symbolic delivery

This mode of transfer and delivery has been sanctioned in analogous cases by the courts of justice in England and this country, and is absolutely necessary for the purposes of commerce. A ship at sea may be transferred to a purchaser by the delivery of a bill of sale. So also as to the cargo, by the indorsement and delivery of the bill of lading... The rule is not confined to the usages of any particular commerce, but applies to every case where the thing sold is, from its character or situation at the time, incapable of actual delivery.

The delivery of some thing as a representation or sign of the delivery of some other. Where an actual delivery of goods cannot be made, a symbolical delivery of some particular thing, as a halfpenny, will vest the property equally with an actual delivery. Long, Sales, 162; 8 How. (U. S.) 399; 6 Md. 10; 19 N. H. 419; 39 Me. 496; 11 Cush. (Mass.) 282; 3 Cal. 140.

The delivery of some thing as a representation or sign of the delivery of some other. Where an actual delivery of goods cannot be made, a symbolical delivery of some particular thing, as standing for the whole, will vest the property equally with an actual delivery; Gibson v. Stevens, 8 How. (U. S.) 399, 12 L. Ed. 1123; Atwell v. Miller, 6 Md. 10, 61 Am. Dec. 294; Vining v. Gilbreth, 39 Me. 496; Packard v. Dunsmore, 11 Cush. (Mass.) 282. In 2 Poll. & Maitl. 84, symbolic delivery in the ancient German conveyance is thus described: The essence of the transaction may be that one man shall quit, and another shall take, possession of the land, but this must.be done in formal fashion and before witnesses. The number and complexities of the scenes may vary in different times and tribes. All the symbols and ceremonies are not the same in any one age or district. The two men, each with his witnesses, appear upon the land, a knife is produced, a sod of turf is cut, the twig of a tree is broken, off, and the turf and twig are handed to the donee, and thus the land passes from hand to hand. The knife may* also be delivered and retained by the donee. Perhaps its point would be broken off or its blade twisted, that it may differ from other knives. But, before this, the donor has taken from his hand the war glove which would protect it In battle and the donee assumes it; his hand is vested or invested; It is the vestita manus that will fight in defense of this land; with it he grasps the turf and twig. All the talk about investiture and being vested with land goes back, it is said, to this ceremony. Then the donor must solemnly forsake the land. Perhaps he is expected to leap over the encircling hedge; or some renunciatory gesture with his fingers ( curvatis diyttis) is demanded of him. Maybe he will have to pass over to the donee the mysterious rod or fcstuca, which has great contractual efficacy. In time some of these ceremonies could be transacted away from the land. It is not always convenient for the parties to visit the land, particularly when one of them is a dead saint. The reliquary that contains him may be taken to the field, or the field must come to the saint. The turf and twig can be brought with It and placed with the knife upon the shrine. The twig planted in a convent garden or a sod from a churchyard will do, or a knife, without any sod, or a glove, or indeed any small thing that lies handy, for the symbolical significance of those articles is becoming obscure, and the thing deposited is now thought of as a gauge or voed (vadium), by which the donor can be constrained to deliver possession of the land.

A delivery by symbol; the delivery of a thing by delivering another thing as its symbol or representation.

A delivery of any small thing, in token of a transfer of something else. Thus, with our Saxon ancestors, the delivery of a turf was a necessary solemnity to establish the conveyance of lands. And to tliis day the conveyance of copyhold estates is usually made by the delivery, on the part of the vendor, of a rod or verge to the lord or his steward, and then by the redelivery of the same from the lord to the purchaser. (2 BL Com..31.3-315; 1 Steph. Com. 507, 508.) Modey ^ W.