Where cestui que vie beyond seas. Re-entry by cestui que vie. Where cestui que vie cannot be compelled to appear. in remainder, reversion, or expectancy, in or to any estate after the death of any person within age, married woman, or any other person whatsoever, upon affidavit that he or she hath cause to believe that such minor, married woman, or other person, is dead, and that his or her death is concealed by a guardian, trustee, husband, or other person (a) may, once a year, if the person aggrieved shall think fit, move the Lord Chancellor to order such guardian, &c., concealing or suspected to conceal such person, at such time and place as the [Chancery Division] shall direct, on personal or other due service of such order, to produce and show to such person or persons (not exceeding two) as shall in such order be named by the party or parties prosecuting the same, such minor, married woman, or other person aforesaid. If such guardian, &c., shall refuse or neglect to produce or show such infants, &c., according to the directions of the order, the court shall order such guardian, &c., to produce such minor, &c., in the [Chancery Division], or otherwise before commissioners to be appointed by the court, two of whom shall be nominated by the party prosecuting such order at his costs and charges. In case such guardian, &c., shall refuse or neglect so to produce such infant, &c., the said minor, &c., shall be taken to be dead, and entry may be made by the person next entitled as if such infant, &c., were actually dead. 2. If it shall appear to the court by affidavit that such minor, &c., is at a certain place beyond the seas, to be mentioned in the affidavit, the party prosecuting such order may at his costs and charges send over one or both the persons appointed by the said order to view such minor, &c.; and In case such guardian, &c., shall refuse or neglect to produce or procure to be produced to such person or persons a personal view of such infant, &c., then, upon a true return thereof being made to the court, such minor, &c., shall be taken to be dead, and the person next entitled may enter as if such infant, &c., were actually dead. 3. If it afterwards appear upon proof in any action that such infant, &c., was alive at the time of such order made, then such infant, &c., may re-enter and bring an action for the profits received from the time that such infant, &c., was ousted of the possession. 4. If such guardian, &c., satisfy the court that he has used his utmost endeavours to procure such infant, &c., and that he cannot compel such infant, &c., to appear, and that such infant, &c., was living at the time of the return made, then he may (a) An assignee of the life interest of a tenant for life can be required to produce his cestui que vie: (Re Hall; Ex parte Castledine, 44 L. T. 469.) continue in possession and receive the rent and profits during the infancy of such infant, and the life or lives of such married woman, or other person or person on whose life or lives such estate or interest depends. 5. Guardians, &c., wrongfully holding over after the determi- Holding over. nation of any life estate shall be adjudged trespassers, and damages against them may be recovered by the person next entitled. An Act to enable Infants, with the Approbation of the 18 & 19 VICT. C. 43. make marriage settlements. 1. After the passing of this Act, every infant upon or in con- Infants may templation of his or her marriage may, with the sanction of the [Chancery Division], make a valid settlement, or contract for a settlement, of all, or any part of his or her property or property over which he or she has any power of appointment, whether real or personal, and whether in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy; and every conveyance, appointment, and assignment of such real and personal estate, or contract to make a conveyance, &c., thereof, executed by such infant, with the approbation of the said court, for the purpose of giving effect to such settlement shall be as valid and effectnal as if the person executing the same were twenty-one years of age. Proviso: This enactment shall not extend to powers of which it is expressly declared that they shall not be exercised by an infant. 2. In case any appointment under a power, or any disentailing Death after asssurance shall have been executed by any infant tenant in tail appointment, &c. under the provisions of this Act, and such infant shall after wards die under age, the same shall thereupon become void. court. 3. The sanction of the court to any such settlement or contract Sanction of for such settlement, may be given upon petition presented by the infant or his or her guardian, in a summary way, without suit. If there be no guardians the court may require one to be appointed. The court may also require that any person interested, or appearing to be interested in the property, be served with notice of such petition. 4. Nothing in the Act shall apply to any male infant under Age of infants. twenty, or any female infant under seventeen years of age. An Act to amend the Law as to the Custody of Infants. 36 VICT. C. 12. 1. After the passing of this Act the [Chancery Division] may, Application by cess or custody. mother for ac Agreement in upon hearing the petition by her next friend, of the mother of any infant under sixteen years of age, order that the petitioner shall have access to such infant at such times and subject to such regulations as the court shall deem proper, or may order that such infant shall be delivered to the mother and remain in or under her control or custody, or shall, if so already, remain therein until such infant shall attain such age, not exceeding sixteen, as the court shall direct; and further may order that such custody or control shall be subject to such regulations as regards access by the father or guardian of such infant or otherwise, as the said court shall deem proper. 2. No agreement contained in any separation deed between separation deed the father and mother of an infant shall be held to be invalid by reason only of its providing that the father of such infant shall give up the custody or control thereof to the mother. Proviso: No court shall enforce any such agreement, if of opinion that it will not be for the infant's benefit. (a) Contracts by infants. The Infants Relief Act, 1874. 37 & 38 Vict. c. 62. 