Here Mr. Ferret thought proper to intermingle in the conversation with a
"Pish, what dost talk of docking the intail? Dost not know that by the
statute Westm. 2, 13 Ed. the will and intention of the donor must be
fulfilled, and the tenant in tail shall not alien after issue had, or
before." "Give me leave, sir," replied Tom, "I presume you are a
practitioner in the law. Now, you know, that in the case of a contingent
remainder, the intail may be destroyed by levying a fine, and suffering a
recovery, or otherwise destroying the particular estate, before the
contingency happens. If feoffees, who possess an estate only during the
life of a son, where divers remainders are limited over, make a feoffment
in fee to him, by the feoffment, all the future remainders are destroyed.
Indeed, a person in remainder may have a writ of intrusion, if any do
intrude after the death of a tenant for life, and the writ ex gravi
querela lies to execute a device in remainder after the death of a tenant
in tail without issue." "Spoke like a true disciple of Geber," cries
Ferret. "No, sir," replied Mr. Clarke, "Counsellor Caper is in the
conveyancing way--I was clerk to Serjeant Croker." "Ay, now you may set
up for yourself," resumed the other; "for you can prate as unintelligibly
as the best of them."

"Perhaps," said Tom, "I do not make myself understood; if so be as how
that is the case, let us change the position, and suppose that this here
case is a tail after a possibility of issue extinct. If a tenant in tail
after a possibility make a feoffment of his land, he in reversion may
enter for the forfeiture. Then we must make a distinction between
general tail and special tail. It is the word body that makes the
intail: there must be a body in the tail, devised to heirs male or
female, otherwise it is a fee-simple, because it is not limited of what
body. Thus a corporation cannot be seized in tail. For example, here is