CORPORATION

An artificial person or legal entity created by or under the authority of the laws of a state or nation, composed, in some rare instances, of a. single person and his succe ors; being the incumbents of a particular· office, but ordinarily consisting of an a ociation of numerous individ• uals, who subsist as a body politic under a special denomination, which is regarded in law as having a personality and existence distinct from that of its several members, and which is, by the same authority, vested with the capacity of continuous succe ion, irrespective of changes in its membership, either in perpetuity or for a limited term of years, and of acting as a unit or single in• dividual in matters relating to the cornmori purpose of the a ociation, within the scope ot the powers and authorities conferred upon such bodies by law. See Case of Sutton's Hospital, 10 Coke, 32; Dart mouth College v. Woodward, 4. Wheat. 518, 636, 657, 4 L. Ed. 629; U. S. v. Trinidad Coal Co., 137 U. S. 160, 11 Sup. Ct. 57, 34 L. Ed. 640; Andrews Bros. Co. "· Young stown Coke Co., 86 Fed. 585, 30 C. C. A. 293; · Porter v. Railroad Co., 76 Ill. 573; State v. tPayne, 129 Mo. 468, 31 S. W. 797,.38 L. R. A. 576; Farmers' L. & T. Co. v. New York, 7 Hill (N. Y.) 283; State BLLAw D'.lOT.(2D Eo.)-18 [s. 279]