other at the intermediate part of the period of postponement. To treat the period of gestation, however, as an adjunct to the lives, is not, perhaps, quite correct. It seems more proper to say that the rule admits of the absolute ownership being suspended for a life or lives in being, and twenty-one years afterwards, and that for the purposes of the rule a child en ventre sa mere is considered as a life in being.” It is only in cases of gestation that the period of twenty-one years can be extended. In Cadell v. Palmer, 1 Clark & F. 372, in the house of lords, it was declared to be the unanimous opinion of the judges that there cannot be added to the period of twenty-one years an absolute period equal to the ordinary or longest period of gestation irrespective of the existence of gestation, but that the time can be enlarged only in those cases in which gestation exists. This is the settled law. But the period of twenty-one years is an absolute period, and the lives during which the absolute period of disposition is suspended are not necessarily the lives of the persons who are interested in the property. Said the court in McArthur v. Scott, 113 U. 8. 340, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 652: “The rule of the common law by which an estate devised must at all events vest within a life or lives in being, and twenty-one years afterwards, has reference to time and not to persons. Even the life or lives in being have no reference to the persons who are to take, for the testator is allowed to select as the measure of time the lives of any persons now in existence; and the twenty-one years afterwards are not regulated by the birth or the coming of age of any person, for they begin not with a birth, but with a death, and are twenty-one years in gross, without regard to the life or the coming of age of any person soever.” Every attempt to tie up the absolute ownership of property except as permitted by these rules is without effect in law.
The provisions of the will in question do not fall without the scope of these rules, and are therefore valid at common law, the law which it is admitted obtains in Pennsylvania, the domicile of the testator at the time of his death. Is the trust so far as the real estate in this state is concerned to be governed by the laws of this state or of Pennsylvania? Under the statute of this state the trust is void. By § 2717 of the Compiled Laws it is
