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276 WILLIAMS' CASE.
tied to no more than one-third for life, as that of him who wad
entitled to the fee simple of two-thirds, and of the reversion of the
one-third; and consequently, if the widow were allowed $3,000,
she would have awarded to her, in that one-third, a sum of money
which must be considered as including the full price of the rever-
sion; to no part of which could she be entitled. It is clear,
therefore, that she should not, in any case, be allowed as much as
one-third of the purchase money of the whole estate. But, if
one-third of the proceeds of sale were put out on interest, the in-
terest which the whole third would so accumulate, would arise,
not only from so much of it as represented the value of the
widow's dower, but also from that which must be considered as
the price of the reversion. Hence it would be as clearly wrong to
give to a widow the whole of the interest arising from one-third of
the proceeds of sale as to award to her the one-third of the prin-
cipal itself. This reasoning, it is obvious, applies with no less
force to the case of a tenant for life of the whole as to the case of
a tenant in dower. It would be, in each case, directly, or in
effect, to take away a part of the property of the reversioner or re-
mainderman, and to give it to the particular tenant. But it may
well be doubted, whether a court of justice has the constitutional
power, in such a manner, to divest one person of his property, and
transfer it to another. Yet, in making the calculation for the
Chancery rule it was assumed, as we have seen, that the widow
was entitled to the interest of one-third of the proceeds of sale for
life. This, therefore, is the first element in which the Chancery
role is radically wrong.
It should also be recollected, in all cases of this kind, where it
may be required, out of the purchase money or value of the whole,
to separate the value of the particular estate from that of the inhe-
ritance, that it is necessary, in the first place, to attend to the true
legal extent of the particular estate. Tenants in dower, by the
courtesy, &c. are not allowed to commit waste; that is, they can-
not cut and sell timber; open, and work unopened mines, &c.;
and being restrained from deriving any such profits from the estate,
the value of it, in regard to all such profits, properly forms a part
of At price of the reversion or remainder; and the value of such
profits also represents that which is the difference in price between
a particular estate the tenant of which is, and one the tenant of
which is not impeachable for waste. But this distinction does not
appear to have been at all attended to in making the calculations
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