of those most interested in his death; but an axiom of Roman jurisprudence has pronounced that the charge of tutelage should constantly attend the emolument of succession.  If the choice of the father and the line of consanguinity afforded no efficient guardian, the failure was supplied by the nomination of the praetor of the city or the president of the province.  But the person whom they named to this public office might be legally excused by insanity or blindness, by ignorance or inability, by previous enmity or adverse interest, by the number of children or guardianships with which he was already burdened and by the immunities which were granted to the useful labors of magistrates, lawyers, physicians, and professors.

Till the infant could speak and think he was represented by the tutor, whose authority was finally determined by the age of puberty.  Without his consent no act of the pupil could bind himself to his own prejudice, though it might oblige others for his personal benefit.  It is needless to observe that the tutor often gave security, and always rendered an account, and that the want of diligence or integrity exposed him to a civil and almost criminal action for the violation of his sacred trust.  The age of puberty had been rashly fixed by the civilians at fourteen; but as the faculties of the mind ripen more slowly than those of the body, a curator was interposed to guard the fortunes of a Roman youth from his own inexperience and headstrong passions.  Such a trustee had been first instituted by the praetor, to save a family from the blind havoc of a prodigal or madman; and the minor was compelled by the laws to solicit the same protection, to give validity to his acts till he accomplished the full period of twenty-five years.  Women were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or guardians; a sex created to please and obey was never supposed to have attained the age of reason and experience.  Such, at least, was the stern and haughty spirit of the law, which had been insensibly mollified before the time of Justinian.

II.  The original right of property can only be justified by the accident or merit of prior occupancy; and on this foundation it is wisely established by the philosophy of the civilians.  The savage who hollows a tree, inserts a sharp stone into a wooden handle, or applies a string to an elastic branch becomes in a state of nature the just proprietor of the canoe, the bow, or the hatchet.  The materials were common to all, the new form, the produce of his time and simple industry, belong solely to himself.  His hungry brethren cannot, without a sense of their own injustice, extort from the hunter the game of the forest overtaken or slain by his personal strength and dexterity.  If his provident care preserves and multiplies the tame animals, whose nature is tractable to the arts of education, he acquires a perpetual title to the use and service of their numerous progeny, which derives its existence from him alone.  If he encloses and cultivates a field for their sustenance and his own, a barren waste is converted into a fertile soil; the seed, the manure, the labor, create a new value, and the rewards of harvest are painfully earned by the fatigues of the revolving year.