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• Scotch Reform; Considered With Reference to the Plan Proposed In the Late Parliament, For the Regulation of the Courts and the Administration of Justice In Scotland: With Illustrations From English Non-reform: In the Course of Which, Divers Imperfectio
• Advertisement.
• Letters to Lord Grenville, On the Proposed Reform In the Administration of Civil Justice In Scotland.
• Letter I.
• Letter II.: Proposed Division of the Court of Session.
• Letter III.: Proposed System of Pleading.
• Letter IV.: Proposed Trial By Jury.
• Letter V.: On the Bill Called Lord Eldon’s.
• Summary View of the Plan of a Judicatory, Under the Name of the Court of Lords’ Delegates, Proposed For the Exercise of Those Judicial Functions, the Adequate Discharge of Which By the Whole House Has, For These Six Or Seven Years, Been Rendered Confe
• The Elements of the Art of Packing, As Applied to Special Juries, Particularly In Cases of Libel Law.
• Advertisement to the First Edition.
• Part I.
• Chapter I.: Occasion of This Work.
• Chapter II.: Juries—their Use As a Check to Judges.
• Chapter III.: The Check How Done Away By Influence.
• Chapter IV.: Special Juries, a Special Engine of Corruption.
• Chapter V.: Jury Unanimity Increases the Corruption.
• Chapter VI.: Purposes to Which Influence On Juries May Be Made Subservient.
• Chapter VII.: Chief Purpose, Crushing the Liberty of the Press.
• Chapter VIII.: The Exchequer Packing Office Suffices.
• Chapter IX.: Instruments For Crushing the Liberty of the Press.
• Chapter X.: Want of Adequate Obsequiousness Morally Impossible.
• Chapter XI.: Such Juries Worse Than None.
• Part II.: State of the Packing System, Anno 1808.
• Chapter I.: Introduction—two Reforming Shrievalties.
• Chapter II.: The Sheriff to the Lord Chief Baron—notices.
• Chapter III.: Lord Chief Baron to Sheriff Sir Richard Phillips—avowries and Defences.
• Chapter IV.: Observations On the Lord Chief Baron’s Defences.
• Chapter V.: Special Jury Corruption—devices By Which It Was Protected.
• Chapter VI.: Learned Advice From the Temple.
• Chapter VII.: Advice From Lincoln’s-inn.
• Chapter VIII.: Maxims Concerning Reform, Deduced From the Above Letter.
• Chapter IX.: Transactions At the Remembrancer’s.
• Part III.: State of the Packing System, Anno 1809.
• Chapter I.: Commons’ Debate, 24 Th April 1809. Packing and Cutting.
• Chapter II.: Double-fee Abuse, Plain and Embroidered.
• Part IV.—: Remedies Proposed. *
• Chapter I.: Humble Proposal For Restoring the Constitution In Regard to Juries.
• Chapter II.: State of Jury Package In Scotland.
• Chapter III.: Humble Proposal For Restoring the Authority of Parliament.
• “swear Not At All:” Containing an Exposure of the Needlessness and Mischievousness, As Well As Anti-christianity of the Ceremony of an Oath: a View of the Parliamentary Recognition of Its Needlessness, Implied In the Practice of Both Houses; a
• Advertisement.
• Editor’s Note
• Swear Not At All. Mat. V. 34.
• Section 1.: Oath. Incongruity of the Assumption, On Which Its Supposed Beneficial Efficiency Is Grounded.
• Section 2.: Mischievousness of This Instrument Considered In a General Point of View.
• Section 3.: Its Inefficiency In the Character of a Security Against Deceptious Incorrectness and Incompleteness In Evidence.
• Section 4.: Recognition of Its Inutility By Lords and Commons.
• Section 5.: Mischiefs —1. Contributing to the Mendacity-licence Granted By Judges.
• Section 6.: Mischief 2— Weakening In Various Ways the Efficiency of the Laws.
• Section 7.: Mischief 3— Bewildering and Enslaving the Consciences of Jurymen.
• Section 8.: Mischief 4— Giving Aid and Force to the Enterprises of Malefactors.
• Section 9.: Mischief 5— Furnishing Pretence For Misrule By Abuse of Prerogative.
• Section 10.: Misrule, How to Perpetuate—coronation Oaths Amended.
• Section 11.: Mischief 6— Corrupting the National Morals and Understanding—oxford University Oaths.
• Section 12.: Mischief 6 Continued. —ii. Cambridge Oaths.
• Section 13.: Practice of Receiving Judicial Oaths, Its Repugnancy to the Precepts of Jesus.
• Section 14.: Succedanea—true Securities Substitutible to This False One.
• Section 15.: Cause and Origin of the Practice In Regard to Oaths.
• Appendix.
• Truth Versus Ashhurst; Or, Law As It Is, Contrasted With What It Is Said to Be.
• The King Against Edmonds and Others: Set Down For Trial, At Warwick, On the 29 Th of March 1820.
• The King Against Sir Charles Wolseley, Baronet, and Joseph Harrison, Schoolmaster, Set Down For Trial, At Chester, On the 4 Th of April 1820.
• Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized: As Shown In the Several Papers Comprised In This Volume.
• Paper I.—
• Paper II.—: Introductory View, &c.
• Paper III.—: Extract From the Proposed Constitutional Code; Entitled, Official Aptitude Maximized—expense Minimized. By Jeremy Bentham, Esq. Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn.
• Paper IV.—: Supplement to the Above Extract.
• Paper V.—: Defence of Economy Against the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.
• Paper VI.—: Defence of Economy Against the Right Honourable George Rose.
• Paper VII.: Observations On Mr. Secretary Peel’s House of Commons Speech, 21 St March 1825, Introducing His Police Magistrates’ Salary Raising Bill, ( Date of Order For Printing, 24 Th March 1825.)
• Paper VIII.: Indications Respecting Lord Eldon, Including History of the Pending Judges’-salary-raising Measure.
• Paper IX.—: On the Militia.
• Paper X.: On Public Account Keeping.
• Paper XI.: Constitutional Code—table of Contents As Shown By Titles of Chapter and Sections.
• Commentary On Mr. Humphreys’ Real Property Code, By Jeremy Bentham. From the Westminster Review, No. XII., For October 1826.
• *∗* the Following Note Was Prefixed to the Article By the Editor of the Westminster Review: —
• Commentary On Humphreys’ Real Property Code.
• I.: Deed of Sale.
• II.: Deed of Mortgage. 1
• III.: Marriage Settlement Deed.
• Outline of a Plan of a General Register of Real Property: Contained In a Communication to the Commissioners Appointed Under Letters Patent, of Date the 6 Th June 1828, to Inquire Into the Law of England Respecting Real Property, and First Printed I
• Justice and Codification Petitions: Being Forms Proposed For Signature By All Persons Whose Desire It Is to See Justice No Longer Sold, Delayed, Or Denied: and to Obtain a Possibility of That Knowledge of the Law, In Proportion to the Want of Which T
• Justice and Codification Petitions.
• Advertisement.
• Preliminary Explanations Necessary to Be First Read.
• Petition For Justice.
• Abridged Petition For Justice.
• More Abridged Petition For Justice.
• Supplement, Which May Be Added Or Not to Any One of the Three Or Any Other Proposed Petition.
• Petition For Codification.
• Lord Brougham Displayed: Including I. Boa Constrictor, Alias Helluo Curiarum; II. Observations On the Bankruptcy Court Bill, Now Ripened Into an Act; III. Extracts From Proposed Constitutional Code.

COMMENTARY ON HUMPHREYS’ REAL PROPERTY CODE.

Of a work such as this, the publication forms an epoch: in law certainly; I had almost said in history. In possession; in expectancy; in prospect; in project—have you any property in the shape thus denominated? Deep, in proportion to the value of it, is the interest you have in this work; signal and unprecedented your obligation to the author of it. Lay even property in this shape out of the question; still, if by those on whose will everything depends, his exertions be but duly seconded, strong will be the ground you will have for felicitating yourself on the appearance of this star in the horizon of jurisprudence: for of all that is valuable to man, nothing is there to which, directly or indirectly, its beneficial influence will not be found to extend. It has, indeed, for its direct object and main subject-matter, that species alone of property to which English lawyers, and they alone, have so absurdly and uncharacteristically, instead of immoveable, given the name of real; but, for everything else, to which it is in the nature of law to afford security,—security, in a proportion as yet unexampled,—will, if his plan be carried into execution, be the effect.

Not less signal is the moral than the intellectual merit manifested by it. A young briefless lawyer, who, on a survey taken of the road to advancement, had been fortunate enough to descry this as yet untrodden track, and bold enough to enter upon it,—this was the sort of character, in which, in my imagination, the author had been pourtrayed. To one who, in the shape of business, had nothing to lose,—distinction, even if that were all—distinction, how barren soever—would of course have its value. Imagine, any one, my astonishment, when the information reached me, that, instead of a young adventurer, the work had for its author a man advanced in years; a conveyancer, at the very head of his profession; a reformist who, by every page written, and every hour thus spent, in an occupation not less laborious than meritorious, had thus been making a sacrifice of pecuniary interest on the altar of public good.

Proportioned to the service he has rendered to all who are not lawyers, is the ill-will which, with few exceptions indeed, if man be man, he cannot but have called forth, in the breasts of all, who, proportioned to the advancement given to the art-and-science, see, as they cannot but see, the defalcation made from the profit of the trade.

Sincere, if ever admiration was, is that which is here expressed: whether it be a blind one, what follows will soon show.

Hale, with all his merits; Hale, like all lawyers who had gone before him, and almost all who have come after him, was no reformer: nothing better than an expounder: everything stated by him was stated as he found it, or conceived it to be: no inquiries as to what it ought to be: in the eyes of lawyers—not to speak of their dupes—that is to say, as yet, the generality of non-lawyers—the is and the ought to be (or, as in Greek it would be so much better—the το ον and the το δεον, from which last, Ethics has received the more expressive name of Deontology,) were one and indivisible. By David Hume, in his Treatise on Human Nature, the universality of this practice of confounding the two so different objects was first held up to view.

As to Blackstone, flagrant as were the abominations, which at every page he had to wade through must have met his eye—not to extirpate them, not to expose them, was his endeavour, but to cover and preserve them; and which of the two quantities has been the greater—the service he has done to the people in the one shape, or the disservice in the other—both being to his narrow mind, probably, alike objects of indifference—is a question easier to propose than solve.

Before this work came out, code and codification were rank theory; theory; and, as such, objects of sincere horror, with as much of pretended contempt as would mix up with it. Now, at length, they are become practice; contempt has been repulsed by its own image, and horror has given way to praise. But now to particulars.

Law of landed property being the field,—follow eight distinguishable heads, under which, it is believed, may be ranked Mr. Humphreys’ proposed improvements; some more, some less, explicitly declared.

1. Substitution of apt, to the present unapt, forms of the instruments by which landed property is disposed of—say, for shortness, of conveyancing instruments, or formulæ.

2. Melioration and extension of the registration system, as applied to conveyances.

3. In the case of freeholds, substitution of the generally prevalent to the anomalous courses of descent, namely, Gavelkind and Borough English.

4. Reduction of copyholds to the state of freeholds.

5. All-comprehensive partition of common lands.

6. Substitution of a really existing code, to the present compound, of a really existing, with an imaginary civil, or say non-penal, code of law, so far as relates to landed property. Codification this, in contradistinction to consolidation.

7. Appropriate addition to the judiciary establishment, in so far as may be necessary to the giving execution and effect to the substantive part of such proposed code.

8. Substitution of an apt, to the present unapt, system of judicial procedure, or say adjective law, in so far as necessary to that same end.

Of the separation thus made, paramount, with a view to practice, is, in my view of the matter at least, the importance. Probability of adoption and dispatch in execution join in the requisition, that, of so vast a whole, the number of separate parts be maximized. 1. Probability of adoption: because, let the whole plan contain, say two parts, both of them beneficial to the universal interest, but opposed respectively by two distinct particular and thence sinister interests,—one of these interests—not by itself, but with the addition of the other, being strong enough to throw the plan out,—one of them may, notwithstanding the opposition, be carried into effect: whereas, if the separation had not been made, both sinister interests would have stood opposed to it, and there would have been an end to it. Thus stands the matter, in the case of two, and no more than two, mutually unconnected sinister interests; but, the greater the number of them, the smaller will, by the supposition, be the number of the individuals united in opposition by each; and the greater, accordingly, the number of universally beneficial arrangements possessing a chance of being carried into effect. For want of such separation,—many are the salutary arrangements which, if separately proposed, would have found no opponent, but which, by being conjointly proposed, have been lost.

Then as to dispatch: if appositely made, the further the separation is carried, the greater the number of appropriately apt hands, or sets of hands, among which it may be distributed.

Then again as to appropriate aptitude: the further the separation is carried, the greater the chance of finding a hand, or set of hands, in a superior degree apt, each of them for one part, though they would not respectively have been equally so for any other.

Now for the application. I. Improvement the first. Substitution of apt to unapt formulæ. To this I allot the first rank. Why? Because least unlikely to be adopted, and most speedily capable of being effected.

