PERNANCY. This word, which is derived1 from the French prendre, to take, signifies a taking or receiving.
PERNOR OF PROFITS. He who receives the profits of lands, &c. A cestui que use, who is legally entitled and actually does receive the profits, i's the pernor of profits.
PERPETUAL. That which is to last without limitation as to time; as, a perpetual statute2, which is one without limit as to time, although not expressed to be so.
PERPETUATING3 TESTIMONY4. The act by which testimony is reduced to writing as prescribed by law, so that the same shall be read in evidence in some suit or legal proceedings5 to be thereafter instituted. The origin of this practice may be traced to the canon law cap. 5, it ut lite non contestata, &c., et ibi. Bockmer, n. 4; 8 Toull. n. 22. Vide Bill to perpetuate6 testimony.
PERPETUITY, estates. Any limitation tending to take the subject of it out of commerce for a longer period than a life or lives in being, and twenty-one years beyond; and in case of a posthumous7 child, a few months more, allowing for the term of gestation8; Randell on Perpetuities, 48; or it is such a limitation of property as renders it unalienable beyond the period allowed by law. Gilbert on Uses, by Sugden, 260, note.
2. Mr. Justice Powell, in Scattergood v. Edge, 12 Mod. 278, distinguished9 perpetuities into two sorts, absolute and qualified10; meaning thereby11, as it is apprehended12, a distinction between a plain, direct and palpable perpetuity, and the case where an estate is limited on a contingency13, which might happen within a reasonable compass of time, but where the estate nevertheless, from the nature of the limitation, might be kept out of commerce longer than was thought agreeable to the policy of the common law. But this distinction would not now lead to a better understanding or explanation of the subject; for whether an estate be so limited that it cannot take effect, until a period too much protracted14, or whether on a contingency which may happen within a moderate compass of time, it equally falls within the line of perpetuity and the limitation is therefore void; for it is not sufficient that an estate may vest within the time allowed, but the rule requires that it must. Randell on Perp. 49. Vide Cruise, Dig. tit. 32, c. 23; 1 Supp. to Ves. Jr. 406; 2 Ves. Jr. 357; 3 Saund. 388 h. note; Com. Dig. Chancery, 4 G 1; 3 Chan. Cas. 1; 2 Bouv. Inst. n. 1890.
PERQUISITES15. In its most extensive sense, perquisites signifies anything gotten by industry, or purchased with money, different from that which descends16 from a father or ancestor. Bract. lib. 2, c. 30, n. 8; et lib. 4, c. 22. In a more limited sense it means something gained by a place or office beyond the regular salary or fee.
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