of the grant of some part of what is granted in general terms, as for instance, a grant of a certain field, except the northwest acre.' An exception is therefore always a part of the thing granted and is tangible. A reservation is the creating out of the property granted, of some new incorporeal hereditament, such as a right of way for the benefit of the grantor. SECTION 78. AMERICAN SYSTEM OF LAND PARCELING. In order to secure a more scientific system of land division and description, the United States Government early adopted a uniform rectangular system of surveying the public lands of the United States. Under this system the public land of the United States when first surveyed, is intersected by principal meridians, running north and south, and base lines running east and west. Starting from these as a basis, the land is then divided into townships, six miles square; the ranges of townships being numbered east and west along the base lines and the numbers of the townships in the range north and south along the principal meridians. Under this system the township marked X in the following map would be described as township five, north, range three, west of the principal meridian.2 It has been held that where the grant is of a specified quantity of land, a similar specified quantity can not be excepted from it. This question is a very technical one and not of very great importance. It is safer, however, in such a case to have the exception come before the enumeration of quantity. For a more detailed discussion of the description of land, see the subject of Abstracts in this volume. The sections are next divided into quarter sections of 160 acres each, which is the quantity generally transferred by the government in its grants. Provisions are made in the law for the correction of errors in the survey caused by the distance between the range lines growing smaller toward the north and for the surveying of fractional townships or sections, part of which are occupied by navigable lakes, streams, etc. The treatment of these provisions belong more properly to a book on surveying than on law. SECTION 79. PLATS AND SUBDIVISIONS. In the case of towns and cities a further division of the land is required for the purpose of conveyance and description. This is secured by means of plats and subdivisions. Under this system the owner of, say, the northeast quarter of section 16 in a certain township will have a map made of such quarter section platted off into blocks and lots. This map will be placed on record and a lot in such subdivision can be transferred by a description similar to the following: Lot 13, block 7, in William Smith's Subdivision of the northeast quarter section 17, township 13 south, range 8 east of the third principal meridian. CHAPTER IX. SPECIAL TOPICS IN REAL PROPERTY. SECTION 80. CONTEST IN LEGAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND BETWEEN THOSE WHO DESIRED TO ALLOW AND THOSE WHO DESIRED TO PREVENT THE ALIENATION OF REAL ESTATE. One of the most interesting chapters in the legal history of England is the long contest between those who desired to keep the land mainly in a few noble families and to prevent its alienation, and those who desired to make land a free object of commerce.1 The first attempt to limit its alienation came in the form of the fee-conditional. This estate proving ineffectual to accomplish the desired purpose, it was abolished by the Statute of De Donis and the fee-tail substituted therefor. A little later a new method was devised of alienating estate in fee-tail by the means of fictitious suits known as fines,2 and common recoveries.3 For a detailed account of this contest, see Appendix A to Real Property. Coke's Institute, Vol. II, p. 491. (1) This, though a just description of fines, considered according to their original and still apparent import, yet gives a very inadequate idea of them in their modern application. In Glanvill's time they were really amicable_compositions of actual suits. But for several centuries past, fines have been only so in name, being in fact fictitious proceedings, in order to transfer or secure real property, by a mode more efficacious than ordinary conveyances. What the superiority of a fine in this respect consists of will best appear, by stating the chief uses to which it is applied. One use of a fine is extinguishing dormant titles by shortening the usual time of limitation. Fines, being agreements concerning lands or tenements solemnly made in the King's courts, were deemed to be of equal notoriety with judgments in writs of right; and therefore the common law allowed them to have the same quality of barring all, who should not claim within a year and a day. See Plowd., 357. Hence we may probably date Spon the fee-tail becoming ineffectual for the purpose for which it was devised, some of the conveyancers of the days invented a new form of conveyance by which land was granted to the first taker for life with remainder to his heirs or remainder to the heirs of his body. The purpose of the inventors of this form of conveyance was defeated by the construction put upon the origin and frequent use of fines as feigned proceedings. But this puissance of a fine was taken away by the 34 E. 3, and this statute continued in force till the 1 R. 3, and 4 A. 7, which revived the ancient law, though with some change, proclamations being required to make fines more notorious, and the time for claiming being enlarged from a year and a day to five years. 3 A common recovery is in re some respects similar to a fine; for as a fine is the compromise of a fictitious suit, so a recovery is a fictitious suit brought against the tenant of the freehold, and carried on to judgment. 2 Bl. Com., 357; Shep. Touch., 37. A common covery generally consists of two parts perfectly distinct: 1st, of the recovery, which assumes all the forms of a real action, and is founded on the supposition of an adverse claim; and 2dly, of the recovery deed, which is, in form at least, partly a preparatory step, to suffering the recovery, and partly a declaration of the uses of the recovery when suffered. Notwithstanding the recovery assumes the form of a real action, it is considered merely as a common assurance, and the courts take notice of it as such. See Pelham's case, 1 Co., 14, b. 2, Bl. Com., 358, 359, Pig. Rec., 56; 1 Prest. Conv., 8. The person against whom the writ is brought is called the tenant; the person suing the writ is called the demandant, as he claims or demands the premises as his right and in heritance, alleging that the tenant had deceised him, or at least had come in under the disseasor, or in the post. The tenant then calls on the remainder-man, or the person under whom he claims, to warrant his title, which is denominated vouching the person, who is thence called the vouchee. The vouchee either vouches over, or makes default. On default made, judgment is given that the demandant recover against the tenant, and that the tenant recover against the vouchee or warrantor, and so on, which is called the recovery in value, or recompense, and is always supposed to go as the lands would have gone if they had not been recovered; though indeed, this recompense is merely nominal, and, the judgment to recover in value is mere form. When the præcipe is brought immediately against the tenant in tail, it only bars him of the estates of which he is then actually seized. Taltarum's case, 12 Ed., 4, 14; Pig. Rec., 9; Bro. Abr. Tail, 32. It is, therefore, usual for him to convey an estate of freehold to another person, that the præcipe may be brought against such person (who is called the tenant to the præcipe), and that such person may vouch the tenant in tail; for if the tenant in tail comes in as vouchee, it bars every latent right and interest which he may have in the lands. the præcipe be brought immediately against the tenant in tail, and he vouch over the common vouchee, it is called If |