Take any one of them, for example. In so far as, for its being employed and carried into effect, it requires not any alteration in the existing tenor of the statute law, or in the course of judicial practice,—it is capable of being carried into practice by the philanthropist himself, by whose ingenuity it has been devised: and, the greater the number of the improvements thus happily circumstanced, the more extensive will be the number of them effected by this most simple of all means.

Unhappily, by this alone, without assistance from statute law, not very extensive, it is feared, can be the effect produced. At any rate, for each distinguishable improvement, the less the assistance needed from that so difficulty-moved machinery, the better the chance.

Of the load of evil in all shapes with which the instruments in question are oppressed,—lengthiness to wit, thence unintelligibility, expensiveness, and dilatoriness—of all this evil the main efficient causes are shown to be composed of the work given to needless and useless trustees, in whom no confidence is reposed, and the addition of the blind agency of judiciary functionaries to the mental labour of professional draughtsmen, in the fabrication of the mendacious and pick-pocket instruments rendered necessary, under the name of fines and recoveries. True it is—this mass of abuse could not be cleared away by any other hand than that of parliament. But, by that of any professional draughtsman, not inconsiderable are the improvements that may be introduced: the endless sentences at present in use may be broken down, and reduced to the scantling of those employed, on the like occasions in every other country, and on all other occasions in all countries:—for the purpose of enabling the most unpractised eye to see its way clearly over the present labyrinth, and take repose wherever it found need,—the several topics, distinguishable in those huge masses of matter, which in the present practice are compressed together into the compass of one sentence, may be presented to view by their already universally known denominations: the matter, belonging to each such topic, may be formed into a separate sentence; and to each such sentence, to save the need of repeating it in terminis, or by a little less lengthy general description, a numerical appellative may be allotted. Of the general indication thus given, exemplification, and thence (it is hoped) elucidation, will be seen in the course of the ensuing pages.

As to the clearing the system of the other more highly morbid symptoms,—I am but too sensible how far, even with these additions, his plan of operation would fall short of meeting the disorder with anything like an all-sufficient remedy. Still, however, I see in it the least unpromising of all his generous enterprises. In respect of the force of the sinister interests it would have to encounter, it stands less unfavourably circumstanced than any other. By rendering conveyances, and the contracts embodied in them, somewhat less unintelligible to parties and other interessees,—it would lessen the mass of suffering in the shape of disputes and disappointments, and in so far lessen the abundance of the lawyer’s harvest: it would reduce, in some degree, the profit of the conveyancers’ company,—and of the firm of Eldon and Co. in Chancery and the House of Lords: but it would not, as any system of procedure capable of fulfilling its professed end would, go to the blowing up the manufactory of factitious litigation at one explosion,—and, at the first proposal of it, call up, in defence of Matchless Constitution, that judiciary system by which, to ninety-nine hundredths of the people, access is denied to so much as a chance for justice.

II. Improvement the second. Giving efficacy and extension to Registration. For this purpose I shall have to treat our artist with a sight of an instrument (a fruit of female ingenuity) suited to this one of his beneficent purposes, in a degree beyond what he can have had any conception of.

III. Improvement the third. Abolition of the anomalous courses of Descent. Absolutely speaking, yes: but comparatively speaking, no great good seems here to be expected: on the other hand, no great resistance to be apprehended.

True it is, that this improvement, the subject-matter of it being an insulated one, is in its nature capable of being carried into effect by itself. But, setting aside the supposition of an all-comprehensive code,—or at any rate an all-comprehensive property code,—the benefit produced by it would be comparatively inconsiderable; its principle, if not only one, being that which it would have in the character of an instrument of simplification.

IV. Improvement the fourth. Reduction of Copyholds to the state of Freeholds. Highly beneficial this: but at the same time unavoidably operose and tedious. The sooner indeed it were begun, the better; but, in no other shape need, or should, the commencement of the course of improvement wait either for the consummation or the commencement of it. Pride would set in array against it the aristocracy of the country, in their character of lords of manors: pecuniary interest, the lawyer-class in the character of stewards: not but that, in the long-run, pecuniary compensation ab intrà, with or without a little of ditto ab extrà,—at the expense of the whole community, to whom the whole rule of action would thereby be rendered so much the more accessible,—might peradventure gain the votes of the one, and quiet the alarms and clamours of the other.

V. Improvement the fifth. Partition of Common Lands. To a certain extent, this improvement is comprised in that which consists in the conversion of copyholds into freeholds: to a certain other extent, that is to say, in so far as the land is already in a state of freehold—or, being copyhold, can be divided into separate parcels, leaving the manorial rights in other respects untouched,—it will require the arrangements, for the effectuation of which the general inclosure act was intended, and the several particular inclosure acts have been, and continue to be intended. As to this matter, true it is, that the greater the degree in which the provisions of the particular acts can be generalized, and those of the general act improved upon, of course so much the better: and propositions for this purpose may of course be expected from the ingenuity, experience, and public spirit of Mr. Humphreys. But, in addition to those efficient causes, others of a peculiar nature, and not quite so prompt in growth, are required; that is to say, capital in proportionate quantity—capital in the appropriate hands—and a state of things such as will admit of the giving to it the direction in question to advantage. Now, as to capital, it cannot be made to accumulate in, or find its way into, these same hands, with quite so much celerity as may be given to the operation of drawing up an act of parliament: and a state of things which affords probability to the opening of the trade in corn to foreign cultivators is but little favourable to increase in the home-production of it. Not that, by these circumstances, any objection is opposed to that part of our learned reformist’s plan which consists in the procurement of the appropriate mass of information subservient to these same purposes. But of that in its place.

VI. VII. VIII. Improvement sixth, seventh, and eighth—Codification. Substitution of really existing law to fictitious: Substitution of an apt to an unapt judiciary establishment and system of procedure: as to these three parts in conjunction, there will be more or less to say before this article is at a close.

Now for a trespass on his patience. The time is come, when the scalpel must be set to work: state of it much rougher than the anatomist could have wished: but neither time nor space admit of that smoothness which would otherwise have been endeavoured to be given to it. More than fifty years ago, I took it up for the first time, with Blackstone lying on the table. The subject being so different, it is with affections correspondently different, and proportionable reluctance, that I take it in hand now. In Blackstone, every abuse has its varnish or its apology: in Humphreys, none. Should the liberties now taken have any such effect as that of calling forth like for like, my gratitude will not be less sincere than my admiration is now.

Observations applying to all three formulæ viewed together, are the following:—

I.Emendandum the first. Subject-matter, length of each one of the three pattern instruments, and symmetry as between the three: Description of the subject-matter of disposition insufficient, and thence, at the same time, by the whole amount redundant and useless. Of the subject-matter of a sale, the number of diversifications being, practically speaking, infinite—no one can, with propriety and safety, be taken for, and thence copied as, the representative of any other: much less of all others. In each instance, what should be given is—in the body of the instrument, a generic designation, as short as possible so as to answer the purpose: in the schedule (a sort of appendage referred to, but not exhibited in the author’s draught,) a description, the particulars of which must, in the nature of the case, be all of them individual. Of a building, for example, the generic description will, of course, be of one sort; of a piece of land, of an altogether different sort. As to the individual description—for the purpose here in question, in addition to other purposes, all habitations should be numbered. For the process of enumeration, an all-comprehensive plan may be seen in my parliamentary reform bill. Of a piece of land, on which there is no building, the description of the site will be given, by giving the name of the nearest road, with the several names of the several fields of which it is composed. In respect of the piece of land, there can be no difficulty: since, in fact and of necessity, in whichever way held, whether in commonalty or in severalty, every field has its name. Of the compound subject-matters, composed of buildings with land annexed, the mode of description is rendered familiar to everybody by those printed papers of particulars which are employed on the occasion of sales, whether made by auction or by hand.

Behold here, then, already drawn, though by an intrusive hand, the proper contents of the schedule: say, rather, the only proper. For, what other description of the subject-matter can be so proper for a deed of sale, as the very one to which, by the agreement to purchase, the purchaser had given his assent?

But, the knot of lawyers must be paid—paid, for doing, in not improbably a bad manner, what has been already done in the best. If, for appropriate accuracy, the scientific eye affords a promise of being of use (and I do not say but that in some instances so it may be,) the proper time for its operation is antecedent, not subsequent, to the adjustment of the subject-matter of the conveyance—the paper of particulars.

If this be so, useless then is every syllable occupied in individualizing the subject-matter in the body of the deed.

Behold now the quantity of surplusage thus employed; employed in giving to conception difficulty, and to expense increase. In the deed of sale, lines 16, whereof surplusage in this form, 5: in the mortgage-deed, lines 19, whereof surplusage in this form, 11: in the marriage-settlement deed, lines 96, surplusage in this form, 11: lines in all three together, 131: whereof surplusage in this, besides other forms, 27.*

Now as to length of sentences, separately considered. The more lengthy the sentence, the greater the fatigue of him whose misfortune it is to be subjected, on one account or other, to the obligation of reading it and lodging the contents in his mind. When the fatigue rises to a certain pitch,—such is the reader’s anxiety to reach the end of his labour,—that, for want of a resting place, he slides over the topics, without dwelling upon any of them the length of time necessary to the impregnating his mind with an adequate conception of it: on the other hand, let it be broken down into its several distinguishable topics,—so many topics, so many sentences; so many sentences, so many resting-places: and whatsoever topic requires particular consideration, will be considered at full leisure: on time wasted in disentangling it from the rest.

What is more, no danger of the draughtsman’s own mind losing itself in the mizmaze. This apprehension—is it a fanciful one? In proof of its well-groundedness, I call two witnesses: one of them, our learned reformist himself, the vast reduction, made by him in the extent of the labyrinth, notwithstanding; the other, no less a personage than a learned lord, the Lord Advocate of Scotland.

1. Enter, first, our learned author.—Evidence of bewilderedness, an offence against the laws of Priscian. Locus delicti, Family Settlement Deed:—Corpus delicti (as the Romanists say,) the words “convey, charge, and settle.” The loves of the parts of speech are no secret to any boy, who, in any one of the royal schools, has been initiated in the gymnastic exercise, of which a poetical grammar is the instrument. Here, so it is, that, to enable them to beget a meaning, the three amorous verbs require, each of them in the shape of a preposition, a different mate: convey, to; charge, with; settle, on. Now, then, as to the fate of these same lovers. After a long and adventureful period of unsatisfied desire, burning, in one instance, through a course of not fewer than 15 out of the 96 lines, convey is at last made happy in the embraces of his dear to; charge, in the arms of with. Not so with the luckless settle. In vain has the wood been hunted over for a mate for him; no such comfort for him is to be found, and he dies childless.

Not that Miss Campbell, for whom the benefit, attached to the burthen conveyed by the verb charge, is intended,—is, at the end of the story, disappointed of it; for, in a recess of the wood (candour requires the confession) the preposition to steps in at last, steps in a second time to her assistance; and her two hundred a-year pin-money, and five hundred a-year jointure, form the result.

2. Enter now Lord Advocate.—If a warrant,—from practice, power, and dignity, in high situations,—can afford consolation under the imputation of a grammatical peccadillo, the learned delinquent needs not be inconsolable.

Opening the House of Commons folio, entituled “Return, Parochial Education, Scotland, Order for Printing, 27th February and 21st May, 1826,” you will find it written in page 3, “Letter from the Lord Advocate of Scotland to Henry Hobhouse, Esq.” Follows here what is relevant to the present purpose; what is not relevant being eliminated.

“I had the honour to receive your letter, stating, that the king, having been pleased to comply with an humble address for” (the letter-press is thus italicized) “an account showing,” (then follows the matter of a folio page) “and desiring” (mark here the king, instead of commanding—Oh! treason! desiring—deprived of all command, and reduced to desire!) “desiring that I would take the necessary steps ‘for procuring, &c. and transmit, &c., that it might, &c. previous to being laid before the House of Commons.’ ” Well—the king having been pleased, what then? Nothing. For at the word Commons ends the paragraph, closed by a full-stop. Then comes the next, beginning with “I beg leave to state that, in obedience to the above order, it had occurred to me,” and so forth.

Now, as to the effect produced on the faculties of the pre-eminently learned composer, by the folio page—the unbegun and unended sentence which, lest the like effect should be produced on the mind of the reader, is here omitted.—Such is its narcotic quality, that while dragging on with it, he falls asleep, and in the course of his sleep dreams of a certain “order,” to which he is rendering obedience. Rubbing his eyes,—“the above order,” cries he.—Order? What order? Look the whole page through, no such thing as an order will you find.

II.Emendandum the second: in the three patterns taken together, another feature of redundance: and the redundance pregnant with error on the part of learners. Of the particulars in question, the tenor different in each species of deed: yet, whatever is capable of being taken for the subject-matter of a marriage settlement, is alike capable of being taken for the subject-matter of a sale, or a mortgage. Evil effects three: 1. Error liable to be produced in the minds of learners, in supposing the general necessity of the difference exhibited in the individual case; 2. and 3. Perplexity, and waste of labour, in examining the three, to ascertain whether such necessity has place. Sharers in these dangers, non-lawyers all: law-students as many, and tyro-lawyers not a few.

