The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-03-12
legislative IcOnOclnam.

1T is with sensation approaching astonish-
ment that we read the proceedings of the
House of Representatives at Harrisburg on
Tuesday. Amid the dreary waste of bills that
have something in them' we encounter, for
the first time during the present session, an
attempt at changing the fundamental princi-
pies Of the common law, as it has been handed
down to us through the centuries. And the
most astonishing part of the whole business is
the fact that our legislative iconoclast, who
rejoices in the name of Andrew Jackson Herr,
and halls from Dsuphin county, has had the
temerity to raise his hand against one of the
N ost sacred images in the temple of the law.
The principle familiar to the profession as
'the Rule in Shelley's Case' is based upon
several cases found in the antiquated series
of reports known as the Year Books, which
contain the decisions of the English courts
during the period from 1854 to l547, the
earliest case in which the principle Is set forth
occurring in the year 1l72, nearly seven Gen.
turies ago. The rule is thus quantity worded
by Lord Coke:-
when the ancestor, by any gilt or convey.
ance, taketh an estate OF freehold, and in The
same gift or conveyance an estate is limited,
either medtately or Immediately, to his heirs
In fee or in tall The heirs are words OF Limitation
of the estate, and not words of purchase"
Deprived OF its technical obscurities, the
principle may be thus stated: When a per-
son is vested with an estate for life orlfor some
other uncertain period, and in the same deed,
will, or other instrument by which he re-
ceives this estate, an estate OF the same legal
nv arnifahla oh Ia
the interpOsitiOn of another estate, is vested
in "his heirs" the "heirs OF his body" or
'his issue," to be held absolutely by them, the
first person named is himself vested absolutely
with the estate, and may dispose of it in the
same manner as any other property belonging
to him without restriction of any kind.
Perhaps there is not, in the whole range of
the law affecting real property, principle
which has given rise to more research and
discussion than the Rule in Shelley's Case.
The works OF the great commentators and
the decisions Of the courts of both England
and this country are filed with it, and at last
all the points on which it can possibly be
brought to bear have been so elaborated by
the standard authorities of the common law,
that u has become one OF the clearest and
most unquestiOnabie principles of the un-
written code. Chancellor Kent, in his cele-
brated Commentaries, says that 'it has GER
tainly the pretensiOn of high antiquity, and
has been firmly established as an axiom
of the English law OF real property
for more than five hundred years." Not only
is It firmly established in England, but, as
Kent says, it "has been received and adopted
In the United States as part of the system OF
the common law" having been recognized as
binding in nearly, If not quite, every State in
the Union, from the time when the principle
involved was first called in question by litiga-
tion. In Pennsylvania 1t was recognized and
enforced as early as the year 1874, and since
that date has never been called in question
In the state Of New York, alone we believe