to the right of possession, unaccompanied by livery of seisin, constituted a tenancy at will. And when a termor granted the land generally, the grantee was but a tenant at will. 1 Platt on Leases, 652, 653.

6. The effect of the first section of the act concerning tenures of 1787, in this State, was practically unrecognized, if not unnoticed, until 1852. Interests and customs of colonial growth, connected with manorial pretensions, conspired to suppress the proper recognition of the existence and operation of that act. And although the court of last resort in the State, then acknowledged the existence of the statute and gave full effect to its operations, it was so much of an innovation upon the accepted understanding of the people and of the lawyers, that it was not readily and fully adopted. There has been no departure from the decision of 1852, whenever the attention of the court has been expressly directed to that decision. On the contrary, as we have before shown, it has been expressly sanctioned, to the extent of declaring that conveyances of land in fee from one individual to another, are assignments, and cannot be leases, by reason of the operation of that statute. The cases where the same courts have assumed that such conveyances were leases, and have called them leases, are not authority to the contrary, nor evidence of anything upon the subject, beyond the fact that those who made such assumptions and used such terms, were not sufficiently familiar with the provisions of the statute and the decisions of the court thereupon, to have any correct or definite ideas upon the subject. It must now be regarded as a settled question, that leases in fee cannot be made by individuals in New York, nor in any other State where the English act here referred to has been enacted.

Van Rensselaer v. Dennison, 35 N. Y. 393.

SECTION II.

HOW LEASES CAN BE MADE.

1. At common law, a lease of land could be made without a written instrument. It was enough for the perfection of a lease for years that the lessee entered into possession; and for a lease for life or in fee, that the contract was accompanied by livery of seisin. Compacts of that kind were in common use among people, who had very little if any knowledge of the art of writing. But as they progressed in knowledge and in commerce, they soon learned the importance of more certain and reliable evidence of the existence and contents of such agreements. Hence it has been very generally provided that such agreements should be in writing, except when the land was to be held at will, or for a short term of time.

2. In New York, every lease for a longer term than one year must be in writing. To the extent of one year, a parol lease is valid and operative; beyond that time, it is invalid and inoperative. To make a good contract of lease for a longer period than one year, the instrument must not only be reduced to writing, but must be subscribed by the party of the first part, and the consideration must be expressed in the instrument.

2 R. S. 135, § 8.

Similar statutes exist in all the States. They were intended to prevent frauds and perjuries, and are generally so characterized. The first legislation of the kind was in England, in the reign of Charles II. It was then provided that all leases exceeding the term of three years should be in writing.-(29 Chas. II, ch. 3, § 1.) This was the first authorized innovation upon the common law mode of witnessing contracts of lease. Parol leases had been, before that time, denounced and discountenanced, as tending to frauds and perjuries. By that statute, it was so provided that all leases of freehold estates, or terms of years, or any uncertain interest, whether attended by the ceremony of livery and seisin, or merely

by parol, and not put in writing and signed by the party of the first part, should operate to create only estates at will, except leases for a term not exceeding three years. In England, leases were not required to be made by deed until a more recent date.

2 Platt on Leases, p. 3; 7 and 8 Vict. ch. 76 and 8, and 9 Vict. ch. 106, § 1; Taylor's Lan. and Ten. § 28.

The general principle of such enactments is, that estates in land, which are intended to endure for a longer time than one year, or other short period, are rights of too much importance to be left to the disposition of oral testimony.

Although a parol contract for the leasing of land for a longer term than the period fixed by statute, is void, yet if the tenant enter, and by the provisions of the contract is to pay rent at periods less than the one named in the statute, as from month to month, the tenancy will be held to be a tenancy from month to month.

Prindle. Anderson, 19 Wen. 391; S. C. affirmed, 23 Wen. 616. And if it be for several years, it will be a good lease for one year, when the tenant enters; and when the tenant is allowed to hold over after the end of the first year, the agreement may become a valid lease of an estate from year to year. Schuyler v. Leggett, 2 Cow. 660; The People v. Rickert. 8 Cow.

226.