Note that, on the author’s own plan,—between the two species of dispositions, there are but two points of difference: one is—that, to which expression is given, by the substitution of the word charge in the deed of mortgage to the word sell in the deed of sale: the other regards the mode and result of the re-payment to be made of the money lent. Had the exhibition been thus confined to the points of difference, would not the aid given to conception have been rather more effectual? Of needless diversity, another bad effect is—the distracting the attention from the needful. “Eadem natura, eadem nomenclatura.” (Same the ideas, same the words should be.) In contemplation of the above inconvenveniences, this rule has been ventured to be delivered elsewhere. If it be worth remembering, the jingle in the Latin, the metre in the English, may have their use. In composition for ordinary purposes, the opposite propensity is in these days prevalent: when the import meant to be conveyed is the same, to find for each occasion a different expression, is the task the writer sets himself. Harmless, when clear and muddy, right and wrong, are matters of indifference: Not altogether so in legal instruments, on which every thing that is dear to man depends.

III.Emendandum the third. Sentences more lengthy than necessary. Lengthiness of the whole of a discourse is one thing: lengthiness of these its component parts, another. Of the lengthiness of the whole, consequences such as have just been seen, are the result. Lengthiness of the parts separately considered is the imperfection now more particularly meant to be brought to view. By the manner of printing, it looks as if the reduction of the apparent, superadded to that of the real, length of the whole, had been among the objects of our learned reformist’s ambition.

As to paragraphs, in no one of the three instruments does the letter-press exhibit the appearance of more than one. True, as to sentences, in the deed of sale, you might, if hard pushed, make any number, from one to five, according as you pointed the paragraph: though by the punctuation one only is there exhibited. But, in the mortgage deed, which in the length of the whole is much the same as that of the other, you cannot make more than one.

As to the marriage-settlement deed, not a single resting place was I able to find, till I came to the word Allen in the second page, line 24:* quantity of matter travelled through, these 24 lines added to the 26 lines in page the first:—total quantity, fifty lines:—more than half of the whole, with its three full pages, and its 96 lines. Here at length it is—that, in breach, as it should seem, of his original plan, as indicated by the letter-press, our learned draughtsman,—so completely had he run himself out of breath,—has, in compassion for self and readers, though it should seem not without reluctance, put down a full stop.

In page 3, line 14, having a proviso to put in, he of necessity begins a fresh sentence: but, as if to make us believe that no addition is thereby made to the number of the sentences, he has done by us (pardon the expression) rather unfairly: putting, instead of a period, no more than a comma, at the close of it. So again, when he comes to line 25 of this same third page, he plays us a similar trick: and, as if the better to disguise it,—at the commencement of this last proviso, he omits the distinctive type employed for the assistance of the eye at the commencement of the first.

Thus it is that, after so much as has been done by our learned reformist in the way of self-purification—purification of his style from the malady of lengthiness, the leprosy of lawyer-craft, still that which has been seen has as yet cleaved to it: to complete the purification, a little sprinkling, such as is here offered, of the cleansing water, remains wanting to it.

IV.Emendandum the fourth. Indication of Topics, none. Horrific, of course, to learned eyes, will be so flagrant an innovation, as the one, the absence of which is thus audaciously made a matter of charge. Lay-gents, however—and for them alone am I of counsel—Lay-gents will, I flatter myself, see a convenience in it. Besides the clearness and promptitude it gives to conception, it performs the function of a Macadamizing hammer, in breaking down the aggregate mass; so many topics, so many denominations; so many denominations, so many sentences.

So much as to lengthiness on the part of the discourse. Now as to the consequences of it on the part of the readers. For my own part, (ex-learned as I am, and therefore, if ever, no longer learned—in the law in general, and in conveyancing law in particular, never learned at all, till I got this smattering at the feet of my Gamaliel;)—for my own part, I confess my perplexity to have been extreme; as (I fear) will, by blunders, in I know not what number, be but too amply testified. Nor can I (for I am a little out of humour, and revenge is sweet;) nor can I (I say) altogether suppress my surprise, that in this perplexity I have had a sharer in my learned master himself:—witness, inter alia, the same exception thrice imbedded, twice repeated, at the expense of four lines out of the 96,† in this one principal paragraph.

Apropos of these same exception clauses, I may, perhaps, take the liberty of submitting to his consideration the course which anybody may take for evolving, and which I always take for avoiding, such involvements; but this, if anywhere, must be in another place. At any rate, examples in abundance may be seen in “Official Aptitude Maximized,” &c. just issuing from the press.

At the present writing, I must not neglect my clients: least of all my fair one, the heroine of the piece, for whose interest,—how ill-soever our learned reformist may think of me for the preference,—I cannot help feeling rather more solicitude than for his:—she having so much more at stake; and, in this her approaching condition, having so many ladies fair to share with her in the exigencies belonging to it. No: I will not think so meanly of her understanding, as not to suppose that,—how happy soever in her Mrs. Allen state,—it might not, on some occasion or other, occur to her, in her anxiety for the dear little ones, to cast an eye over this her magna charta, and, in its pages, as in a horoscope, seek to read their fate. This being supposed,—it cannot, I think, but be more or less matter of accommodation to her, to find in those same pages a possibility of understanding it. This accommodation, in so far as time and space would allow, it has, in the way that has been seen—and will, in another way, be more particularly seen,—been my humble endeavour to supply her with.

To render perceptible to sense the degree of improvement introduced by him in respect of lengthiness, the ingenuity of my learned master has, with happy effect, exhibited, in parallel pages, his proposed instruments, framed upon his reduced scale,—placing them by the side of those which he found in use. By the long succession of vacancies, the attention of the reader is in every two pages drawn anew to the difference; vacancies, in the deed of sale, 20; in the mortgage deed, 10; in the marriage settlement, 23. In the mind of his adventurous pupil, ambition, not altogether unmixed with a dash of envy and jealousy, has inspired a similar course; the dwarf upon the giant’s shoulders is an emblem which the temerity will be apt to present to recollection in the minds of readers. How small the utmost ulterior reduction I have been able to effect, will be obvious to every eye.

By the particular type employed in the re-print here given of author’s draught, indication is given of most of the words regarded as capable of being eliminated, without prejudice either to intelligibility or to certainty, supposing the form exhibited in the reviewer’s draught substituted. In the reviewer’s draught a further liberty is taken, by the insertion of a few additional topics, which, for the reasons given in the notes, afforded a prospect of being of use. By a correspondent sign these also are rendered, in like manner, more readily distinguishable.

I.

Deed of Sale.

Author’s Draught.(No Topics given.)

“Proposed Form of a Conveyance to a Purchaser*

“This deed madeathe 25th day of March 1926, Between Andrew Allen, ofNA of the one part,b and Benedict Butler, of NA of the other part, Witnesseth, that, in consideration of £1,000 sterlingc by the said Benedict Butler, now paid to the said Andrew Allen, for the absolute purchased of the property hereinafter mentioned. The said Andrew Allen Doth selle and conven unto the said Benedict Butler, All thatf message with the out-buildings, garden, and other appurtenancesg thereto belonging, And all those several parcels of arable meadow and pasture land therewith held, which premises contain in the whole five hundred acres, and are situate in the parish of Weston, in the county of Salop, and are now occupied by William Woodrow, And the same do together form a Farm usually called the Hope Farm, All which messuages and lands are particularly described in the Schedule heretoh annext by the names, quantities, qualities situations and other circumstances necessary for the distinction thereof.”

II.

Deed of Mortgage.1

Author’s Draught.(No Topics given.)

“Proposed Charge of a principal Sum with Interest.

“This deed made the 1st day of April 1927, Between Andrew Allen ofNA of the one, and Benedict Butler, ofNA of the other part, witnesseth, that, in consideration of five hundred pounds sterling by the said B. Butler to the said A. Allen, now lent and paid, the said A. Allen doth charge all that Messuage or dwelling-house, with the outhouses and gardens thereto belonging; also the three following parcels of land thereto adjoining and therewith occupied, namely, Blackacre, being meadow, containing ten acres; Greenacre, being pasture, containing four acres two roods; and Whitacre, being arable, containing eight acres; All which said premises are situate in the parish of Stoke, in the county of Hereford, and are now in the occupation of Giles Hall, with the appurtenances thereto belonging, with the payment to the said B. Butler, of the sum of five hundred pounds, with interest at four per cent. per annum, as follows, viz. half a year’s interest of the same sum to be paid on the 1st day of October, now next ensuing, and the said principal sum of five hundred pounds and another half year’s interest,2 for the same to be paid on the 1st day of April, which will be in the year 1928.”

III.

Marriage Settlement Deed.

Author’s Draught.(No Topics given.)

“A Marriage Settlement of Real Estate, under the Proposed Code.1

“This Deed made the First day of April 1926, Between Alfred Allen ofNA of the one part, and Clara Campbell ofNA of the other part, Witnesseth that in consideration of a Marriage agreed upon and about to be solemnized between the said A. Allen, and C. Campbell, He the said A. Allen, doth convey, charge, and settle, in the event of such marriage taking effect, and from and after the same, all and singular the Messuages, Cottages, Farms, and Lands, situate in the parish of Waring, in the county of Lincoln, comprised in the Schedule, to these presents, and therein particularly set forth by the names, quantities, qualities, situations, occupiers, and other circumstances necessary for the distinction thereof respectively, and all other, if any, the Messuages and Lands of or belonging to him the said A. Allen in the parish of Waring aforesaid, with the appurtenances thereto respectively belonging, and also all the impropriate tithes or tenths of corn, grain, and hay, and other great tithes or tenths whatsoever, and all moduses and other compositions for tithes or tenths yearly arising and payable from or in respect of all and singular the aforesaid lands and premises; to the person and persons respectively. With the several yearly and principal sums, and for the purposes following, viz. the said premises to stand and he charged with the clear yearly sum of two hundred pounds sterling to be paid to the said Clara Campbell, for her exclusive and inalienable enjoyment during the said intended intermarriage, and subject thereto, the premises to go to the said A. Allen, during his life, without impeachment of waste, and after his death, the said premises to stand charged with the clear yearly sum of five hundred pounds sterling, to be paid to the said Clara Campbell during her life in lieu of her legal interest in any lands to which the said A. Allen shall die entitled, and subject thereto, the said premises to stand and be charged with the sum of five thousand pounds as a provision for such child and children of the said intended marriage (except an eldest or only son, for the time being, entitled either absolutely or presumptively under the limitations next ensuing) and to vest and become payable at and in such time, or times and manner as hereinafter mentioned; and subject as aforesaid the said premises to go To such son of the said A. Allen, by the said C. Campbell, as shall first or alone attain the age of twenty-one years. or dying under that age shall leave issue of his body living or conceired at his death, and if there shall be no such son, then to all and every the daughter or daughters of the said A. Allen, by the said C. Campbell, who shall attain the age of twenty-one years, or dying under that age shall leave issue of her or their body or respective bodies, living at her or their death or respective deaths, in equal shares if more than one, and if there be but one such daughter, then the whole of the premises to that daughter. And if there shall be no child of the said intended marriage, who shall become absolutely entitled to the premises under the limitations aforesaid, then the said premises to go and revert to the said A. Allen. And as to the said sum of five thousand pounds hereinbefore charged for the benefit of such child or children of the said intended marriage (not being an eldest or only son for the time being entitled either absolutely or presumptively as aforesaid) as hereinafter mentioned. It is hereby declared that the same sum shall vest in and become payable to such child or children (except as aforesaid2 ,) or else in any one or more exclusively of the other or others of them at such age or time or respective ages or times, in such manner and with such dispositions over, to, or for the benefit of the other or others of the same children or any of them, as the said A. Allen shall at any time or times after the said intended marriage direct or appoint, [         ] And for want of such direction or appointment, or so far as the same, if incomplete, may not extend, the said charge, or the unappointed part thereof, shall vest in and go to all and every the children and child of the said intended marriage (other than an eldest or only son for the time being entitled as aforesaid) who shall attain the age of twenty-one years, or in the instance of a daughter or daughters shall marry under it, to be equally divided between such children if more than one, and if there shall be but one such child, then the whole of the said unappointed charge to vest in and go to such one child, and the same charge to be paid to such children or child respectively, at the same ages, or times, or age or time, if the same shall happen after the death of the said A. Allen. But if the same shall happen in his lifetime, then immediately after his death, provided always that after the death of the said A. Allen, and in case he shall have made no direction to the contrary, it shall be lawful for the guardian or guardians of any infant child or children of the said intended marriage presumptively entitled to a portion or portions under the said charge, to levy and raise any part or parts not exceeding in the whole for any such child, a moiety of such his, her, or their then eventful portion or portions, although the same shall not then have become vested, and to apply the money so to be raised for the preferment, advancement, or benefit of such child or children in such manner as such guardian or guardians shall in their or his discretion think fit, provided also that after the death of the said A. Allen, and in case he shall have made no direction to the contrary, it shall be lawful for any such guardian or guardians as aforesaid, to levy and raise3and apply for the maintenance and education of such child or children for the time being of the said intended marriage, as shall be presumptively entitled to a portion or portions under the said charge, in the mean time and until such his, her, or their eventual portion or portions shall become vested, such yearly sum or sums of money not exceeding what the interest of the same portion or portions would amount to at the rate of four pounds per cent. per annum were he, she, or they then absolutely entitled thereto.”

I.

