Page:Prerogatives of the Crown.djvu/142

1^^ Franchises. — Corporations. [Ch. VIII. cities and advantages, particularly that of perpetuity, which in their natural persons they could not have had. In this sense the King is a sole corporation (a); so is a bishop; so are some deans and prebendaries, distinct from their several chapters ; and so is every parson and vicar. Corporations, whether sole or aggregate, are also divided into ecclesiastical and lay. The former are composed of spiri- tual persons, and have for their object the support of religion and the church. The latter are instituted for temporal pur- poses, and are either civil or eleemosynary. Thus the King is a civil corporation, that the power, the splendour, and the pos- sessions of the Crown may be transmitted to the successor without any interregnum. Other civil corporations are esta- blished for the maintenance and regulation of some particular object of public policy: such as the corporation of the Trinity House for regulating navigation {b) ; the Bank and the dif- ferent Insurance Companies in London. Others for the regu- lation of trade, manufactures, and commerce : such as the East India Company, and the Companies of Trades in London and other towns. Others for the advancement of science in general or some particular branches of it: such are the College of Physicians and the Company of Surgeons in London, for the improvement of the medical science; the Royal Society for the advancement of natural knowledge; the Society of Antiquarians for promoting the study of antiquities; and the Royal Academy of Arts for cultivating painting and sculpture. Some are also instituted for the purpose of local government : as Mayor and Commonalty, Bailiffs and Burgesses of any particular town or district. And some corporations of this kind are not only for local government, but for particular purposes : as Churchwardens for the conservation of the parish goods, &c.; and the Universities are civil corporations (c). Eleemosynary corporations are such as are constituted for the perpetual distribution of the free alms or bounty of the foun- der of them, to such persons as he has directed ; as Hospitals, Colleges, &c. {d). The exclusive right of the Crown to institute corporations, and the necessity for its express or implied consent to their (a) Co. lit. 43. (c) 3 Burr. 1656. b) Sawyer's Arg. 2uo War. 9. (rf) i Bla. Com. 471. existence,