SEISIN. “Seisin of the freehold may be defined to be the possession of such an estate in land as was anciently thought worthy to be held by a free man” (Williams, On Seisin, p. 2). Seisin is now confined to possession of the freehold, though at one time it appears to have been used for simple possession without regard to the estate of the possessor. (See Possession.) Its importance is considerably less than it was at one time owing to the old form of conveyance by feoffment with livery of seisin having been superseded by a deed of grant (see Real Estate), and the old rule of descent from the person last seised having been abolished in favour of descent from the purchaser. (See Inheritance.) At one time the right of the wife to dower and of the husband to an estate by curtesy depended upon the doctrine of seisin. The Dower Act, 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 105, has, however, rendered the fact of the seisin of the husband of no importance, and the Married Women’s Property Act, 1882, appears to have practically abolished the old law of curtesy. In the case of a conveyance operating under the Statute of Uses, seisin is deemed to be given by the effect of the statute. This constructive seisin may still be of importance where the question arises how long a person has been in actual possession. Thus in Orme's Case (Law Rep., 8 Common Pleas, 281) the right to a county vote depended upon the form of the conveyance of a rent-charge to the voter. If the conveyance had been under the statute, the claimant would have been seised for a sufficient time; the court, however, held that the conveyance was a common law grant, and that the grantee must have been in actual receipt of the rent in order to entitle him to be registered....