Deed of Sale. AllentoButler,anno 1925.

Reviewer’s Draught,*(with Topics.)

• I. Parties Described.
• No. 1. Seller’s name.aAndrew Allen.
• 2. Seller’s conditions.bEsquire.
• 3. Seller’s habitation.c County, Shropshire; Parish, Weston; Spot, Allen Hall.
• 4. Purchaser’s name. Benedict Butler.
• 5. Purchaser’s condition. Butcher.
• 6. Purchaser’s habitation. County, Shropshire; Parish, Weston; Spot, Fore [Editor: illegible word]

• II. Subject-Matter Described.
• 7. Subject-matter of the sale—its species.dA Farm.
• 8. Subject-matter of the sale—its individual description. See Paper of Particulars hereto annext, marked A, and signed by the parties.

• III. Equivalent given for the Subject-Matter.
• 9. Purchase money.eOne thousand pounds

• IV. Time, Place, and Tokens of Agreement
• 10. Seller’s name in his hand-writing,f in token of agreement. Andrew Allen.
• 11. Dayg on which seller’s name was written. April first 1925.
• 12. Placeh in which seller’s name was written. Allen Hall, near Weston, Shropshire.
• 13. Purchaser’s name in his hand-writing, in token of agreement.iBenedict Butler.
• 14. Day on which purchaser’s name was written. April first 1925.
• 15. Place in which purchaser’s name was written. Weston, Shropshire.

II.

Deed of Mortgage.

AllentoButler,anno 1927.

Reviewer’s Draught(with Topics.)

• I.
• Parties Described.
• N 1. Pledger’s name. Andrew Allen.
• 2. Pledger’s condition. Esquire.
• 3. Pledger’s habitation. County, Shropshire; Parish, Weston; Spot, Allen Hall.
• 4. Lender’s name. Benedict Butler.
• 5. Lender’s condition. Butcher.
• 6. Lender’s habitation. County, Shropshire; Parish. Weston.

• II.
• Subject-matter Described.
• 7. Subject-matter of pledge—its species. A Farm.
• 8. Subject-matter of pledge—its individual description. See Paper of Particulars hereto annext, marked A, and signed by the parties.

• III.
• Sum Lent.
• 9. Sum of money lent. Five hundred pounds.
• 10. Species of money in which paid. Promissory notes of the Bank of Scotland.

• IV.
• Rate of Interest.
• No. 11. Rate of interest. Four pounds per year.

• V.
• Times for Payment.
• 12. Day, for re-payment of principal, unless respited, April first 1929.
• 13. Days, for half-yearly payments of interest. October first 1928; April first, 1929: so on, till repayment of principal.

• VI.
• Time, Place, and Tokens of Agreement.
• 14. Pledger’s name in his hand-writing, in token of agreement, and receipt of the money. Andrew Allen.
• 15. Day, on which pledger’s name was written. April first 1927.
• 16. Place, in which pledger’s name was written. Pledger’s House, Allen Hall, Weston, aforesaid.
• 17. Lender’s name in his hand-writing, in token of agreement. Benedict Butler.
• 18. Day, on which lender’s name was written. April first 1927.
• 19. Place, in which lender’s name was written. Pledger’s House, Allen Hall, Weston, aforesaid.

III.

Marriage Settlement Deed, AllenwithCampbell,anno 1929.

Reviewer’s Draft(with Topics.)

• I.
• Parties Described.
• No. 1. Intended husband’s name. Andrew Allen.
• 2. Intended husband’s condition. Esquire.
• 3. Intended husband’s habitation. County, Shropshire; Parish, Weston; Spot, Allen Hall.
• 4. Intended wife’s name. Clara Campbell.
• 5. Intended wife’s condition. Spinster.
• 6. Intended wife’s habitation. County, Shropshire, Parish, Weston; Spot, Cross Street.

• II.
• Subject-matter Described.
• 7. Subject-matter of Settlement—its species. Farms and Tithes.
• 8. Subject-matter of Settlement—its individual description. See Paper of Particulars hereto annexed, marked A, and signed by the parties.

• III.
• Provision for intended Wife’s Interest during the Marriage.
• 9. During the Marriage, pin-money.1Two Hundred Pounds per year.
• 10. This provision is a rent charge, charged2 upon the estate.
• 11. This rent charge is unalienable.3

• IV.
• Provision for intended Husband during his Life.
• 12. Subject to this charge, the estate remains to Andrew Allen during his life.
• 13. He is not impeachable for waste.4

• V.
• Provision for intended Wife in case of Widowhood.
• 14. On the death of intended husband, intended wife is to receive during life a jointure of Five Hundred Pounds per year.
• 15. This jointure is unalienable.
• 16. It is to be paid clear of all charges.
• 17. In consideration of it, she hereby gives up whatever provision she might otherwise have under the Code.5

• VI.
• Promsion as to Descendants who, subject to this jointure, are to become Heirs to the Estate: say the Estate-takers.
• Cases in which the Estate descends undivided.
• No. 18. Case 1. At the father’s death, a son alive: no nephew or niece of his, by any elder brother of his, alive: sisters or younger brothers of his alive or not in any number. To this son the estate passes undivided.
• 19. Case 2. At the father’s death, a daughter alive: no brother or sister of her’s alive, nor any nephew or niece of her’s, by any brother or sister of her’s. To this daughter the estate passes undivided.
• 20. Case 3. A son alive, daughters or younger sons alive or not: nephews or nieces of the son by an elder brother of his, alive in any number. To the eldest of these nephews,—or, if there be but one, to the only nephew; or, if no nephew, to the niece, if but one, the estate passes undivided.
• Cases in which the Estate descends divided.
• 21. Case 4. No son alive: nor son, or daughter, by any son. Daughters, in any number more than one, alive. To these daughters tho estate passes in equal shares.
• 22. Case 5. No son alive: a daughter or daughters alive: by a deceased sister of theirs, one niece of theirs alive. To the daughter or these daughters, with their niece, the estate passes in equal shares.
• 23. Case 6. No son alive: a daughter or daughters alive: by a deceased sister of theirs, nieces two or more alive. Among the daughters and their nieces, the estate passes divided. But the shares of the daughters are, as above, equal as between each other: so are those of the nieces. But the nieces, in whatever number by one sister, take among them no other share than that which would have been their sister’s had she been alive: so, if daughters more than one are all deceased, each leaving a daughter or daughters.
• 24. Case 7. &c. Upon the same plan, the estate will be divided through any number of generations: the share of each mother passing entire to her daughter, if but one; in equal shares among her daughters, if more than one: whatever be the number of her daughters, to her son, if but one; if sons, more than one, to the eldest.

• VII.
• Money Provision, for Children not taking part in the Estate: say the Money-takers. Apportioner, the father. In this provision, no child, having part in the Estate, has any part. Having the whole includes the having a part.
• 25. Sum total at his disposal, Five Thousand Pounds, charged on the estate, as per No. 10.
• 26. Share of each, whatsoever he appoints: the whole, any part, or no part.*
• 27. By deed, he may bind himself to any such child or children, or to any person on behalf of any such child or children, to charge the estate with any sum not exceeding the total charge, as per No. 25.
• 28. So likewise by last will, in so far as is consistent with what he has done by deed.
• 29. No money, advanced, in his lifetime, to, or for the benefit of, any such child, whether in the way of income, or in the way of capital,—will, unless by deed expressly so declared to be, be understood to be designed to be deducted out of the apportionment made as per Nos. 26, 27, 28.
• 30. No charge, endeavoured to be made by him on the estate, will have effect till after this settlement charge, as per No. 25, has been carried into effect.
• 31. To the receipt of any share of the portion-money, he may annex all such conditions not prohibited by law, as he thinks fit.
• 32.Maintenance. For this purpose, upon the principal of any such child’s portion he may pay, or direct to be paid,—to such child, or to any person on account of, such child,—interest at any rate mentioned by him, for any length of time up to full age or marriage; at which time the principal, or what remains of it, will be to be paid.
• 33. For any payment, as per Nos. 26 or 32, he may assign any time he pleases.
• 34. Of the portion-money obtained under this settlement,—whatsoever part, if any remains undisposed of by the father, is to be divided among the children, and the descendants, if any, of the children, in equal portions, after the several manners mentioned in Nos. 21, 22, 23, 24.

• VIII.
• Subject to father’s direction, powers to Guardian, of children not having part in the estate.
• 35. Out of the principal, he may employ, for the benefit of any such child in the way of advancement, any sum not exceeding the half of his or her portion.
• 36. So yearly for maintenance (education included) any sum not exceeding interest at four per cent. upon the principal.
• 37. On the death of any such child before full age or marriage,—his or her portion, whatsoever part of it remains not disposed of, as per Nos. 35, 36, is to be paid to the surviving child, if one; to the surviving children, in equal portions, if more than one. Hence, before arrival at full age or marriage, the portion of any child may, by his or her own death, have been extinguished altogether, or by the death of others, augmented. But, in the allotments made of advancement-money, as per No. 35, neither of those contingencies is to be taken into account. The sum employable at all times for the benefit of each child, in both ways, is the whole, or the remainder, of the sum belonging to him or her on the day of the father’s decease.6
• 38. For the times of payment in the several cases, and the mode of giving execution and effect to the several provisions, see the Code.
• 39. If, at intended husband’s decease there be no child, or descendant of any child, alive,—the estate, subject to widow’s jointure, as per No. 14, is at his disposal, and failing such disposal, passes to his heirs.7
• 40. Intended husband’s name, in his handwriting, in token of agreement. Andrew Allen.
• 41. Day, on which intended husband’s name was written. May first, 1929.
• 42. Place, in which intended husband’s name was written. Weston, Shropshire.
• 43. Intended wife’s name, in her handwriting, in token of agreement. Clara Campbell.
• 44. Day, on which intended wife’s name was written. May first, 1929.
• 45. Place, in which intended wife’s name was written, Weston, Shropshire.8

OUTLINE OF A PLAN OF A GENERAL REGISTER OF REAL PROPERTY:

CONTAINED IN A Communication to the Commissioners appointed under Letters Patent, of date the 6th June 1828, to inquire into the Law of England respecting Real Property, and first printed in the Appendix to their Third Report, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 24th May 1832.

Gentlemen,—1. By your circular, dated the 6th and 8th of August 1829, and addressed to various persons, of whom 1 then was, and now continue to be, one, you were pleased to call for suggestions on the subject of registration, as applied to men’s titles to the subject-matters of the sort of property termed in English law real property. The present paper is written and presented to you in obedience to that call.

2. By your letter of the 18th of August 1829, addressed to myself alone, in answer to mine to you of the 15th of that same month, you were pleased to honour me with an assurance in these words: “They” (meaning you the said commissioners) “have no hesitation in saying, that they should think it their duty to include whatever may proceed from him” (meaning myself) “in any appendix to the report which they may hereafter make to his Majesty.” On this assurance the present communication places its reliance.

3. The observations here submitted have for their immediate, appropriate, and by you expressly authorized subject-matter, the plan proposed for the institution in question by yourselves. But, by this as by any other proposal which is transmitted to any person for examination, reference, if not expressed at any rate implied, is made, or authorized to be made, to some determinate set of notions considered as constituting a standard of propriety,—in a word, to some principle or set of principles. I shall therefore, in so far as my own conception of my competence extends, take the preliminary liberty of submitting to you the leading features of the sort of plan which, to myself, presents itself as most eligible, prefaced by a short exposition of the principles from which they emanated, and to which they look for their support.

4. Superior utility and novelty. In these I behold two qualities, the union of which is indispensably necessary to constitute a sufficient warrant for any such communication as that in question. Yes, novelty: for in the idea of absence of novelty is included absence of usefulness, presence of uselessness. So far is novelty, when taken by itself, and not alleged to have inaptitude for its accompaniment—so far, I say, is it from constituting any reasonable ground of objection to a plan for this or any other purpose.

5. If this be true, what shall we say—what shall we think—of those by whom, without controverting the utility of a proposed plan, be it what it may, the alleged novelty is held up to view in the character of a ground for the rejection of it—of those, in a word, by whom the word innovation is employed as a token of disapprobation and an instrument of censure?

6. As to my own competence, I consider it, and accordingly speak of it, as having certain defined and precise limits, and on the outside of those limits lies all information as to all such matters of fact the knowledge of which is not capable of being possessed by an individual not actually engaged in the practice of the profession, which has for the subject-matter of its exercise the subject-matter of the commission in virtue of which you have been pleased to make this call upon me; whatsoever, therefore, I shall venture to propose, you will understand as calling upon you for amendment, as far as requisite; amendment, in every one of its three shapes—subtraction, addition, and substitution.

7. On this occasion, the part which I take in the business will be seen to confine itself to the giving a comparatively small number of suggestions, by the adoption of which, if, and in so far as, my view of the matter is correct, it would be put into a new, and that the most appropriate conceivable form.

8. In and by various parts of my publications, I stand pledged to the public never to propose or advocate—never to oppose and combat—any law or institution actually established, or proposed to be established, without attaching to it an accompaniment, composed of reasons; meaning by reasons, considerations having for their object the showing in what manner, immediately, or through the medium of a chain of any length, of causes and effects, the arrangement proposed presents itself as likely to give a net increase to the happiness of the person or persons in question; that is to say, to the balance on the side of pleasure, after deduction made of the quantity of pain experienced during the period in question. As on all other occasions, so on this, by this engagement I regard myself as bound.

