled, or if killed their widows to receive pensions.

IX. NAVAL WILLS ACT, AND GREENWICH HOSPITAL.

After commencement of 28 & 29 V. c. 72 (Jan. 1, 1866), wills of seamen or marines made any time previously to their entering into service, of wages, prize, bounty, or other allowance payable by the Admiralty, or in its charge, invalid. Will invalid if combined with power of attorney. For a valid will of money or effects in charge of Admiralty it must be in writing, executed with the forms prescribed by the Wills Act. If will be made on board ship, it must be attested by an officer, or if made elsewhere it must be so attested, or by a justice, incumbent, curate, or minister of worship of the place where the will is executed. Will so made entitled to probate, and person taking it out entitled to administer wages, money, or effects of the testator. S. 6 provides for wills made by seamen if prisoners of war, or male conformable to the act if admitted by the Admiralty.

The 28 & 29 V. c. 111, regulates the disposal of money and effects under the control of the Admiralty belonging to deceased officers, seamen, and marines of the royal navy.

Another act of 1865 (28 & 29 V. c. 89), provides for the better government of Greenwich Hospital, and the more beneficial application of its revenues. Power given by order in council to order new pensions to officers and men and seamen of the merchant service entitled to the benefits of the hospital, so long only as they are not on the establishment or inmates of the hospital, but in addition to any half pay, pension, or allowance. Additional pensions to those who may cease to be inmates. Assignment of pensions or allowance void, s. 8. Offices of commissioners and governors of the hospital abolished on and after Sept. 30, 1865, but entitled to retain their titles with pensions and allowances. Government of the hospital and its schools vested exclusively in the Admiralty, with power to regulate the admission of inmates. Landed property of the hospital vested in the Admiralty, with authority to accept devises, notwithstanding the statute restraining alienation in mortmain or dispositions for charitable uses, s. 43. The remaining sections refer to sale of advowsons, marking of stores, and the auditing of accounts. (See further 32 & 33 V. c. 44.)

X. CONTAGIOUS DISEASE AT NAVAL AND MILITARY STATIONS. The 29 & 30 V. c. 35, and 32 & 33 V. c. 96, make provision for the prevention of contagious diseases in certain towns which are military stations, viz.:-Aldershot, Canterbury, Chatham, Colchester, Dover, Gravesend, Maidstone, Plymouth, Devonport, Portsmouth, Sheerness, Shorncliffe, Southampton, Winchester, Windsor, Woolwich, The Curragh, Cork, Queenstown. By these two acts, prostitutes in the above-mentioned towns are made liable to certain regulations and to periodical examination by the inspector or assistant inspector, who is to be a medical officer, appointed during pleasure by the Admiralty and secretary of state for war, to be an inspector of certified hospitals under these acts.

XI. DOCKYARD AND NAVAL STATIONS.

The Harbour Regulation Act, 54 G. 3, c. 159, provides for the regulation of the ports, harbours, and navigable rivers of the United Kingdom, for the better security of the royal dockyards, arsenals, and moorings, and regulates the mooring and placing of private ships and craft in proximity with the same so far as the tide flows or re-flows. The act also restricts the keeping of gunpowder on board ships, having fires, heating pitch, having shotted guns, or the firing of guns.

In 1863, the 26 & 27 V. c. 30, was passed for the purpose of further regulating harbours, dockyards, and naval stations, but it was repealed in 1865, when the Dockyard Ports Regulation Act, 28 & 29 V. c. 125, was passed. By this act the Queen in council is empowered to define the limits of a dockyard port, and also to make regulations relating to the mooring and anchoring of vessels, and to restrictions on dangerous cargo, carrying shotted guns, &c., and also as to the rates of speed of steamers, and as to the presence of at least one person on board every vessel of a specified size and otherwise. The Admiralty also are empowered from time to time, to appoint a fit person to superintend the execution of the act, and to protect the port, to be called the Queen's harbourmaster. The Queen's harbourmaster has power to search vessels suspected of having dangerous goods or shotted guns on board, and may also unmoor vessels moored in an improper place, and may remove wrecks and unserviceable vessels. The act deals also with the penalties for infringing the regulations laid down in the order in council, and the method of raising and applying these penalties.

The Queen is also empowered by statute to assign the limits of all ports, wharfs, and quays, for the exclusive landing and loading of merchandise. The erection of beacons, light-houses, and seamarks, is also a branch of the royal prerogative. By the 8 Eliz., the corporation of the Trinity House are empowered to set up beacons and sea-marks, wherever they think necessary; and if the owner of the land, or other person, shall destroy or remove them, he forfeits £100. By 46 G. 3, c. 153, no pier, quay, wharf, jetty, breast, or embankment shall be erected in or near to any public harbour, without giving one month's notice to the Admiralty, on pain of £200, to be recovered by action or information.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholics.

