English and American Law is character ized by the cleavage between the rules govern ing °real' and °personal) property. This cleavage is due in the first instance to the ex ceptional character impressed upon estates in land by the feudal system — land being °held* not owned. The terms areal) and °personal° however, did not originally define two kinds of property, but indicated a distinction betwe various early forms of judicial procedure. A *real) action was one whereby possessio df the thing itself, which was the subject ma r of the controversy, could he recovered. In a personal action the suitor laid claim could obtain no more than, an . demnity (damages) for the withholding of, r injury done to, a thing or his rights therei . The in destructibility of land, and the were and dignity attached to the tenure there f, favored recourse to °real) actions to recov possession by those dispossessed, or preven d by tres passers from the use and enjo nt, of such property. By the most obvious sociation of ideas the subject matter of °Tea actions be came property. The distiniction between real and personal property does. not coincide, however, with the distinction between movables and immovables, or between an estate in land and the ownership of goods and chattels. Not all interests in land could become the subjects of 'real* actions. Leaseholding was deemed degrading to a *freeman,' the payment of rent in manual labor, in money or in kind, being considered an act of servility. The right of a tenant was not vindicable by a °real) action and, when dispossessed, even though the dis possessor be his landlord, the tenant's only re course was a °personal) action for damages. The measure of damage being rent paid, if he paid nothing after dispossession, he could recover nothing. Easements, rents and profits, however, are real property, because they were rights to which the early common law extended the protection of °real* remedies. The right of property in chattels is absolute in the highest degree, a man may do as he will with his own. A man's right to his land, however, is
not so untrammeled. No man has the right to excavate his own land so as to withdraw lateral support from his neighbor's land and the build ings thereon; no man may vitiate the air over his neighbor's land by noxious gases or malodor ous vapors, or impair the value and usefulness of other property by maintaining nuisances on his own; no man may divert or otherwise un reasonably interfere with watercourses running through his own and other land. Further limitations are placed on proprietory rights in land by building codes, and by zoning commis sions and other public authorities. Intangible objects, such as patents, good will, etc., are property just the same as are tangible objects. Ownership is a right in rem, meaning a right which the owner holds against the whole world, as distinguished from a right in pei sonam, which is actionable only against one or more ascertained or ascertainable persons. When a right in rem is infringed a right in personam comes into existence, which is en forcible against the infringer. This right, ho* ever, is not correctly defined as possessory. English and American legal terminology, whereby chose: in action are called 'property') is, therefore, rather confusing. In all essentials the American and English law of personal property is in harmony with the modern European and ancient Roman laws. Feudal tenures were never reco 'n the United States and have orm y a 'shed in Englansi by The distinction between "larand personal property survives mainly in the differences in the rights of succession and inheritance, and in the formal methods re quired for transferring title to land, while ownership of goods is conferred by their mere delivery. Peculiar to American law are the Constitutional guarantees, which forbid the taking of private property for public uses with out compensation of the owner, or the deprival of any man of his possessions except as punishment for crime and by due process of law.