9. In one of those same publications, in particular, the subject-matter of consideration comprehends the entire aggregate of all the several sorts of functionaries of which the official establishment of any country is, or in the nature of things can be, composed; those here in question are consequently comprised; and throughout that work may be seen a specimen of the above-mentioned accompaniment, namely, in the instance of every article which has for a heading the word ratiocinative. The work I am alluding to is that which has for its title “Constitutional Code; for the use of all Nations and all Governments professing Liberal Opinions.”

10. So much as to my plan. Now, gentlemen, as to yours, considered in like manner with reference to reasons. Your plan is before the public; with all due deference, what I have to propose is a somewhat different one. Your reports on the subject lie before me. I look in them for reasons: I find in them no such thing. A bill, moved for in pursuance of those same reports, has been before the public. I look in it for reasons: neither in that same proposed law do I find any such thing. As in the one instrument, so in the other, stat pro ratione voluntas. As for me,—my will not having any chance for the being clothed and armed with legal power,—the power of reason, if I can find any on my side, is my sole resource: stat pro voluntate ratio.

11. Is it even unprecedented, this same accompaniment? Look to Westminster Hall. In Westminster Hall, when in a judicatory, a judge, and in particular a Chief-Justice, bears his part in the making of the sort of decision called a judgment, and, for a ground of that same judgment, delivers his opinion; in this case, if the importance of the matter presents itself to him as calling for any further support, he fails not to deliver his reasons.

12. Again. When, from the judgment of one judicatory, a party makes his appeal to another judicatory; in this case, also, a man submits to the superior authority in question his reasons.

13. Now then, gentlemen,—in your quality of learned gentlemen, let me ask you—if in the business of judicature a support of this kind is needful, how much stronger is not the need of it that has place in the business of legislation?—that business, to the importance of which, the extent of the consequences considered, the importance of the business of judicature is but as number one to infinity.

14. Not altogether insensible to this demand has the Legislature of this country been even in its hitherto corrupted state. At the commencement of a statute, something in the guise of reason has been customarily and regularly served out. Served out! Yes; but of what sort? Of a sort such as a Bridoison in the drama of Figaro, or the Old Woman in the history of Little Red-Riding-hood, or a legislator in the land of Gotham, might have been proud of.

15. “Whereas it is expedient”—With these four words commences the train of surplusage, of which, under Matchless Constitution, the greatest part of an act of Parliament is so regularly composed: of these words is composed the whole of that portion of matter in which the draughtsman places his trust, in the character of a justification for the exercise made by him of that authority of which he is the organ, when laying about him and scattering broad-cast the seeds of good and evil, with so little expense in the shape of thought.

16. Now then as to the particular bill above alluded to. In that same bill, on looking into it for reasons, though I cannot find any such thing, yet what I do find is the just-named something which seems intended to serve instead of reasons. It is composed of those same four words—“Whereas it is expedient:” it is that same Vox et præterea nihil. I speak thus freely; because, if in that same dictum there be anything of fatuity, or if you please, of silliness (and in my view of the matter, that there is, in abundance,) you, gentlemen, are not, any of you, chargeable with it. How little soever in accordance with reason, this phrase, it cannot be denied, is most perfectly in accordance with precedent: without it, this or that high functionary, whose name, official and personal, sooner or later shall and will be made publicly known,—inasmuch as his remuneration has been made to rise, in proportion as the rule of action has, by its immensity, and obscurity, and richness in surplusage, been made to increase in inaptitude for its professed purpose,—this self-authorized and self-paid comptroller of the authority of the King in Parliament, this secret imposer of taxes for his own benefit, might find the bill incomplete, and as such find himself obliged to throw it overboard.

17. Houses, honourable and right honourable, have each of them its standing orders. They have in common this one standing reason. It is as good for one thing as another: for one proposed enactment as for another. In this its aptitude, however, there is nothing of peculiarity: nothing but what might be shared with it by any other four words, drawn, in the way of lottery, out of a dictionary.

18. Such is the sort of embellishment belonging to a bill—meaning a future contingent statute. Of a piece with it—in exact keeping with it—are, in a speech, the two locutions—“contrary to every principle of justice,” and “contrary to the first principles of justice,” bearing upon the face of them the marks of the above-mentioned country of Gotham, as the country from which these commodities were, all of them, imported.

19. But, of this last-mentioned embellishment, the ground to which it is suited, and on which it is commonly embroidered, being, not a bill, but a speech, I find not any exemplification in the authoritative article of piece-goods I have been speaking of. Only, therefore, for elucidation,—or, if you please, for illustration,—not for justification, is the mention made which I have ventured thus to make of it.

20. Happily, a new order of things is at length born. Nonsense will not, for ever, sit on the throne of common sense.

21.Reasons, principles, ends, means, rules, maxims, axioms, positions, propositions. On the present occasion, had I to do that which, on some future occasion I may not impossibly have to do,—namely, in my address to you, to take for the subject-matter of it the whole of the field of real property,—in that case, in the character of principles, I might have to submit to your consideration no fewer than seven-and-twenty words, or sets of words, which, in the form of a tree, composed of a trunk with branches and sub-branches, called by logicians in former days the arbor porphyrum, lie at this moment before my view; and with them would come the whole cortége (as the French say) of the genera generalissima above-mentioned: for, wheresoever I tread, my wish and endeavour is to find, and if I do not find to make, my foundation sure. Happily for us all, on the present occasion, not more than two of these principles will it be necessary for me to trouble you with; with the addition of a small quantity of matter, under the head of reasons and that of ends and means: and a few preparatory propositions, which present themselves to my view, as being relevant, conclusive, and incontestable.

22. These principles are—1. The greatest happiness principle, or say, the happiness-maximizing principle; and, 2. The disappointment-minimizing, or say disappointment-preventing, or say non-disappointment-principle. Yes, verily, the disappointment-minimizing principle. Nay, good gentlemen, do not be horrified by it; for here, not only on sure ground do I tread, but, as you will see, on authoritative ground; on ground, which you will find yourselves estopped from denying to be authoritative.

23. As to my reasons, what I cannot but apprehend is, that by the mention thus and here made of them, may be called to the minds of some of you the image of the old steward in Addison’s drama of the Haunted House, who, after speaking of reasons and of many reasons, goes on to say, “at present I shall mention only seven:” but for this I must take my chance.

24. Now for my authority. Truly gratifying it is to me on this occasion, to find in accordance with this notion of mine about disappointment, the opinion, as proved by the practice, of a distinguished member of your own body. It preserves, in the completest manner, from the reproach cast by the word theoretical, this same disappointment-minimizing principle.

25. In the so admirably instructive and useful work of Mr. Tyrrell, intituled “Suggestions sent to the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Laws of Real Property,” I have the satisfaction of seeing this same principle three several times referred to as the ground of the arrangements which he recommends.

I. In page 121—“The expense, uncertainty, and disappointment, which usually attend suits for long-forgotten claims, render them,” says he, “a source of more injury than benefit to the church.”

26. II. In page 239—“Tithes, under a descent,” says he, “can never be considered secure, until the right of the devisee has been barred; and a few cases of hardship to disappointed devisees are not,” continues he, “of so much importance as the advantage—the safe alienation of property.” Thus far Mr. Tyrrell.

27. And if such is the inferiority of the importance of these few cases of hardship to disappointed devisees, whence comes this same inferiority?—whence comes it (I ask) but from this, namely, that, in the cases in which by the result the alienation has been shown to be unsafe, disappointment has been produced by that same result, and that these cases having been more numerous than those others, the sum of the pain that has thereby been produced in these last-mentioned cases, is greater than that which has been produced in the first-mentioned cases?

28. III. Lastly, in page 312—speaking of of the wording of a certain devise (the particulars of which are not material to this purpose,) he gives as the reason of the construction (or, as a non-lawyer might say, the interpretation,) he recommends, this—namely, that “if no gift had been made to the owner of the property, the person to whom it was devised must” (he says) “have been disappointed;” meaning evidently that, on the supposition, that, if in the sort of case in question, the disposition made of the property in question by the judge, is that which he (Mr. Tyrrell) recommends,—on that supposition in the breast of the party in whose disfavour that same disposition operated either no such pain at all would be produced, or if any (pecuniary circumstances being supposed to be on both sides equal,) the pain would not be so great as in the contrary case.

29. I come now to speak of ends and means: ends, the attainment of which ought to be kept in view and aimed at, on the occasion of whatever arrangements come to be taken for the establishment of the proposed institution, and are accordingly aimed at, in the suggestions which here follow. These ends are distinguishable into two—namely, the primary and the secondary.

30. First, as to the primary end. The evil, against which a remedy is hereby endeavoured to be applied, consists in the unexpected loss of money or money’s worth: the primary end aimed at is—the prevention of this loss.

31. Then, as to the secondary end. On the occasion, and for the purpose, of the application of this remedy, a certain series of operations, or (as among lawyers the phrase is) a certain course of procedure is necessary: on which occasion, evil to a greater or less amount in the several shapes of delay, expense, and vexation, cannot but have place. In the remedy we behold a benefit; in this last-mentioned evil we behold a burthen, attached to that same benefit; and what remains, after subtraction of the amount of the burthen, will be the amount, or say clear value, of the benefit; and the institution having for its primary end the conferring on the individuals interested that same benefit; the minimization of this same burthen is that which it has for its secondary end.

32. Just so is it in the case where, instead of a register-office, the scene lies in a court of justice; the benefit sought is a remedy against wrong; and this is what that institution has for its primary end; the attached burthen consists here also of evil in these same several shapes of delay, expense, and vexation: and the minimization of the evil, in these its several shapes, has been considered and spoken of as that which the institution of a court of justice, with its course of procedure, has for its secondary end.

33. On examination made into the manner in which these two ends—the primary and the secondary—may most effectually be attained, namely, by the maximization of aptitude on the part of the matériel as well as the personnel (to borrow a phrase from the war department)—that is to say, the building or buildings, and its or their official inhabitants,—together with the minimization of the expense—my eyes have fixed upon seven distinguishable objects in the character of means, each of them, for the attainment of one or both of these two ends; and, within the field of each of these seven objects, means of a more particular nature, which, with reference to them, may be styled means of effectuation; and which I shall accordingly designate by such their proper name.

34.Objects and means of effectuation taken together, thinking that to this or that one of you, gentlemen, it may perhaps be matter of convenience to have them upon occasion visible, all of them, at one and the same glance, I have given expression to the tout ensemble of them on the same side of a leaf of paper, in and by a table, which will almost immediately present itself to your view.

35. Of the evil, the prevention of which constitutes the primary end, five different modifications may be distinguished, each liable to fall on a correspondent description or class of persons: the diversity in the description of these same modifications of the evil will be seen to have for its cause a correspondent diversity in the relative situations of the classes of persons who stand opposed to it.

36. In all five cases, the loss, with the suffering consequent upon it, has for its efficient cause the badness of the title to the subject-matter of property in question. In some one of these same cases, the suffering has for its immediate cause the actual loss of an immovable subject-matter of property or some interest therein; in others, loss in the shape of money; in others, again, that which the suffering has for its immediate cause, is that which may with more propriety be considered as non-acquisition of profit or say benefit, than positive loss or say burthen.

37. Here, then, in the aggregate, are so many cases of suffering, which, when regarded separately, may be thus described:

I. Case the first.—Sufferer, a person who is in possession or in fixt expectancy of a subject-matter of real property, or of an interest therein, the title to which, for want of some piece of evidence, some saving knowledge, which a registration office would have taken charge of and rendered accessible to all persons interested, turns out to be bad.

38. II. Case the second.—Sufferer, a person who, having paid money for the purchase of a subject-matter of real property, or of an interest therein, fails of receiving it; he who, in return for the money, has undertaken to cause him to receive it, finding himself rendered, by the badness of his title to it, unable so to do; say, in six words, a purchaser on a bad title.

39. III. Case the third.—Sufferer, a person who, having paid money on the security of a subject-matter of real property, or interest therein, in such sort that if the money, with the interest due upon it, fails of being put into his hands on or before a certain point of time, the thing itself, or money to be raised by the sale of it, as above, will be put into those same hands, is by that same cause prevented from so receiving it; say, in six words, a lender on a bad title.

40. IV. Case the fourth.—Sufferer, a would-be seller with a bad title; prevented from becoming actual seller of it by the badness of his title to it.

41. V. Case the fifth.—Sufferer, a would-be purchaser, if prevented from becoming actual purchaser by the badness of the would-be seller’s title.

In these two last cases, as well as in the three first, suffering has place; and that suffering has disappointment for its cause. But, in these same cases, the nature and the immediate cause of the evil are too diversified, miscellaneous, and uncertain, to admit of any more particular description here.

42. Now for the above-mentioned string of preparatory propositions.

I. The institution for the existence and organization of which you are occupied in making preparation, consists of a building, or set of buildings, to be employed in the character of a register-office, or set of register-offices, together with an official establishment for the carrying on the business by the performance of which the benefit contemplated is designed to be conferred on the several persons interested.