Few traces remain in the statute book of the disqualifying penal code, which, to a recent period, interdicted to a large portion of the community not only the enjoyment of their civil immunities, but the free disposal of their persons and property. No class of religionists is now exclusively subject to any test or disability on account of dissent from the doctrine or discipline of the established church; and the honours and advantages of the social state are open to every candidate, whatever modification of Christian belief he may profess.

By the Toleration Act, 1 W. & M. st. 1, c. 18 (confirmed by 10 Ann, c. 12), all persons dissenting from the Church of England (except Papists and persons denying the Trinity) were allowed to assemble for religious worship according to their own forms on condition of their taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. By 19 G. 3, c. 44, it was provided that dissenting preachers or teachers might be entitled to the benefits of the Toleration Act, on subscribing a declaration professing themselves to be Christians and Protestants, and the same statute relieved dissenters in general. This a t was followed by 52 G. 3, c. 155, and 53 G. 3, c. 160, by which dissenters were further relieved; and by 18 & 19 V. c. 81, dissenters are now allowed to register their places of worship with a registrar-general of births, deaths, and marriages, instead of the episcopal or other authorities mentioned in the Toleration Act.

Most of the severer penalties and disabilities to which the subjects of this realm who profess the Roman Catholic religion were at one time subject, were removed by 18 G. 3, c. 60, 31 G. 3, c. 32, and 3 G. 4, c. 30, on condition of their taking such oath and declaration as in those acts provided. And by the Catholic Emancipation Act, 10 G. 4, c. 7, Roman Catholics were restored to full enjoyment of all civil rights.

A Catholic priest is not eligible to sit in the House of Commons, and proof of the celebration of any religious service according to the rites of the Church of Rome is evidence of such person being in holy orders within the meaning of the act.

A Roman Catholic may now hold any office except the office of the guardian or regent of the United Kingdom, of lord chancellor, or keeper of the great seal, of lord-lieutenant or other chief governor of Ireland. By 30 & 31 V. c. 75, all the Queen's subjects, without any reference to their religion, are made eligible to hold the office of lord chancellor of Ireland. When such office is held by a person not a member of the established church, the right of presentation to benefices to devolve upon the Queen, or other person by her Majesty's appointment, or in default upon the Archbishop of Armagh.

By s. 4, every person holding any judicial or civil or corporate office may attend and he present at any place of public meeting for religious worship in England, Ireland, or Scotland, in the robe, gown, or other peculiar habit of his office, or with the ensign, or insignia of or belonging to the same, without incurring any forfeiture of office or penalty for such attendance.

By 7 & 8 V. c. 102, and 9 & 10 V. c. 59, almost the whole of the enactments still remaining in force against the Roman Catholics were repealed, and the obligation for them to use the special oath which was provided by the Catholic Emancipation Act, by which they abjured any intention to subvert the church establishment and promised never to exercise any influence so as to destroy or weaken the Protestant religion or government, appears to have been

almost altogether removed. 75, and 31 & 32 V. c. 72.) By the Irish Church Act, 1869 (see p. 11,) the union between the churches of England and Ireland as by law established was dissolved, and it was enacted that the Church of Ireland should cease to be established at law, and that, after satisfying as far as possible upon principles of equality as between the several religious denominations in Ireland, all just and equitable claims, the property of the Church of Ireland should be applied in such manner as parliament should afterwards direct. Parliament has not as yet made any direction as to the application of the surplus property of the Church of Ireland.

(See 29 & 30 V. c. 19, 30 & 31 V. c.

PART IV.

PROPERTY AND ITS INCIDENTS.

HAVING, in the last Part, stated the various laws which affect persons in public offices, in their professions, trades, and occupations, and in their individual and religious relations to each other, we But before come next to those which affect their possessions. entering on the incidents connected with the possession and conveyance of property, it may be useful to explain the meaning of a few terms, the legal sense of which differs in some degree from that usually intended in common conversation; and also to premise a few explanatory observations on the nature of tenures, and the different modes of acquiring property.

1. EXPLANATIONS.

Property may be defined as anything possessing exchangeable value, and is either real or personal.

Real property consists of lands, tenements, and of such things as are permanent, fixed, and immovable, and the interest in which continues during the life of the owner, or the life of another person or persons.

Personal property, or personalty, consists of leases, money, goods, and other movables, which either are or easily may become transferable.