profits

Profits are thus allowed 'as an equitable measure of compensation.

An excess of the value of reproper expenses incident to the transaction. 2 Sneed (Tenn.) 452; 15 Minn. 519. The expenses to be deducted are ordinarily the current expenses incident to the business; not such items as the depreciation of buildings in which the business is carried on. 94 U. S. 500. This is a word of very extended signification. In commerce, it means the advance in the price of goods sold beyond the cost of purchase. In distinction from the wages of labor, it is well understood to imply the net return to the capital or stock employed, after deducting all the expenses, including not only the wages of those employed by the capitalist, but the wages of the capitalist himself for superintending the employment of his capital or sto Ck. Smith, Wealth of Nations, bk. i. c. 6, and Mc Culloch's notes; Mill, Pol. Econ. c. 15. After indemnifying the capitalist for his outlay, there commonly remains a surplus, which is his profit, the net income from his capital. 1 Mill, Pol. Econ. c. 15. The word "profit" is generally used by virriters on political economy to denote the difference between the value of advances and the value of returns made by their employment. The profit of the farmer and the manufacturer is the gain made by the sale of produce or manufactures, after deducting the value of the labor, materials, rents, and all expenses, together with the interest of the capital employed, — whether land, buildings, machinery, instruments, or money. The rents and profits of an estate, the income or the net income of it, are all equivalent expressions. The, income or the net income of an estate means only the profit it will yield after deducting the charges of management. 5 Me. 202, 203; 35 Me. 420, 421. Under the term "profit" is comprehended the produce of the soil, whether it arise above or below the surface; as, herbage, wood, turf, coals, minerals, stones; also fish in a pond or running water. Profits are divided into profits a prendre, or those taken and enjoyed by the mere act of the proprietor himself, and profits a vendre, namely, such as are received at the hands of and rendered by another. Hammond, N. P. 172. Profits are divided by writers on political economy into gross and net, — gross profits being the whole difference between the value of advances and the value of returns made by their employment, and net profits being so much of that difference as is attributable solely to the capital employed. What remains as the clear gains in any business venture after deducting the capital invested, the -expense incurred and the loss sustained. 83 Mich. 63. The remainder of the difference, or in other words, the gross profits minus the net profits, has no particular name; but it represents the profits attributable to in- Ed.) 563. But the word "profit" is generally used in a less extensive signification, and presupposes an excess of the value of returns over the. value of advances. PROGRESSION (Lat. progressio; from pro and gredior, to go forward). That state of a business which is neither the commencement nor the end. Some act done after the matter has commenced, and before it is completed. Plowd. 343.

1. The advance in the price of goods sold beyond the cost of purchase. The gain made by the sale of produce or manufactures, after deducting the value of the labor, materials, rents, and all expenses, together with the interest of the capital employed. Webster. See Providence Rubber Co., v. Goodyear, 9 Wall. 805, 19 In Ed. 828; Mundy v. Van Hoose, 104 Ga. 292, 30 S. Bl 783; Hinckley v. Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Co., 121 U. S. 264, 7 Sup. Ct. 875, 30 L. Ed. 967; Prince v. Lamb, 128 Cal. 120, 60 Pan. 689; Maryland Ice Co. v. Arctic Ice Mach. Mfg. Co.., 79 Md. 103, 29 AH. 69.
2. The benefit, advantage, or pecuniary gain accruing to the owner or occupant of land from its actual use; as in the familiar phrase "rents, issues, and profits," or in the expression "mesne profits."
3. A division sometimes made of incorporeal hereditaments; as distinguished from "easements," which tend rather to the convenience than the profit of the claimant. 2 Steph. Comm.
2.

— Mesne profits. Intermediate profits; that is, profits which have been accruing between two given periods. Thus, after a party has recovered the land itself in an action of ejectment, he frequently brings another action for the purpose of recovering the profits which have been accruing or arising Out of the land between the time when his title to the possession accrued or was raised and the lime of his recovery in the action of ejectment, and such an action is thence termed an "action for mesne profits." Brown.

— Mesne profits, action of. An action of trespass brought to recover profits derived from land, while the possession of it has been improperly withheld; that is, the yearly value of the premises. Worthington v. Hiss, 70 Md. 172, 16 Atl. 534; Woodhull v. Rosenthal, 61 N. Y. 394; Thompson v. Bower, 60 Barb. (N. Y.) 477,

— Net profits. Theoretically nil profits are "net." But as the expression "gross profits" is sometimes used to describe the mere excess of present value over former value, or of returns from sales over prime cost, the phrase "net profits" is appropriate to describe the gain which remains after the further deduction of all expenses, charges, costs, allowance for depreciation, etc.

— Profit and loss. The gain or loss arising from goods bought or sold, or from carrying on any other business, the former of which, in book-keeping, is placed on the creditor's side; the latter on the debtor's side.

— Profits A prendre. These, which are also called "rights of common." are rights exercised by one man in the soil of another, accompanied with participation in the profits of the soil thereof; as rights of pasture, or of digging sand. Profits ft prendre differ from easements, in that the former are rights of profit, and the latter are mere rights of convenience without profit. Gale, Easem. 1; Hall, Profits ft Prendre, 1. See Payne v. Sheets, 75 Vt. 335, 55 Atl. 656; Black v. Elkhorn Min. Co.. (C. Ct) 49 Fed. 549; Bingham v. Salene, 15 Or. 208, 14 Pac. 523, 3 Am. St. Rep. 152; Pierce v. Keator, 70 N. Y. 422, 26 Am. Rep. 612.