43. II. This benefit consists in the preserving from deperition, and keeping in a state of accessibility to all persons lawfully interested, a certain class of written instruments, or say documents, which have been framed for the purpose of affording, upon occasion, sufficient evidence of men’s right and title to property of a certain description, distinguished by the name of real property.

44. III. Of this benefit, the principal, if not the only intrinsically valuable, but at any rate abundantly sufficient, use, consists in the preserving the several proprietors and other persons respectively interested, from the pain of disappointment; namely, that pain, or say that uneasiness, which a man experiences when, without his consent, any thing valuable which he has been in the habit of looking to as his own, ceases so to be looked upon by him; which said uneasiness has not place in the mind of any person who has not been in that same habit or state of mind in relation to that same thing. “Blessed is he that expecteth not, for he shall not be disappointed,” says an addition proposed to be made to the beatitudes, if I misrecollect not, by Dean Swift.

45. IV. Of these two parts of the institution, neither can be brought into or kept in existence and applied to use, without a quantity, more or less considerable of expense in the shape of money.

46. V. This money is not obtainable but by means of taxes.

47. VI. In so far as taxes are imposed, money is taken from persons without their consent; and thereby, in their minds, a quantity, more or less considerable, of pain produced.

48. VII. As to aptitude. The more complete the relative aptitude of the several persons so employed, relation had to their respective official operations, the better. So likewise of the dead stock.

49. VIII. To come back to the expense, that that and aptitude may be considered in conjunction. The less the expense employed in the purchase of their respective services, so long as that aptitude is not thereby diminished, as well as in the provision made of the dead stock, the better.

50. IX. For giving, in the most concise and easily-remembered form, in the compass of seven words, expression to both these so intimately-connected positions, existence has been given to this one rule—Let official aptitude be maximized, expense minimized.

Now comes the promised Table of Objects, and means of effectuation.

I. Object the First—Expense minimized:—Proposed means of effectuation, these—

1. Building, for reception of the stock, one and no more than one.

2. Assistant registrars, or say registrar deputes, superfluous none.

3. Of assistant registrars, or say registrars depute, the salaries minimized by competition. And see Object III.

4. Of registrar deputes during the probationary year, the service gratuitous.

5. For an object of reference, map of the whole territory: and see Object V.

6. For exemplars of the documents, the manifold mode of writing employed: and see Object VI.

II. Object the Second—Delay minimized—delay of the service rendered to the suitors:—Means of effectuation, these—

1. Attendance uninterrupted—adequate to all demands.

2. Profit to functionaries from delay, none in any shape.

III. Object the Third—Aptitude of the several Functionaries Maximized:—Means of effectuation, these—

1. Sinister interest excluded, by the complete substitution of salary to fees: branch of appropriate aptitude thereby secured, the moral.

2. Probationership, antecedently to definitive location: branches of aptitude thereby secured, the intellectual and active.

3. Securities for appropriate aptitude, in all its branches, numerous; and effectual (as will be seen) beyond all example.

IV. Object the Fourth—Aptitude of the Machinery maximized:—Means of effectuation, these—

1. The arrangements regarded by anticipation as being best adapted having been appointed by parliament, head registrar (he being divested of all sinister interest) empowered to make eventually effective amendments, by the light of experience, subject to disallowance by King or either House.

V. Object the Fifth—Security for the efficiency of this same process of registration maximized:—Means of effectuation, these—

1. Object of reference, in the description given of the parcels, an all-comprehensive map of the whole territory, as per Object I., exclusive of maps of districts.

VI. Object the Sixth—Extent of the application made of this same remedy maximized:—Means of effectuation, these—

1. Subject-matters of property (moveable excepted) all admitted; copyholds, leaseholds and incorporeal; thence, in correspondent number, the proprietors.

2. Fees exacted or permitted, none; thence the relatively unopulent not excluded from the benefit of the remedy.

3. The manifold mode of writing employed, as per Object I.; thence, expense in remuneration of skilled labour saved to suitors, and the number of exemplars furnished rendered correspondent to the demand.

VII. Object the Seventh—Minimization of the burthen with which the benefit is clogged:—Means of effectuation, these—

1. Fees (as above) none. See Objects I. and VI.

2. Means of communication for documents and other writings, the letter-post; thence, expense of separate communication through skilled labour, saved.

In relation to these several means of effectuation, now follow the promised explanatory and justificative matters in detail.

Now then for these several Objects and means of effectuation in detail.

I.First Object to be accomplished—the Expense minimized:—Means of effectuation, these—

1. Means the first:—Building, for the lodgment of the whole stock—materiel and personnel (as the phrase is in French) together,—one and no more than one.

Already, if I do not misunderstand the matter, your leaning, gentlemen, is strongly in favour of this maximum of simplicity. Lest, however, after all, the determination should not otherwise be on that side, I will take the liberty of submitting to your consideration, an experiment which, in days of yore it fell into my way to make.

In the year 1796 or thereabouts (the year is not material,) Pitt the second formed a plan, and brought in a bill accordingly, for making provision for the whole pauper population of England, by means of a workhouse, under particular management, in every parish or small union of parishes. I took this plan in hand, and demonstrated that it would not do; for that, besides other objections, the difference in respect of the quantity of capital necessary between that plan and one that I pointed out, would not be less than fifteen unillions. With all his faults,—such was the candour and magnanimity of that god of so many idolatries,—he gave up his own plan, took to mine, and a day was appointed for settling the details of it, when it was crushed by a veto from on high, the details of which belong not to the present purpose. The demonstration in question may be seen in four successive articles of Arthur Young’s Annals of Agriculture. Put together, the sheets, some copies of which he presented to me, constituted a moderate-sized 8vo volume, which I propose ere long to reprint, under the title of Pauper Management, prefaced by a history of the above-alluded-to catastrophe.

It will form part and parcel of the history of the war carried on for not less than three-and-twenty years, between George the Third, of blessed memory, and one of his rebellious subjects. I mention thus much, gentlemen, lest, when you read of the capital of fifteen millions left out of his calculation by the heaven-born minister, you should suspect that while speaking of it I was in a dream.

I present to view this incident the rather because in the calculation of the expenses, projectors, however talented, are but too apt to overlook this or that item, which, when brought to light, appears to such a degree obvious, that the omission of it becomes a source of no small surprise.

Thus again: when the late Mr. James Humphreys came out with his plan for an inquiry into the subject of real property, the expense of that part of it which had for its object the obtaining no more than one portion of the information requisite, would have amounted to between four and five hundred thousand pounds. In a paper of mine in the Westminster Review, is shown how the like information might be, because it had been, obtained for next to no expense. So again, when Mr. Windsor, projector of the gas light system, came out with his proposal, an expense, the mention of which was not to be found in them, was that of the pipes by which this so useful species of air is conducted to its several destinations.

2. Means of minimization of expense the second—minimization of the number of the paid functionaries employed.

Minimization of the number of the functionaries employed? methinks I hear the draughtsman and the supporters of the existing bill exclaiming—Minimization of this part of the expense? Is that then the utmost that your plan does, or so much as professes to do? Ours exonerates the public of it altogether: it lays the burthen on the shoulders of individuals; and these, the only ones on whom it ought to press; that is to say, those by whom the accompanying benefit is enjoyed.

Answer 1. Applied to the institution in question, this measure of economy has for its ground the assumption, that the institution is of no use; for, in no inconsiderable proportion, those persons in whose instance the demand for the benefit has place, are those who have not wherewithal to pay for it; and if, for the good of the whole community taken in the aggregate, it be desirable, that for the sake of this species of saving, the benefit should be denied to this part of the whole population, so likewise is it desirable that that same denial should have place in the case of all the rest.

2. Then, as to those in whose instance no such complete inability has place, the less a man’s ability to bear the burthen is, the more severely is the pressure of it felt by him. Be the price that will be thus set upon the benefit what it may, some there will be by whom it will no more be felt, than by the man by whom a halfpenny is given to a beggar is the loss of the halfpenny; while others there will be on whom it will press with all degrees of pressure, up to that which would be produced by his being deprived of the whole of what he has to live upon.

3. In a word, this assumes the shape given to the remuneration of the functionary to be that of payment by fees; and from that mode of payment results an increase given to the expense in another way, which will be brought to view hereinafter under another head; namely, by giving increase to the number of the occasions on which the money will have to be paid. Assessed upon the public fund, the burthen presses upon each man’s shoulders in exact proportion to his ability to bear it; that is to say, in so far as the system of taxation is what it ought to be.

In another work of mine,* for the accomplishment of the desideratum here in question,—that is to say, the minimization of the number of paid functionaries and thereby of the aggregate expense of that pay—may be seen means applicable to functionaries in general, and accordingly to those here in question,—namely, power and obligation to the principal functionary to locate unpaid deputies in sufficient numbers. What may there be seen is—how the matter may be so managed as that there shall always be functionary power enough, and never more than enough: such being made, at all times, the interest of the principal, by whom these auxiliaries are located. As to this matter see below.

3.Third instrument of minimization applicable to the expense of the institution, competition applied to the remuneration of the functionaries.

If the security for appropriate aptitude on the part of the competitors were in any degree deficient, from this same deficiency an objection might be opposed to the use of this instrument of frugality; but the security which will here be proposed will be seen to be entire, and completely satisfactory; and this being the case, the objection vanishes.

As to any other objection to the application of the competition-applying principle, on those who object to the application of it in this case—on those, if any such persons there be, who approve of it in any other instance—is it incumbent to declare why it is that they disapprove of the application of it in the present instance. He who disapproves of monopoly in any one other instance, let him say on what ground it is that he approves of monopoly in this instance. To be consistent, he must approve of monopoly on the part of dealers, applied to everything in relation to which he here accords it to purchasers: the food he keeps himself from death with, the clothes he covers himself with, the labour by which he makes provision for his several other wants, whatever it may happen to them to be.

Whence then came the banishment of this instrument of frugality from this part of the labour market? Whence but from the sinister interest, to the action of which those on whose will the settlement of the matter has depended, stood exposed: to them belonging the power of location, applied to the official situation to which, on each occasion, the remuneration was to be attached, the higher the remuneration the greater the benefit to themselves: their attachment is to that part of the benefit which was reaped exclusively by themselves: not to speak of the benefit produced by the emolument, in its quality of part and parcel of the aggregate stock of the matter of corruption—a benefit in which they were but sharers.

But (says a common place argument, which, on every such occasion, may be heard from the lips and even from the pens of corruptionists,) screw down a man’s remuneration in this way, he will raise it up again by whatever instruments lie within his reach. Answer, that has been given over and over again—True, that’s what he will do if it be reduced thus low; but so will he, be it ever so high: and the higher it is, the more effective the power—the greater the facility—it gives him for screwing it still higher and higher, till he screw it up to the height of that of a king; and to crown all, to that of an emperor. Look to France—look to Louis Philippe with his Civil List of £360,000 for five months—£864,000 for twelve months. Look to the United States; compare the £864,000 with President Jackson’s £5000 or £6000 a-year.

So, if what is proposed is that the situation, with the remuneration attached to it, be made a subject-matter of purchase, he that purchases (say they) will make the most of what he purchases: just as high as the profit can be screwed up by him, just so high will it be.

Such then is the policy of these same enemies of the community and lovers of themselves: what they refuse to make application of, consists of all the several instruments by the application of which the evil is capable of being reduced: what they do make application of, is the sort of instrument by the application of which the evil is maximized.

Thus it is in the case of the most profusely remunerated of all functionaries, and (such in his situation is the nature of man,) naturally most unapt in point of intellectual and active appropriate aptitude of all functionaries: by the half million which is openly and avowedly given to him—by this it is that he is enabled to obtain in the shape of patronage—patronage of needless, and to us, useless offices, so many millions, which are not openly and avowedly, but at a vast ulterior expense covertly, given to him.

To the application made of this rule, principle, and source of economy, one exception, and one alone, there must be. On the occasion of application made of the securities in question, the existence of antecedent experience of the conduct of the functionaries in question in that same situation is supposed and is necessary. But, at the outset of the institution, by the supposition, no such experience can have had place. This exception then is a necessary one. Such at any rate will it be pronounced by those to whom it belongs to determine; and advantageous indeed will be the compromise, if with no other than this exception, they can prevail upon themselves, or be prevailed upon, to give their concurrence to this rule.

To the functionaries first located in the several situations in question, let them then assign such remuneration as on the score of as being in accordance with the masses of the matter of remuneration attached to the general run of the existing stock of official situations they would attach, were no such measure of economy as this brought to view: much good may it do them: molerate is the boon that can be claimed for them on the score of assured competence, self-denial and disinterestedness.

4. Fourth instrument of minimization applicable—gratuitousness of the service of deputes during the probationary time—say a twelvemonth.

Refuse to see who can, escape from seeing who can, deny who can venture, the efficiency of this test of aptitude. Of those by whom, in any tolerable degree, appropriate aptitude is possessed, who is there that will decline submitting to it? What danger can there be that by his submission to this test, any diminution of the requisite or desirable share of appropriate aptitude will, in the instance of the functionaries located on these terms, be produced?

