death, the additional time of gestation may accrue at the commencement of the period allowed by the rule, which may be measured by the life of such child and twenty-one years; so, if a devise be made to the children of A. who shall attain the age of twenty-one years, and 4. die, leaving a child in ventre sa mere, the additional time of gestation may accrue at an intermediate period, and the limits of the rule may be extended until such child attains the age of twenty-one years; so if the ultimate taker after a given period of lives in being and twenty-one years be a chid in ventre sa mere, the limits of the rule may be in fact extended at the termination of the period by the time of gestation. The same rule applies to executory bequests of terms of years and chattel interests in land; and, it seems, also to the creation of future terms of years.

ID., 441, note. It may be here observed that the rule against perpetuities, though framed by analogy to the limits of perpetuity possible with common law limitations by way of estates for life and remainders, leads to some different results. The latter mode of limitation is restricted, as to perpetuity, by the lives of the persons actually taking estates, and by the actual minority of the ultimate remainderman; whereas the rule against perpetuities admits of an absolute period measured by lives and years, but wholly independent of the lives or minority of the persons actually interested; and in the case of the ultimate taker at the extreme limit of the period being a minor the disability to alienate might in fact be extended for a further period of twentyone years. Again, the rule as to remainders prohibits absolutely the limitation of them to the issue of persons unborn; but the rule against perpetuities admits of executory limitations to the children or remoter issue of persons unborn, provided they are restricted to vest within the allowed period; and only when not so restricted such limitations are void. In the above respects, therefore, remainders are more restricted than other executory limitations; on the other hand remainders may be limited on events of indefinite contin

gency, provided they become vested pending the particular estate. See I Jarman on Wills, 229; Stuart v. Cockerell, L. R. 7 Eq. 363.

WILLIAMS, REAL PROP. (17th ed.), 476. The common law rule against perpetuities, which is fully explained and illustrated in the text, is still in force in many of the States. The rule, says Professor Gray, has been carried as a part of the common law "to all the English colonies where the principles of the common law prevail. . . . Considering the unformed condition of the doctrine of remoteness at the time of the planting of the American colonies, it would have been quite possible for it to have developed there in a different shape from that which it assumed in England. But as a matter of fact the rule seems, in the absence of statute, to be always adopted throughout the United States in its modern English form." Gray, Perpetuities, § 200.

In several of the States we find modifications by statute to a greater or less extent of the common-law rule.1 But the radical change was made in the State of New York with the adoption of the Revised Statutes. The system instituted in that State, except in its application to personal property, has since been followed in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.-Hutchins' note.

N. Y. REAL PROP. LAW, § 32. The absolute power of alienation is suspended, when there are no persons in being by whom an absolute fee in possession can be conveyed. Every future estate shall be void in its creation, which shall suspend the absolute power of alienation, by any limitation or condition whatever, for a longer period than during the continuance of not more than two lives in being at the creation of the estate; except that a contingent remainder in fee may be created on a prior remainder in fee, to take effect in the event that the persons to whom the first remainder is limited die under the age of twenty-one years, or on any

1 See Gray, Perp., App. C.; 2 Wash. R. P., 795-799; Chaplin, Alienation, App.

other contingency by which the estate of such persons may be determined before they attain full age. For the purposes of this section a minority is deemed a part of a life and not an absolute term equal to the possible duration of such minority.

§ 33. Successive estates for life shall not be limited, except to persons in being at the creation thereof; and where a remainder shall be limited on more than two successive estates for life, all the life estates subsequent to those of the two persons first entitled thereto shall be void, and on the death of those persons the remainder shall take effect, in the same manner as if no other life estates had been created.

34. A remainder shall not be created on an estate for the life of any other person than the grantee or devisee of such estate, unless such remainder be in fee; nor shall a remainder be created on such an estate in a term of years, unless it be for the whole residue of such term.

$ 35. When a remainder is created on any such life estate, and more than two persons are named as the persons during whose lives the life estate shall continue, the remainder shall take effect on the death of the two persons first named, as if no other lives had been introduced.

§ 36. A contingent remainder shall not be created on a term of years, unless the nature of the contingency on which it is limited be such that the remainder must vest in interest, during the continuance of not more than two lives in being at the creation of such remainder, or on the termination thereof.

§ 37. No estate for life shall be limited as a remainder on a term of years, except to a person in being at the creation of such estate.

§ 39. All the provisions contained in this article, relative to future estate, apply to limitations of chattels, real, as well as of freehold estates, so that the absolute ownership of a term of years shall not be suspended for a longer period than the absolute power of alienation can be suspended in respect to a fee.

II. Equitable Estates-Trusts.

LEAKE, LAND LAW, 243. Equitable estates and interests either correspond with legal estates or are of kinds peculiar to equity, having no analogy in law..

Equitable estates which correspond with legal estates comprise estates in fee simple and fee tail, estates for terms of life and for terms of years, in strict analogy to the legal estates already described. They are created either by express limitation or by construction of equity-either by declared or by constructive trust. In the express limitation of equitable estates corresponding with legal estates, as regards the quantity of estate, equity, in general, follows the law; the same terms of limitation are used, and receive the same construction as in limiting estates at law.

ID., 469-473. In the limitation of equitable estates, corresponding with legal estates, future estates and interests are, in general, limited in the same manner, and the same language is used and receives the same construction, as in limiting future legal estates: according to the principle that equity follows the law. Accordingly, the equitable estate may be limited for a particular estate with remainder, or with successive remainders, or leaving a reversion, as at law. But the limitation of the trust or equitable estate is free from the restrictive rules peculiar to the quality of freehold tenure; for these rules are satisfied in their application to the legal estate of the trustee and have no ulterior effect on the beneficial interest. The rule of common law that the freehold cannot be in abeyance, with all its consequences in legal limitations, has no application in equity. Therefore, an equitable estate, freehold in quantity, may be limited to commence at a future time, or upon the happening of a fu

ture event, without any preceding freehold estate to support it as a remainder. So an equitable estate may be limited to take effect in defeasance or substitution of a preceding estate without awaiting its determination, in the same manner as a shifting use or executory devise. The trust or equitable interest in leaseholds or terms of years may be limited with all the freedom of an executory bequest of personal

estate.

Future limitations of the trust or equitable estate are subject to the same rule against perpetuities as future legal limitations by way of springing use and executory devise, and the rule is applied according to the same principles. "It may be laid down without any qualification that no nearer approach to a perpetuity can be made through the medium of a trust, or will be supported by a court of equity, than can be made by legal conveyances of legal estates or interests or will be admitted in a court of law.1

By means of a trust or direction for that purpose the rents and profits of land may be withdrawn from present ownership and accumulated for the benefit of a future and uncertain owner. Such dispositions were impossible at the common law on account of the rule that the freehold could never be in suspense. Trusts and directions to accumulate rents and profits for future disposition are subject to the rule against perpetuities.

The rules restrictive of contingent remainders at the common law have no application in equity. A contingent limitation of the equitable estate, though in the form of a contingent remainder at law, may take effect as and when it is limited to arise, subject only to the rule against perpetuities. It is not affected by the determination of the preceding estate before the happening of the contingency upon which it depends. Thus under a trust for A. for life and after his death for the children of A. who should attain twenty-one, the trust for the children will not fail by reason of A. dying before any child has attained that age, as would be the case

1 Butler's Note to Co. Lit., 290, b, sec. 14.