Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/811

* LAND LEAGUE. 735 LANDLORD AND TENANT. coercion bills, which were to be followed by a land act. These bills were passed amid un- paralleled scenes of disorder on the part of the Irish members, and the famous Land Act of 1881 became a law. (See Irlsii Land Laws.) The League was not satisfied with the concessions made, and in the next convention, lield at Dublin in tlic followinf.' September, it was decided, on the advice of Parnell. to continue the agitation and resistance imtil the new law had been tested in the courts. The Government thereupon de- cided to suppress the League. Parnell, Davitt, and the other leaders were arrested and im- prisoned. They replied by the famous Xo Rent Manifesto, e.xliorting the Irish people to pay no rent while their leaders were in prison. This caused the (Government to declare the suppression of the League by the decree of October 18, 1881. The reforms which the Land League hoped to institute wi'ie taken up and in part efl'ected by the Irish National League under Parnell's leader- ship. LAND-LOCKED SALMON. Any of various saliiion — in Xortli America moio particularly the ■winninish (q.v. ) — which dwell in large bodies of fresh water and never, or only in exceptional in- stances, go down to the sea. See Salmon. LANDLORD AND TENANT. Those who stand in the relationship which subsists when one person holds land of another, and in sub- ordination to the latter's title. The relationship arises whenever one having an estate in land grants to another a lesser estate therein. It ex- ists equally, therefore. between a tenant in fee simple and his grantee in fee tail, and between a tenant for years and his sub-tenant. In either case the grantor or lessor, whatever the quality and nature of his own estate, is the landlord of the grantee or lessee, and the latter is the ten- ant of the former. In all cases the estate or in- terest remaining in the landlord is teclinically known as a reversion (q.v.). Excepting in the case of an estate for years, which is capable of indefinite subdivision, a person cannot acquire the relation of a landlord by granting to another an estate of the same kind or quality as that which he himself possesses, even though it be limited so as to come to an end before the prob- able termination of the grantor's estate. Tlius a tenant in fee simple granting the lands in fee simple to another so long as the grantee and his heirs continue to reside on the premises conveyed, retains no interest which can he called a rever- sion, nor does such a grant create a tenure be- tween grantor and grantee. At the niost the grantor has left only an indefinite interest, known as a "possiliility of reverter.' and in most juris- dictions he would not have even that. The relation of landlord and tenant had its origin in I lie feudal system of land tenure, under which all freehold lands, including fees, were held of a superior lord. I'nder that system it was possible for a tenant in fee simple (o grant the lands in fee simple to be held of himself, in which case he became the immediate feudal su= perior of his grantee. This practice of subin- feudation, as it was called, was abolished by the famous Statute Quia Kmptores, enacted by the English Parliament in 12nn. since which time the alienation of a fee divests the grantor of all his right and interest therein. But as this statute applied only to conveyances in fee. it left the way oi>en for the various forms of tenure above described, by which the relation of landlord and tenant is still created. As has been slated, the tenant in fee simple who grants the land in fee tail or for life is the landlord of his grantee ia precisely the same way as he is of a tenant for years, but in practice the phrase landlord and tenant is more commonly employed to describe the last-named relation. As thus understood, the relation usually arises from an instrument of conveyance, known as a lease (q.v.), and the rights and responsibilities llowjng therefrom are partly the result of positive law, and partly of the agreements and stipula- tions embodied in the lease. Of the inherent legal incidents of the relation, perhaps the most im- portant are the obligation of the landlord to pro- tect the tenant's possessi<m against all persons claiming a legal right to the premises, and the correlative obligation of the tenant to recognize his landlord's title. The former is violated by an eviction by the landlord or any one claiming under him or by one asserting a paramount title, the effect of which is to suspend the rent due by the lease and to give the evicted tenant an action for damages against his landlord. But the land- lord is not bound to protect the tenant against trespasses or nuisances, his implied covenant for quiet enjoyment, as it is lalled, not extending to unlawful acts of third parties. Neither is the landlord bound to furnish a habitable tenement. He leases the land, with such improvements a3 happen to be thereon, and the tenant takes them as they are. It is no eviction of the tenant if, upon taking possession, he finds the premises un- inhabitable. See Eviction'. The tenant, on the other hand, is estopped from cfenying his landlord's title, or. in general, from setting up a title, either in himself or in another, adverse to that of his landlord, and that irrespec- tive of whether the latter's title be good or bad. Neither can he, at common law. ever acquire a good title as against his landlord by any lapse of time. So long as he continues in possession he is held to the relation of a tenant and cannot get into adverse possession of the premises, so as to take advantage of the Statute of Limitations. This rule has, however, been generally modified by statutes permitting a tenant, after a certain length of time, or even, in a few States, by dis- avowal of his landlord's title, to acquire the status of an adverse possessor. In no ease, how- ever, can this be done until the expiration of the term of the tenancy. This duty of the tenant to refrain from denying his landlord's title is the modern survival of the feudal obligation of fealty, pledged by the vassal to his lord. Its most serious breach at common law consisted, not in the tenant's setting np the invalidity of the landlord's title in an action for the rent, nor yet in his assertion of an independ- ent title, by adverse possession, but in the tor- tious, or wrongful, conveyance of the premises to a third person in fee. This was effected by one of the ancient modes of conveyance, as feoff- ment, fine, or common recovery, which had the curious effect of vesting in the grantee the acttial estate which it purported to convey, even though this was greater than the estate of the grantor. TTiis grave breach of the tenant's good faith was attended by the complete forfeiture of his own estate to the landlord whom he had thus be- trayed. The abolition of tortious conveyances bv statute has done away with this violation of