Nor less favourable to the interests and feelings of the individuals in question will these arrangements be, than to the interest of the public in respect of the aptitude of its functionaries. By no individual, who in his own eyes is not able to abide this test—by no individual who is not desirous of its being so—will application of this test be made. Made then, to the satisfaction of all persons concerned, this same application of this same test will be. And on the part of each and every one of those who do not abide it, how small, in comparison will consequent suffering be? “The plan does not suit me,” says the man:—or, “I do not choose to serve in it on such terms:” and, of either of these assertions, in what way and by whom, can the verity be contested?

But under Matchless Constitution, of those on whom it depends it is the interest that throughout this as well as every other part of the official establishment, the quantity of appropriate aptitude rendered necessary on the part of the several functionaries, should be not the greatest possible, but the least possible, consistently with the keeping the government, and with it their sinister profit in all shapes, from falling to pieces: for, the greater the degree of aptitude exacted and rendered necessary, the greater will be the odds against their several relatives and other protégés,—the greater the chance that by their being found not to be possessed of it in so high a degree as their several competitors, they will stand excluded.

II.Second Object to be accomplished, minimization of delay in the service rendered to each several suitor.

1. Means of effectuation the first—Assistant Registrars, or say Registrars Depute, superfluous, none.

The number of the functionaries employed being given, the degree in which the object now in question is accomplished, will be proportioned to the quantity of attendance exacted of each such functionary: that is to say, as the number of the days on which attendance is paid by him in each year, and the number of the hours during which such attendance is paid by him on each such day.

As to the number of each man’s days of attendance in the year, deductions from the whole number of days in the year are called for, not only by the need of attendance on his private business, but by what is due to health and comfort, as well as by what is understood to be due to religion.

On the score of religion, allowed to each functionary days of non-attendance—say the fifty-two Sabbath days, with the addition of Christmas Day and Good Friday.

Hours of attendance exacted, all those on which suitors in general are inclined to repair to the spot for the purpose of receiving the appropriate service. A precise standard of reference is presented to view by the greatest number of hours habitually exacted at the hands of any functionary in any of the existing public offices.

For the number of vacation days to be allotted for the purpose, this same standard of reference may serve: say as many consecutive days as there are in [four] weeks; subject to the being, in the instance of each individual, dispersed, and placed in different parts of the year, by agreement amongst the several individuals concerned.

In addition to these ascertainable times of absentation, the accidental occurrence of sickness suffices to demonstrate, to any rational mind, the unreasonableness of any reliance on altogether uninterrupted attendance. To Matchless Constitution alone does it belong to expose the most important part of the business, as in the case of Honourable House, to be put to a stand by sickness on the part of one of its members.

Note here that, in this case as in all others, if for any part of the service rendered by the functionary, instead of or in addition to salary, remuneration were appointed or left to take the shape of fees, the purpose here in question will be but too largely frustrated. For multiplication of the fees, maximization will be made of the number of the times, and thence of the aggregate of the times, of attendance: with intervals between the several times,—and thence of the quantity of delay which each business will experience. This will already (it is hoped) be found sufficiently evident; if not, it may be seen enlarged upon in the work intituled, Petitions for Justice, &c.

Note also, that if to the number of the functionaries adequacy be secured as above, a correspondent relaxation in the severity of the obligation of attendance, may be effected without any material addition to the expense. And then it is that, through the medium of the deputation system, the quality of elasticity (so to speak) may throughout the whole field of operation be given to the provision made for the service of public functionaries; always close fitting; always enough, never too much.

III.Third Object to be accomplished—on the part of the several functionaries, aptitude maximized.

Means of effectuation, this one.

In my Constitutional Code, in relation to each of the several official situations belonging to the several departments—legislative, executive (administrational included,) and judiciary,—under the head of Securities for appropriate aptitude, provision is made for the possession of that same so highly desirable quality by the several functionaries therein respectively located. Of these same securities, some there are which, being applicable to no other species of constitution than that of a representative democracy, are foreign to the present purpose. On looking over the list of those same securities, and more particularly the list of those applicable to the judiciary department, selection has been made of these; and, after the necessary modifications made of them, to fit them for being applied to the sort of office here in question, the list of them is as follows:

1. After the first and original appointment, or say location, exclusion put upon all candidates for the situation but such as, in that of registrar depute, have given proof of appropriate aptitude in all shapes, by the exercise of the same functions under the superintendence of a registrar principal.

2. The obligation contracted by the utterance of an inaugural declaration, to be pronounced antecedently to entrance into office; and the sense of responsibility increased in proportion to the publicity of it. As to this, see Constitutional Code, ch. xii. Judiciary, § 29, Judge’s Inaugural Declaration, when published; and, as a model, in the already-published volume, Vol. I. ch. vii. Legislator’s Inaugural Declaration.

3. The interdiction put upon all emolument other than that which in the eyes of all men stands attached to the office by law. See above, Object I. Expense minimized—Means of Effectuation, 3. Remuneration superfluous, none: Object VI. Means of effectuation, 2. Fees, none—and Object VII. Burthen minimized: means of effectuation, 1. Fees (as above) none.

4. In particular, interdiction of all emoluments increasing in amount with the increase in length and number of instruments deposited and searched for, and searches made, at the expense of suitors.

5. Single-seatedness of the office: thence, integrality and undividedness of whatever responsibility, legal or moral, stands attached to the conduct of the functionary in the exercise of the duties of this his office. As to this, see Constitutional Code, Vol. I. ch. ix. Ministers Collectively, § 3, Number in an office.

6. In the eyes of all persons present in the registration-office in quality of actors (as they may be called) on the registration theatre, exposure of the tenor of the inaugural engagement, as above.

7. Of his attendance at the seat of duty, the constancy secured by the connexion established (if found or deemed necessary) between attendance and the receipt of official pay. As to this, see Constitutional Code, Vol. I. ch. vi. Legislature, § 20, Attendance and Remuneration how connected.

8. Dislocability of the registrar principal by the king or either house of parliament: by the king, to wit, by an order countersigned by the Lord Privy Seal, with special reasons assigned; by either house of parliament, without any such reasons.

Question 1. Why countersigned by a single high functionary, instead of being made an order in council?—Answer. For responsibility; for when, instead of an individual, the so-called burthen of responsibility is laid on a multitude, the pretended burthen is an air-balloon, and the ceremony a farce.

Question 2. Why give this power to the Lord Privy Seal?—Answer. On the presumption that the functionary to whom the duty of countersigning the instrument of location is allotted, is the Home Secretary. The essential point is, that the effective power of location and that of dislocation should not be in the same hand. Why? Because the inducement, whatever it were, by which the location had been effected, would, generally speaking, be sufficient to prevent the dislocation, howsoever merited, from taking place; for, by every consideration by which human conduct is commonly on such occasions most powerfully influenced and determined, the patron would stand engaged to continue his protection to his protégé.

Question 3. Why not give to the Lord Chancellor either the locative power or the dislocative? Answer. Because, judging from his relative situation, and from past experience, he would abuse it. It is of the situation, of course, that I speak, not of this or that individual, to the exclusion of others. Not one of you, gentlemen, without fear of the imputation of wishing to give offence, not one is there of you, I can venture to assert, to whose conviction it has not been manifest what injury has been done by equity judges under the pretence of justice, by counteracting the intentions of the legislature, as manifested on former occasions, by the institution of register-offices, involving titles in clouds of factitious uncertainty for the sake of the litigation and the profit wrung by them and their subordinates out of the expense.

On this, as on so many other occasions, need I add, gentlemen, that it is in the fee-gathering system, the syphilis of the law, that all this corruption has its root.

A set of securities, such as the above—this, if anything, is what is meant by the word qualifications, application of which having been customarily made when a new office has been established, has of course been made in the present instance.

During the period in which, by reason of the novelty of the institution, there has not been time sufficient for bringing to view the result of the test of appropriate aptitude afforded by service performed in the very occupation in question, an idea which, since the publication of that same code,* has occurred to me is this: namely, that to keep off unapt aspirants—to keep off all those men who in such numbers regarding themselves as being secure against the being obliged to quit, are so ready, for the sake of the emolument, to take upon themselves the duties of the office, whatever it be,—the first year’s service should be performed gratuitously. On this plan, a man who felt himself unfit for the office, would be absolutely without motive for seeking it, or so much as accepting it even it offered: whereas, in the present order of things, destitution for other cause than judgment of guilty according to legal forms on conviction of a criminal offence being morally impossible, the consequence is, that in no other shape is any degree of inaptitude sufficient to keep a man out of office, and preserve the public service from the evils to which his incapacity subjects or exposes it.

So much for that which ought to be: now for that which is. In the character of securities for appropriate aptitude on the part of the class of functionaries in question, the supposed securities, customarily provided under the name of qualifications, may, without fear of refutation, be pronounced worse than useless; and the supposed securities provided in the present instance, are of the sort of those which are thus customarily provided.

Of these same securities there are two: namely, 1. Aggregation of the candidate in question to a certain class of persons who are occupied in exercising, or endeavouring to exercise a certain profit-seeking profession; 2. Bearing a part in a certain ceremony called the taking an oath.

Neither the one nor the other of these supposed securities are means in any the smallest degree, conducive to that same declared end.

1. The class of men to which the candidate for the office in question is regarded to have been aggregated, is that of barrister at law. But, with the exception of age, to the power of aggregating a man’s self to that same class, no other condition is necessary than the having eat or appeared to eat a certain number of dinners in the same large hall in which other men are, at that same time, engaged in that same occupation.

Among the writings which have for their object the contributing to the instruction of these same men, is one that has for its title, “Jocular Customs of divers Manors.” One of these same customs consists in the emission of gas from the intestines, on certain solemn occasions, for the entertainment of the company assembled. The egesta in this latter case would not, in the character of a security for appropriate aptitude, constitute a less appropriate or less efficient one, than is furnished by the ingesta in the former case.

2. Now as to the oath. As in the nature of the case, so in practice, there are two kinds of oath—the assertory and the promissory. The one here in question belongs to the promissory sort. In the case of the assertory oath, in my Petitions for Justice, the worse than uselessness of it has been held up to view, and proofs, uncontested and incontestible, may be there seen of its being so: and, with no less truth may these same proofs be seen applying to promissory oath, in the present as well as in all other cases.

A supposed security which is inefficient, is not negatively and simply useless; it is positively much worse than useless: it is a source of delusion, producing confidence where confidence has no ground to stand upon. So far as it is a security for any thing, it is a security for relative inaptitude.

On a similar occasion, to Sir Robert Peel, when home secretary, were observations to this same effect presented: presented, but without effect.

It pains me to think, and to have to say—that, on the present occasion, these same observations have been equally unavailing.

Against truths so incontestible and so important, the eyes of public opinion will not always remain shut; and, no sooner do they open, than any draughtsman, in whose draught either of these same sham securities has place, will be covered with a wrapper of ridicule, in which it would pain me to see enveloped any of the gentlemen to whom I have the honour thus to address myself.

IV.Fourth Object to be accomplished—on the part of the machinery of the system, aptitude to be maximized.

Means of effectuation, these—

In the text of the act, do whatsoever antecedently to experience, presents itself as capable of being done towards the accomplishment of this desired purpose. But in relation to the system thus formed, give to the chief registrar the power from time to time to make whatsoever amendments shall, in his eyes, have afforded a promise of being conducive to that end; subject to disallowance either by the King alone, or by either of the two Houses.

For the giving of this initiative and defeasible power of legislation, the reason is at once simple and conclusive. For their guidance, no experience whatsoever will the framers of the act have had, whoever they are. Full experience will have had this same functionary, to whom the trust is thus proposed to be confided. True it is, that if of any other of the arrangements made by the act, the effect were to give to him an interest in the deterioration of the system, together with the power of promoting, at the expense of the universal interest, that same particular and sinister interest, a well-grounded objection would thus be opposed to this same proposed arrangement. But, 1. in the first place, by what has been proposed under the last preceding head, he will be seen to stand effectually purged of all such sinister interest. 2. In the next place, an additional and as yet unexampled security against evil in that shape, is provided by the power thus given to each one of the three component sharers in the power of the supreme legislature.

In several unconnected parts of the bill, as it stands at present, power of making regulations respecting the details of the business is conferred on this same functionary; but, as to the matters in relation to which this power is given, nothing else is done, in and by the bill; nor is any power of disallowance given to any authority other than that of the whole legislature. Between the cases in which without inconvenience, power of regulation by the hands of an authority other than the legislature may, and those in which it cannot be given without preponderantly evil consequences, it would not (it is imagined) be easy to draw the line; by the expedient here proposed, all need and all use of any such line are done away.

Eminently unpalatable to the taste, because so eminently and equally detrimental to the particular interest of some of the opposers of the principle of all-comprehensive codification, would the here-proposed arrangement be: dried up by it in no inconsiderable degree, would be the source of the indefinitely lengthy train of amendments upon amendments, with the profit of the branch of amendment-making, which this branch of Matchless Constitution has contrived to put into their hands; a profit, which cannot but have had no inconsiderable share in the producing of the opposition which continues to be made to the only arrangement by which anything like complete effect can be given to any the most salutary and indispensable arrangements, or individuals be preserved from punishment, for the not doing of those things which it has thus been rendered, and continues to be rendered, impossible for them to do; for how great is the evil, which, in their eyes, would be too great for the whole community to be afflicted with, for the sake of putting any the smallest sum into one of the noble or right honourable pockets? how extensive the conflagration that would be too extensive to be made for the purpose of roasting for him a single egg? But, by a reformed parliament, let us hope, howsoever according to custom the malefactors may be left comfortably wrapt up in impunity, the maleficent practice may be put a stop to.

