Persona] property is further divided into property in possession, and property or chor es in action. See CHOSE n. AcrioN.
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.
In a strict legal sense, land is not proper ty, but the subject of property. The term property, although in common parlance ap plied to a tract of land or a chattel, in its legal signification means only the right of the owner in relation to it. It denotes a right over a determinate thing. Property is the right of any person to possess, use, enjoy, and dispose of a thing. Wynehamer v. People, 13 N. Y. 378; 1 Bla. Com. 186; 2 Austin, Jurispr. 817. If property in land consists in certain essential rights, and a physical interference with the land substan tially subverts one of those rights, such in terference takes, pro tanto, the owner's prop erty. The right of using a thing indefinitely is an essential quality of absolute property, without which absolute property can have no legal existence. Use is the real side of property. This right of user necessarily in cludes the right and power of excluding oth ers from the land; Walker v. R. Co., 103 Mass. 14, 4 Am. Rep. 509. From the very nature of these rights of user and of exclu sion, it is evident that they cannot be ma terially abridged without, ipso facto, taking the owner's property. If the right of indefi nite user is an essential element of absolute property or complete ownership, whatever physical interference annuls this right, takes property, although the owner may still have left to him valuable rights in the article of a more limited and circumscribed nature; Eaton v. R. Co., 51 N. H. 512, 12 Am. Rep. 147.
Property is lost by the act of man by— first, alienation; but in order to do this the owner must have a legal capacity to make a contract; second, by. the voluntary aban
donment of the thing; but unless the aban donment 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; Pothier, n. 270; 3 Toullier, n. 346. Rut even a voluntary abandonment does not deprive the former owner from taking pos session of the thing abandoned at any time before another takes possession of it.
It is lost by operation of law—first, by the forced sale, under a lawful process, of the property of a debtor to satisfy a judg ment, sentence, or decree rendered against him, to compel him to fulfil his obligations; second, by confiscation, or sentence of a criminal court ; third, by prescription; fourth,, by civil death; fifth, by capture by a public enemy. It 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 exam ple, if a house be swallowed up by an open ing in the earth during an earthquake.
It is proper to observe that, in some cases, the moment that the owner loses his posses sion he also loses his property or right in the thing; animals ferce natures, as men tioned above, belong to the owner only while he retains the possession of them. But, in general, the loss of possession does not im pair the right of property, for the owner may recover it within a certain time allowed by law. Bouvier, Inst.
Referring to the historical development of the law relating to chattels, it is said that possession is prima facie evidence of owner ship. The man with the better right to pos session has "the property." This better right to possession was the only form of property, either of lands or chattels, known to the early common law. 3 Holdsw. Hist. E. L. 281.
See STOCK; SITUS ; TAXATION; ATTACH MENT ; GARNISHMENT.