In Croswell v. Crane, 7 Barb. 191, a parol lease of land for one year, to commence at a future day, was held to be within the statute and void. It was decided to be void, first, within the statute as to fraudulent conveyances-(2 R. S. 134, § 6); and, if not void within that provision, it was held void under another statute, which makes all contracts, not to be performed within one year from the making thereof, and not in writing, to be void.

2 R. S. 135, § 2.

But that decision was overruled upon both points in Young v. Dake, 5 N. Y. 463; and it must now be regarded as settled, under the statutes referred to, that a parol lease of lands for the term of one year, to commence at a time subsequent to the making of the agreement. is a valid contract.

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3. Freehold estates, that is, estates in fee and estates for life, must not only be in writing, in order to be valid, but must be witnessed by instruments under seal.-(1 R. S. 738, § 137.) In other words, the contract must be a deed in the formalities of its execution and attestation. By another provision of the same statute, it must be acknowledged by the maker before some officer authorized to take acknowledgments, or else it must be attested by at least one subscribing witness, in order to give it effect as against a purchaser or incumbrancer; but as between the parties to the deed, it would be valid and effectual without an acknowledgment and without a subscribing witness.

Wood v. Chapin, 18 N. Y. 509; The People v. Gillis, 24 Wen. 201.

4. A seal, as defined by Coke, 3 Inst. 169, is wax with an impression; but whether it be wax or some other material attached to the paper, and capable of receiving an impression, is immaterial. The law has not fixed the kind or character of the material to be used. It may be a wafer or paste, or any other substance which possesses tenacity for adherence and capacity to receive and retain impressions.

Warren v. Lynch, 5 John. 244; Mill Dam Foundry v. Hovey, 21
Pick. 428.

A piece of paper attached to the instrument by a wafer is a good seal..

Pease v. Lawson, 33 Miss. 35.

It is not enough to make the impression directly on the paper, except in certain cases expressly provided for by statute. The exceptional cases embrace the seals of courts, of certain public officers, and the common seal of corporations.

2 R. S. 276, § 10; Laws of 1859, p. 883; Laws of 1848, ch. 197. In New Jersey and some of the other States, the common law mode of sealing has been disused, and a flourish of the pen at the end of the name is treated as a substitute for a seal.

The law of the place where the contract is to be fulfilled, governs the subject. A contract regarded as a valid deed in Virginia, by reason of the letters "L. S.," after the signa

ture of the maker, would not be a valid deed in New York, where the common law seal is required.

Warren v. Lynch, 5 John. Rep. 239.

Where the instrument is signed by several parties, one seal is enough for all.—(Mackay v. Bloodgood, 9 John. 285.) It is not necessary that the contract should contain words indicating that the parties have affixed their seals. It is enough if the seal appears annexed.

Godard's case, 2 Coke, 5; 21 Pick. 428.

The mode of attestation by a seal originated before either landlords or tenants, generally, could write their names, and while the art of writing was practiced chiefly by the priests and lawyers. The seal, with some device peculiar to each individual, was the most unmistakable evidence, which the maker of a deed was able to attach as the evidence of the execution. Between contracts thus authenticated and those which were not, the law made distinctions and applied different rules. Many of those distinctions were continued after men had learned to write their names, and some are still preserved. It is true that the seal is but a relic of a more ignorant age, and, of itself, for the purposes for which it was first applied, has long since ceased to have importance. But its retention is made desirable, if not absolutely necessary, by the distinctions which the law has made and still preserves between contracts sealed and unsealed. Sealing alone was sufficient execution of a deed until the reign of Charles II.

Jackson v. Wood, 12 John. 74; 2 Bl. Com. 305, 306.

But the mode of witnessing contracts by seal is not as old as the feudal system, and was not, therefore, the first or origi nal method of authenticating feudal contracts of lease. The feudal system originated and was long practiced before the art of writing was known among the people accustomed to feudal compacts. Other modes than writings were resorted to in evidence of their agreements, and other terms were used to denote the evidence. Some of those customs were continued long after written evidence became common, and until a very recent period; and many of the terms used to indicate