REMAINDER, in law, is an estate li mited in lands, tenements, or rents, to be enjoyed after the expiration of another particular estate. As if a man seized in fee-simple grant lands to one for twenty years, and, after the determination of the said term, then to another, and his heirs for ever ; here the former is tenant for years, remainder to the latter in fee. Both interests are, in fact, only one es. tate : the present term of years, and the remainder afterwards, when added tope. ther, being equal only to one estate in fee. When a remainder is limited in a will, it is sometimes called an executory devise. This is not strictly a remainder, but something in nature of a remainder, which, though informal and bad, as such, is held good as an executory devise. The doctrine of remainders is very ab struse, chiefly from the difficulty of ascertaining from the form of the deed or will by which it is created, whe. ther or not the remainder is contin gent, and liable to be defeated. Where a remainder is limited after an estate tail, the tenant in tail can at all times, by suf. fering a recovery, defeat the remainder, and get possession of the fee. This is called docking the entail, and it is allow ed for the purpose of preventing limita tions in perpetuity. For, otherwise, men
of large landed estates would be enabled to tie up the inheritance so strictly by will, that in a few years all the landed property in the kingdom would be vested for ever in certain families, and that cir culation of wealth, which is the great spur to industry, would he wholly at an end. Hence would be introduced all the inconvenience of a system of casts similar to those in the East Indies, and in a short time there would be no change in the course of inheritances, ex cept upon forfeitures for felony, or high treason, which would rarely occur. Or, perhaps, the consequence would be, that the inheritance of females not being for bidden, the land would be so subdivided by different descents to coheiresses, that there would be no large estates in the country. This sufficiently evinces the wisdom of the law, which prevents be. quests in perpetuity, and we have thought it better to notice this in a popular work, than to explain at length a term of Which unavoidably leads to the most ab struse reasoning. For further informa tion, see Jacob's Law Diet. by Tomlins, title Remainder ; Fearne's Essay on Re mainders, and other works there cited.