A mode of acquiring title to incorporeal hereditaments grounded on the fact of immemorial or long-continued enjoyment. See Lucas v. Turnpike Co., 36 W. Va. 427,15 S. E. 182; Gayetty v. Bethune, 14 Mass. 52, 7 Am. Dec. 188; Louisville A N. R. Co. v. Hays, 11 Lea (Tenn.) 388,
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A mode of acquiring title to incorporeal hereditaments grounded on the fact of immemorial or long-continued enjoyment. See Lucas v. Turnpike Co., 36 W. Va. 427,15 S. E. 182; Gayetty v. Bethune, 14 Mass. 52, 7 Am. Dec. 188; Louisville A N. R. Co. v. Hays, 11 Lea (Tenn.) 388, 47 Am. Rep. 291; Clarke v. Clarke, 133 CaL 667, 66 Pac. 10; Alhambra Addition Water Co. v. Richardson, 72 Cal. 598, 14 Pac. 379 ; Stevens v. Dennett, 51 N. H. 329. Title by prescription is the right which a possessor acquires to property by reason of the continuance of his possession for a period of time fixed by the laws. Code Ga. 1882, | 2678. "Prescription" is the term usually applied to incorporeal hereditaments, while "adverse possession" is applied to lands. Hindley v. Metropolitan El. R. Co., 42 Misc. Rep. 56V 85 N. Y. Supp. 561. In Louisiana, prescription is defined as a manner of acquiring the ownership of prop-; erty, or discharging debts, by the effect of time, and under the conditions regulated by law. Bach of these prescriptions bas its special and particular definition. The pre^ scription by which the ownership of property is acquired, is a right by which a mere possessor acquires the ownership of a thing, which he possesses by the continuance of his possession during the time fixed by law. The prescription by which debts are released, is a peremptory and perpetual bar to every species of action, real or personal, when the' creditor has been silent for a certain time without urging his claim. Civ. Code La. arts. 3457-3459. In this sense of the term it is very nearly equivalent to what is elsewhere expressed by "limitation of actions/' or rather, the "bar of the statute of limitations." "Prescription" and "custom" are frequently confounded in common parlance, arising perhaps1 from the fact that immemorial usage was essential to both of them; but strictly, they materially differ from one another, in that custom is properly a local impersonal usage, such as1 borough-Knglish, or postremogenitur^ which is annexed to a given esutte, while prescription Is simply personal, as that a certain man and his ancestors, or those whose estate he enjoys, haver immemorially exercised a right of pasture-common in a certain pariah. Again, prescription, has its o origin, in a grant, evidenced bv usage,, and is allowed on. account of its loss, either actual or supposed, and therefore only those things, can be prescribed for which could be raised by, a grant previously to 8 &>9 Vict c 106, 12;, but this principle does not necessarily hold in. the case of a custom. Wharton. The difference between "prescription,*' "custom," and "usage" is also thus stated: "Pre-, scription hath respect to a certain person who,j by intendment, may have continuance forever, as, for instance, he and all they whose estate, he hath in such a thing,-this js'a prescription;, while custom is local, and always applied to a certain place, and is common to all; while usage differs from both, for it may be either to persons or places." Jacob. -Corporations by preseriptlon. In English law. Those which have existed beyond the memory of man, and therefore are looked upon, in law to be well created, such as the city of London.-Prescription act. The statute 2 & 3 Wm, IV. c. 71, passed to limit the period of prescription in certain cases.-Prescription in a qne estate. A claim of prescription based on the immemorial enjoyment of the right claim-' ed. by the claimant and those former owners "whose estate" he has succeeded to and holds.* See Donnell v. Clark, 19 Me. 182-Time of preseriptlon. The length of time necessary to establish a right claimed by prescription or a title by prescription. Before the act of 2 A 3 Wm. IV. c 71, the possession required to constitute a prescription must have existed "time out of mind" or "beyond the memory of man." that is, before the reign of Richard I.; but tbe time of prescription, in certain cases, was much shortened by that act 2 Steph.' Comm. 85.
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