HOTCHPOT (OF. horhcpot, from °Dutch hutspot, chopped beef or mutton boiled in a pot, from butsrn, hotsen, to shake + pot, AS. loft, from Ir. pota, puite, Welsh pot, Bret. pod. pot; connected with Lat. potare. Skt. pa, to drink. Gk. iroroc, potOR, drunk). The mixing and blending together of advancements made to children dur ing a parent's life and of property left at his death, in order that the whole may be equally divided al110117, all the children. According. to Blackstone the doctrine came into English juris prudence from the law of the Lombards, but the term is explained by him in the language of Lit tleton, as follows: "Ilotelipot is in English a pudding: for in a pudding is not commonly put one thing alone. but one thing with other things together." By this housewifely metaphor, adds Illaekstone, our ancestors meant to inform us that the lands which had been given to one or more daughters in frank marriage, as well as the lands descending in fee simple, should he mixed and blended together and then divided among, all the daughters. After estates in frank marriage fell into disuse the principle of the law of hotchpot was revived and applied by the statute of distributions (22 and 23 Car. 11., ch. 10). The provisions of this statute have been by the Legislatures of our States with sonic shades of difference, and en the basis of the rules as to botelipot throughout this country.
The gloat object of these rules is to produce equality amomg the children of a deceased person. Property which has been turned over to a child as an advancement, instead of a pure gift, is to be brought into hotchpot as a condition of his taking a child's share in the parent's estate. It is not necessary that he actually bring and sur render the very chattel or other form of prop erty advanced to him. It is enough that its fair value be accounted for and added to the decedent's estate. In arriving at this value its worth is to be estimated at the death of the parent, relation being had to its situation at the time of advancement. Accordingly, where a slave boy. twelve years old. was given to n child as, an advancement, the child was chargeable with the fair of such a boy at the father's death; not the value of the particular slave who was then an adult. So the profits of an advancement, or the enhaneed value due to improvements, are not. to be accounted for. Consult the Commen ta•ies of Blackstone and Kent.