PROPERT

PROPERTY. The right and interest which a man has in lands and chattels to 
the exclusion of others. 6 Binn. 98; 4 Pet. 511; 17 Johns. 283; 14 East, 
370; 11 East, 290, 518. It is the right to enjoy and to dispose of certain 
things in the most absolute manner as he pleases, provided he makes no use 
of them prohibited by law. See Things. 
     2. All things are not the subject of property the sea, the air, and the 
like, cannot be appropriated; every one may enjoy them, but he has no 
exclusive right in them. When things are fully our own, or when all others 
are excluded from meddling with them, or from interfering about them, it is 
plain that no person besides the proprietor, who has this exclusive right, 
can have any, claim either to use them, or to hinder him from disposing of 
them as, he pleases; so that property, considered as an exclusive right to 
things, contains not only a right to use those things, but a right to 
dispose of them, either by exchanging them for other things, or by giving 
them away to any other person, without any consideration, or even throwing 
them away. Rutherf. Inst. 20; Domat, liv. prel. tit. 3; Poth. Des Choses; 18 
Vin. Ab. 63; 7 Com. Dig. 175; Com. Dig. Biens. See also 2 B. & C. 281; S. C. 
9 E. C. L. R. 87; 3 D. & R. 394; 9 B. & C. 396; S. C. 17 E. C. L. R. 404; 1 
C. & M. 39; 4 Call, 472; 18 Ves. 193; 6 Bing. 630. 
     3. Property is divided into real property, (q.v.) and personal 
property. (q.v.) Vide Estate; Things. 
     4. Property is also divided, when it consists of goods and chattels, 
into absolute and qualified. Absolute property is that which is our own, 
without any qualification whatever; as when a man is the owner of a watch, a 
book, or other inanimate thing: or of a horse, a sheep, or other animal, 
which never had its natural liberty in a wild state. 
     5. Qualified property consists in the right which men have over wild 
animals which they have reduced to their own possession, and which are kept 
subject to their power; as a deer, a buffalo, and the like, which are his 
own while he has possession of them, but as soon as his possession is lost, 
his property is gone, unless the animals, go animo revertendi. 2 Bl. Com. 
396; 3 Binn. 546. 
     6. But property in personal goods may be absolute or qualified without 
ally relation to the nature of the subject-matter, but simply because more 
persons than one have an interest in it, or because the right of property is 
separated from the possession. A bailee of goods, though not the owner, has 
a qualified property in them; while the owner has the absolute property. 
Vide, Bailee; Bailment. 
     7. Personal property is further divided into property in possession, 
and property or choses in action. (q.v.) 
     8. Property is again divided into corporeal and incorporeal. The former 
comprehends such property as is perceptible to the senses, as lands, houses, 
goods, merchandise and the like; the latter consists in legal rights, as 
choses in action, easements, and the like. 
     9. Property is lost, in general, in three ways, by the act of man, by 
the act of law, and by the act of God. 
    10.-1. It is lost by the act of man by, 1st. Alienation; but in order to 
do this, the owner must have a legal capacity to make a contract. 2d. By the 
voluntary abandonment of the thing; but unless the abandonment be purely 
voluntary, the title to the property is not lost; as, if things be thrown 
into the sea to save the ship, the right is not lost. Poth. h.t., n. 270; 3 
Toull. ii. 346. But even a voluntary abandonment does not deprive the former 
owner from taking possession of the thing abandoned, at any time before 
another takes possession of it. 
    11.-2. The title to property is lost by operation of law. 1st. By the 
forced sale, under a lawful process, of the property of a debtor to satisfy 
a judgment, sentence, or decree rendered against him, to compel him to 
fulfill his obligations. 2d. By confiscation, or sentence of a criminal 
court. 3d. By prescription. 4th. By civil death. 6th. By capture of a public 
enemy. 
    12.-3. The title to property is lost by the act of God, as in the case 
of the death of slaves or animals, or in the total destruction of a thing; 
for example, if a house be swallowed up by an opening in the earth during an 
earthquake. 
    13. It is proper to observe that in some cases, the moment that the 
owner loses his possession, he also loses his property or right in the 
thing: animals ferae naturae, as mentioned above, belong to the owner only 
while he retains the possession of them. But, in general,' the loss of 
possession does not impair the right of property, for the owner may recover 
it within a certain time allowed by law. Vide, generally, Bouv. Inst. Index, 
b. t.