1. All contracts, whether by specialty or by simple contract, henceforth entered into by infants for the repayment of money lent or to be lent, or for goods supplied or to be supplied (other than contracts for necessaries), and all accounts stated with infants, shall be absolutely void. Proviso: This enactment shall not invalidate any contract into which an infant may, by any existing or future statute, or by the rules of common law or equity, enter, except such as now by law are voidable. (a) An ante-nuptial promise made by an intended husband to his intended wife that the children shall be brought up in a different religion from his own is not binding at law or in equity: (Re Agar-Ellis, 39 L. T. 380; 10 Ch. Div. 49; 48 L. J. 1, Ch.) Where the question is simply what is most beneficial for an infant, it is unnecessary to consider whether the father is in any way precluded by his own contract from asking the aid of the court in enforcing his legal power and natural authority. The law will not permit a father to delegate his rights and powers over his infant child to the mother; and therefore, if the utmost effect were given to the separation deed, it would only place the infant in the position of a fatherless child. It is the settled rule of the court that a fatherless ward must be brought up in the religion of its father, the only exception being that where an infant ward is of sufficient age and intelligence to have received and formed, and has received and formed, other religious convictions, strong and apparently fixed, the court will shrink from the consequences of any attempt to disturb them. The court will not allow its female ward to run the risk of being brought up in opposition to the views of mankind generally as to what is moral, decent, and womanly, merely because her mother differs from those views: (Re Mabel Emily Besant, 40 L. T. 469; 11 Ch. Div. 508; 48 L. J. 49, Ch.) 2. No action shall be brought whereby to charge any person Ratification. upon any promise made after full age to pay any debt contracted during infancy, or upon any ratification made after full age, of any promise (a) or contract made during infancy, whether there shall or shall not be any new consideration for such promise or ratification after full age. The Conveyancing Act, 1881. 44 & 45 VICT. c. 41. IX.-INFANTS. on behalf of an infant owner. 41. Where a person in his own right seised of or entitled to Sales and leases land for an estate in fee simple, or for any leasehold interest at a rent is an infant, the land shall be deemed to be a settled estate within the Settled Estates Act, 1877. (b) land and receipt minority. 42.—(1.) If and as long as any person who would but for this Management of section be beneficially entitled to the possession of any land is an and application infant, and, being a woman, is also unmarried, the trustees of income during appointed for this purpose by the settlement, if any, or if there are none so appointed, then the persons, if any, who are for the time being under the settlement trustees with power of sale of the settled land, or of part thereof, or with power of consent to or approval of the exercise of such a power of sale, or if there are none, then any persons appointed as trustees for this purpose by the court, on the application of a guardian or next friend of the infant, may enter into and continue in possession of the land; and in every such case the subsequent provisions of this section shall apply. (2.) The trustees shall manage or superintend the management of the land, with full power to fell timber or cut underwood from time to time in the usual course of sale, or for repairs or otherwise, and to erect, pull down, rebuild and repair houses, and other buildings and erections, and to continue the working of mines, minerals, and quarries which have usually been worked, and to drain or otherwise improve the land or any part thereof, and to insure against loss by fire, and to make allowances to and arrangements with tenants and others, and to determine tenancies, and to accept surrenders of leases and tenancies, and generally to deal with land in a proper and due course of management; but so that, where the infant is impeachable for waste, the trustees shall not commit waste, and shall cut timber on the same terms only, and subject to the same restrictions, (a) Including a promise to marry (Coxhead v. Mullis, 3 C. P. Div. 439; 39 L. T. 349); but, as distinguished from a ratification, a new and distinct contract to marry may, under certain circumstances, be inferred: (Ditcham v. Worrall, 43 L. T. 286; 5 C. P. Div. 410; 49 L. J. 688, C. P.) (b) See post, title "Settled Estate." K on and subject to which the infant could, if of full age, cut the same. (3.) The trustees may from time to time, out of the income of the land, including the produce of the sale of timber and underwood, pay the expenses incurred in the management, or in the exercise of any power conferred by this section, or otherwise in relation to the land, and all outgoings not payable by any tenant or other person, and shall keep down any annual sum, and interest of any principal sum, charged on the land. (4.) The trustees may apply at discretion any income which in the exercise of such discretion, they deem proper, according to the infant's age, for his or her maintenance, education, or benefit, or pay thereout any money to the infant's parent or guardian, to be applied for the same purposes. (5.) The trustees shall lay out the residue of the income of the land in investment on securities on which they are by the settlement, if any, or by law, authorised to invest trust money, with power to vary investments, and shall accumulate the income of the investments so made in the way of compound interest, by from time to time similarly investing such income and the resulting income of investments; and shall stand possessed of the accumulated fund arising from income of the land and from investments of income on the trusts following (namely): (i.) If the infant attains the age of twenty-one years, then in trust for the infant; (ii.) If the infant is a woman and marries while an infant, then in trust for her separate use, independently of her husband, and so that her receipt after she marries, and though still an infant, shall be a good discharge; but (iii.) If the infant dies while an infant, and being a woman without having been married, then, where the infant was, under a settlement, tenant for life, or by purchase tenant in tail or tail male or tail female, on the trusts, if any, declared of the accumulated fund by that settlement; but where no such trusts are declared, or the infant has taken the land from which the accumulated fund is derived by descent, and not by purchase, or the infant is tenant for an estate in fee simple, absolute or determinable, then in trust for the infant's personal representatives, as part of the infant's personal estate; but the accumulations, or any part thereof, may at any time be applied as if the same were the income arising in the then current year. (6.) Where the infant's estate or interest is in an undivided share of land, the powers of this section relative to the land |