USANCE

In Commercial Law. A foreign bill is often drawn at one, two, or more " usances," meaning thereby certain periods of time which it is the usage of the countries between which the bills are drawn to allow for payment thereof. Thus, the " usance" between London and Paris is one calendar month; a bill drawn here "at one usance," on the 2d January, is payable there on the 5th February, allowing three days of grace. USE, in its original sense, signified the equitable right one had to take the rents and profits of land whereof the legal ownership was in another. It was very nearly the same as the trust of the present day, and created in the following manner: The owner of land conveyed it by feoffment to some friend, on the understanding that the feoffee should hold it for the sole use and benefit of the feoffor, or su:h persons as he might nominate. In this wav the seisin or legal property of the land became vested in 'the feoffee to uses as trustee; while the feoffor, or other person nominated by him, who was called the cestui que use, had the substantial use and enjoyment of it. The simplicity of the common law, however, recognised but one person in connexion with the soil, namely, its real owner, and repudiated the idea of any use as separated from the seisin; so that if the trustee, abusing the confidence placed in him, refused to let cestui que use take the rents and profits, there was no redre for the grievance. But the Court of Chancery, as a court of equity, considered the agreement entered into by the trustee as binding on his conscience; [s. 1302]