Subtraction

The offence of withholding (or withdrawing) from another man what by law he is entitled to. It is a term little used in this country, as will be apparent from Brown's account of the principal kinds, which is given below. There are various descriptions of this offence, of which the principal are as follows: 1. Subtraction of suit and service, which is a species of injury affecting a man's real property, and consists of a withdrawal of (or a neglect to perform or pay) the fealty, suit of court, rent, or customary services, all of which in feudal times, and some of which at the present day, are reserved by the owner of the land to himself when he lets or leases it to another. For this neglect of duty on the part of the tenant, the law gives the landlord the peculiar remedy of distress; but the other remedies formerly in use for rent in arrear, and for subtraction of suit and service, were abolished by the Stat. 3 & 4 Wm. IV. ch. 27, which put an end to almost all kinds of real actions; the only actions which now lie for rent being of the personal class. But for the neglect to perform any customary service, such as the neglect or refusal to grind corn at the landlord's mill, an action on the case will lie to compensate the party injured in damages.

2.

The subtraction of tithes is the withholding from the parson or vicar, whether the former be a clergyman or a lay impropriator, the tithes to which he is entitled, and this is an offence cognizable in the ecclesiastical court. Where only the fact, whether or not the tithes allowed to be due are really subtracted or withdrawn, is in dispute, this is a personal transient injury, for which the remedy (viz. the recovery of the tithes or their equivalent) may properly be had in the ecclesiastical court. But any dispute as to tithes in their original form is now rare, that species of property having been in the great majority of parishes already commuted into a corn rent-charge, under the provisions of the tithe commutation act (6 & 7 Wm. IV. ch. 71).

3.

Subtraction of conjugal rights is the withdrawing or withholding by a husband or wife of those rights and privileges which the law allows to either party. This is an offence peculiarly within the cognizance formerly of the ecclesiastical courts, and now of the court for matrimonial causes, and the party injured seeks redress by bringing a suit to recover those rights of which he or she has been deprived, called a suit for the restitution of conjugal rights. Thus, where the husband leaves his wife, and lives separate from her, without any sufficient reason, the court in question will compel him to return to cohabitation.

4.

Subtraction of legacies is the withholding or detaining of legacies by an executor; and as such act deprives the legatees of the benefit which the law gives to them, and which the testator intended them to have, it is an offence of which the courts which have a testamentary jurisdiction take notice. With them, however, the courts of equity hold a concurrent jurisdiction.

5.

Subtraction of church rates is the last and most familiar class of "subtraction," and consists in the refusal to pay the amount of rate at which any individual parishioner has been assessed for the necessary repairs of the parish church; and this, like the other species of this offence, is cognizable by the courts ecclesiastical.

Brown.