Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/227

211 REMOTENESS OF CHARITABLE GIFTS. 211 REMOTENESS OF CHARITABLE GIFTS ONCE MORE. I. THE question whether property can be transferred beyond certain periods, in a certain event, from one charity to another charity, does not in itself seem to be of very great interest. If the people permit a charitable gift to be exempted from the operation of the rule against remoteness, if the property of charity is not subject to the usual limitations which public policy has placed upon the property of the individual, if it is as it were withdrawn from the avenues of trade by the charitable gift, what difference does it make to the public whether or not the property passes, in a certain event, from charity to charity, indefi- nitely? Hence it seems as if the question, in these busy times, was not really of much moment; but I am sure this is not the case, and I feel under no obligation to crave the forbearance of my readers in bringing this subject to their attention once more. That it needs no apologetic introduction is apparent from the decision in In re Tyler,^ where the Court of Appeals felt bound by Christ's Hospital v. Granger to hold valid the following disposal of property: ;^42,000 to the London Missionary Society, com- mitting to the said society the keys of the family vault, the same to be kept in good repair; "failing to comply with this request, the money left to go to the Blue Coat School." Upon this decis- ion Professor Gray comments as follows: "Yet see to what this leads. A. gives $200,000 to Harvard College, on condition that, on the first day of January in each year, it pays $5,000 to the then heir of the body of A., and if it fails to do so, then the fund to go to Yale College, The gift over to Yale College is, according to Christ's Hospital v. Granger and In re Tyler, perfectly good ; and so long as not charged on any particular fund, there is nothing illegal in paying $5,000 to the heir of the body of A. on the first day of January. But is not such an arrangement against public policy? Which is the sounder view of the Rule against Perpetui- 1 3 Ch. 252. 29