Page:An introduction to Roman-Dutch law.djvu/145

 Rh UNSOUNDNESS OF MIND. PRODIGALITY 105 a status. Until the interdict has been removed and the removal notified he is for most purposes subject to the same legal incapacities as a minor, and, like the minor, he can without his curator's authority enter into a contract which is solely advantageous. CHAPTER VII JURISTIC PERSONS To enter upon a detailed discussion of this topic lies Juristic outside our scope. The Romans, more or less consciously, P^"^^"™- attributed an artificial personality to four several insti- tutions : ■'■ viz. (1) Corporations {corpora-universitates) ; (2) Charities {piae causae) ; (3) the Fiscus ; (4) Hereditas jacens. These categories, or something like them, reappear in the Dutch Law of Holland.^ In the modern law the second and the fourth may be ignored ; the second, because we no longer attribute any kind of personality to an unincorporated charity, the only personality which comes in question being that of the trustees in whom the trust-property is vested ; ^ the fourth, because it is of little or no practical importance. The first and the third remain. But the rights of the Fisc, i. e. of the State or Crown, may be said to belong rather to public than to private law ; while the rights, duties, and powers of corporations are, at the present day, most often defined by the terms of some general or special statute.* If on the one hand Corpora- corporations, being persons, are prima facie capable ^hSr na- ture and ^ Goudsmit, Pandecten-Systeem, vol. i, pp. 61 fi. capacity ; Fock. And., vol. i, pp. 140 ff. associations seem to fall under the same category. 1 Maasdorp, pp. 272-3. But see Committee of the Johannesburg Public Library V. Spence (1898) Off. Rep. 84. In Ceylon the English law of Corpora- tions was introduced by Ord. No. 22 of 1866. This seems to leave no place for the pia causa as a distinct juristic entity. See Arunachalam, Digest of the Civil Law of Ceylon, vol. i, pp. 181 S. Companies Act of 1908.
 * The various organizations known in South Africa as voluntary
 * In Brit. Gui. Ord. No. 17 of 1913 substantially enacts the English