Of the appropriate and best adapted mode of making amendments in existing regulations, by whatsoever authority made, a description may be seen in the part already published of the proposed Constitutional Code; namely, in ch. vi. Legislature, § 29, Members’ Motions; and of the mode in which, without detriment to the supreme power of the legislature, alterations may be made by authorities subordinate to it, an exemplification is given in the as-yet-unpublished part, namely, vol. the third, ch. xii. Judiciary collectively, § 19, Judge’s contested interpretation-reporting function; § 20 Judge’s eventually emendative function; to which reference is made in ch. vi. Legislative, § 34. Securities for appropriate aptitude, art. 44.

Having, so far as depends upon me, introduced and applied to this same business the hands which, by situation, will be in the highest degree well qualified for the performance of it, I shall there leave it, and save to myself the time and labour of framing any proposed arrangements of detail for the purpose in question, and to the gentlemen I am addressing, the time and trouble necessary to the taking of any such arrangements into consideration.

V.Fifth Object to be accomplished—security for the efficiency of the process in question—namely, the process of registration,—maximized.

Means of effectuation, an appropriate all-comprehensive map.

Altogether indispensable seems to me to be this muniment; without this for an object or standard of reference—without such an anchor as this to be fastened to,—surely to a vast proportion of the landed property in the kingdom will the title remain floating in the ocean of uncertainty.

In one part of this vast aggregate, the assurances have maps of correspondent extent for their accompaniments; in another part in the vast remainder, no such means, or say instruments of identification, have place. If necessary or useful in any one instance, where is the instance in which it can be otherwise?

An all-comprehensive original being thus formed, then, of the several parts of it should be taken a copy of each of the several parishes contained in the whole territory; with correspondent provision for extra-parochial places.

But here a two-fold difficulty presents itself:—

1. Cause of the difficulty, in the first place, the irregularities in the surface of the earth. Exhibited by this surface are all imaginable diversifications of curvature; whereas, in this graphical representation of it, on the only surface which it presents to view, no one of all these diversifications is exhibited; the surface is, the whole of it, in one and the same plane.

2. In the next place comes the entire figure of the earth, considered in its character of a solid body—an oblate spheroid—the mode of curvature, the form of its divergence and aberration from a right line, not uniform throughout, as in the case of a sphere, but varying.

General consequence, in a degree more or less considerable, incorrectness in a representation given of the portion of land in question, in every map that ever has been, or ever can be, made of this same surface.

Consequences in particular, these.

Where there are maps, in the case of each division of the surface, say in the case of each mile, the quantity of the land given by the portion of the all-comprehensive map—the general map—would not agree with that given by a particular map of the same spot, taken without reference made, and regard paid, to the all-comprehensive map.

2.—The number of the products of the next subdivision, say the acres, stated in the title-deeds as belonging to each proprietor or set of proprietors, would not agree with the number of acres represented as belonging to him or them in and by the corresponding portion of the all-comprehensive map.

3.—All round each mile exhibited by the portion of an all-comprehensive map would be a sort of fringe or border which by that map would be represented as belonging to one proprietor or set of proprietors, while by the particular and separate maps, together with the number of the acres as stated in the assurance, they would be spoken of as belonging to a different one.

In every instance in which the same mile is parcelled out between proprietors or sets of proprietors more than one, each would, in and by the number of acres stated in the assurances as belonging to him, together with the maps, if any, with which those same assurances were accompanied, be represented as having a larger part in it than he really has or could have; each would therefore be in the assurances stated, and in the accompanying map or maps represented, as possessing a quantity more or less considerable, which he could not possess but at the expense of the part possessed by the other or others; and thus in every part of the mile there would be a portion more or less considerable which would be represented as belonging to two different proprietors at the same time.

69. In relation to this, it will naturally be observed that, by this discrepancy, no actual collision, litis-contestation, or inconvenience, in any shape, is known to be produced: for that by the natural boundaries which have place upon the land itself—that is to say, the hedges, ditches, fences, palings, and the walls,—what portion it is that belongs to each such proprietor, or set of proprietors, is indicated and demonstrated beyond dispute.

True, in so far as boundaries of any sort have place, this cause of doubt and dispute is obviated and excluded. But, in every acre in which boundaries are wanting, this remedy to the deficiency has no place.

What then would be the remedy?—Answer. It would be thus expressed. Take an account of the number of feet and inches in the actual occupation of each proprietor, or set of proprietors, or their respective lessees: divide, then, in the map, the whole mile into such or such a number of parts or portions: divide the correspondent mile in the all-comprehensive map into that same number of parts or portions situated with relation to one another in the same manner. In so doing, mark their several proprietors as exhibited by each one of the correspondent portions in the all-comprehensive map, the same as those in those which are given by the number of acres; and so on in case of any ulterior or minuter division of the land among different occupiers, as in the case of towns.

From the adjustment thus made would result the demarcation proper to be made in the correspondent portions of the all-comprehensive map; and where, on the land itself, between one property and another, there is not any actually existing boundaries, the lines on which the boundaries ought to be placed.

In the country (or say in French, in the plat pays) differences of no greater an amount than that of a few feet would not, generally speaking, be very material. Not so in towns, or in the precise spots anywhere where fixed fences of any kind, more especially those composed of brick-work or cemented stone have place, a man whose fence in any direction had been too advanced, would have to pull it down, and to be charged with the correspondent quantity of expense; and so in the case of water-courses. Other cases might be brought to view; but for the particular example in proof of the importance of the general observation these may suffice.

Think of the expense which, by this course, would have to be produced in the case of a church, or any other similarly expensive public building!

On the continent of Europe, in countries more than one, the thus proposed sort of muniment has actually been brought into existence, and continues to be beneficially employed.

In this country, among the pamphlets which of late have been published on the subject of assurances, several there are in which this so essential an auxiliary to the efficiency of the main institution is recommended.

In those foreign instances, the all-comprehensive map* forms an appendage to a correspondently all-comprehensive cadastre, as it is called, containing a body of information, of which that which is exhibited in and by the sort of muniment called in English, a Terrier, forms a part.

The all-comprehensive muniment called Doomesday Book, framed so early as the eleventh century, a short time after the Norman conquest, is a sort of inchoate exemplification, though imperfect and inadequate in the degree that might be expected at so early a stage in the progress of society.

Trifling, in comparison of the usefulness of it, would be the expense of providing this same instrument of general security. For the single purpose of defence of the country, by means of fortifications, against invasion by a foreign enemy, a document of this sort, instituted at public expense, by order and under the direction of the Board of Ordnance, is in considerable advance. Of the total number of counties (in England and Scotland 52,) 18 or 19 are already on sale: among them the two largest,—namely Yorkshire and Devonshire.†

For giving facility to the recurrence made to a representation of this sort, a species of indication, applicable to any map whatsoever, has already been employed and is actually in use. A map with this improvement in it lies before me. It is a map of Paris. The whole surface is divided into parallelograms by lines composing a sort of lattice-work. In one direction, these parallelograms, as they follow one another, are distinguished and designated by the letters of the alphabet, a, b, c, &c.; in the cross direction, by numerical figures, 1, 2, 3, &c. In the margins are inserted, one under another, in alphabetic order, the names of the streets and other divisions, preceded respectively by the letter and the figure, by the conjunction of which the place or places which the reader is looking for may almost instantaneously be found.

Over and above the information, of which the several parishes and extra-parochial places in the territory in question are the subject-matter, this same document might be made to serve for supplying the like information respecting the division styled Manors.

Between parishes on the one part, and manors on the other part, various are the relations that have place:—

1. In some instances they coincide.

2. In other instances, manors more than one are contained, every one of them in an entire state, in one and the same parish.

3. In others again, parishes more than one are contained, every one of them in an entire estate, in one and the same manor.

4. In others again, in which manors one or more than one are contained in an entire state in one and the same parish; to these integers stand attached fragments more than one, which extend over parishes more than one.

5. And vice versâ, in other instances in which parishes one or more than one are contained in an entire state in manors more than one, to these integers stand attached fragments one or more than one, which extend over manors more than one.

Various are the signs and devices, by any one of which this relation between the sites of parishes on the one part, and manors on the other part, might be exhibited to the eye and held up to view.

As to the particular nature, the need of, and benefit derivable from, the ascertainment of the several manors in existence, and the mode in which the obtainment of this information may most effectually and commodiously be accomplished, it belongs not to the subject of registration; but some suggestions of mine in relation to it, may perhaps find their place on another occasion under the appropriate head.

“Give me,” said Archimedes, “give me but another place to stand upon, and I will give motion to the earth.” “Give me,” say I, “give me but a map to point to, and I will give rest and quiet to ‘all that inherit’ this our portion of the earth’s surface.”

VI.Sixth Object to be accomplished—Extent of the application made of this same security, maximized.

If the institution is productive of benefit, who are they who in respect of justice ought to be left destitute of it?—a question this, which assuredly it is incumbent on him to answer, if any such person there be, by whom opposition is made, in any shape, to the utmost possible extension that can be given to this same benefit.

Exceptions,—always excepted are all cases, if any such there be, in which by the burthen imposed in all shapes taken together (pecuniary expense included) the benefit will be outweighed. But this same burthen—on him by whom the existence of it is alleged, lies the obligation of making proof of its existence; and this obligation he will fulfil, on pain of seeing his silence in relation to it regarded as a virtual confession of the groundlessness of the opposition made by him to the proposed measure.

Means of effectuation, these—

1. Subject-matters of property (moveable excepted) all admitted: copyhold, leasehold, incorporeal; thence, in correspondent numbers, the proprietors.

Is it that the expense is such as would outweigh the benefit? On the contrary, the expense would be next to nothing. Such it was, for example, 1. In the case in which the body of information obtained for the use of Parliament had for its subject-matter the population of England, Wales included.* 2. In the case in which it had for its subject-matter the provision made throughout for the education of the people in Scotland.

Second means of effectuation—

2. Fees (as above) none; avoiding to give to any part of the remuneration the shape of fees.

Question—Why not? Answer, short and conclusive; reasons the following:—

1. To all who are unable to pay the price thus set, the service is denied: and, in every instance in which the evidence which by that service should have been preserved and rendered accessible, is for want of such service rendered unobtainable, justice itself is thereby denied.

2. To all those to whom, whether in quality of incumbents or in that of patrons, in the whole or in any part a profit is suffered to be reaped from this source, an interest is given, and that a but too efficient one, in maximizing the amount of it.

The modes in which this increase is given to it are these—1. Increasing the number of the occasions on which each fee is exigible; 2. On each occasion, increasing the quantity of the fees thus exigible; 3. In the case where the service consists in copying a written instrument, or performing any operation in relation to it, and the amount of the fee or fees increases with the length of the instrument, increasing the length accordingly; 4. If to the rendering of the service a journey is necessary, giving increase to the number of such journeys, and to the length and expensiveness of each.

Thus, upon every occasion is addition to an unlimited amount made to the expense.

3. So as to delay; where and in so far as the means employed for making addition to the profit consist in making addition to the number of the occasions on which the fee or fees are exigible, a means contributory to the effect is the minimizing the quantity of the service on each occasion performed, that the number of successive days on which it comes to be performed may be maximized: here then there are so many intervals of delay produced. Moreover, in instances to an indefinite number, so it is that by addition made to the length of the interval between occasion and occasion, addition may be made, and accordingly is made, to the number of the occacasions on which a fee or fees are exigible, and accordingly exacted.

4. When, and in so far as this is the shape in which the remuneration has place, the amount of it is in a perpetual state of uncertainty; and, whatsoever be the most proper amount, from this same proper amount it is continually divaricating; being almost always, and to an indefinite extent, either too great or not great enough: at one time the public is suffering by the excess; at another time the functionary is suffering by the delinquency.

5. When this is the mode of payment, the amount of the emolument and the sources from whence it flows, are kept concealed from the public eye; and the application of the check which by that all searching instrument would be opposed to abuse is thus averted.

True it is, that by the institution of the fee-fund already mentioned, the efficiency of the inducement to make addition to the expense is more or less diminished, and may even be extinguished altogether. But of its being extinguished altogether, there can be no adequate ground of assurance. For so long as by and from the hands of individual suitors benefit in any shape is expressly allowed or may be received without danger, so it will be; and however strong, and in appearance sufficient, the door may be which is shut against it, crevices will be found or made in this same door, and at these crevices emolument will flow or ooze in.

True it is again, that saving the above exceptions, a limit being thus put to the amount, expense in excess—in one word, depredation—is so far successfully obviated. But the eye of the public being thus excluded from the scene, abuse in other shapes is thus left without controul: for example, that oppression, which, without benefit rendered by it in any other shape to the oppressor, may be practised for the gratification of pride or enmity.

In a word, in no shape whatsoever will benefit be shown to flow from the giving this shape to the mass of official remuneration, or any part of it.

For the producing of a semblance of benefit—for the producing in the mind of the public a notion of the existence of benefit in some shape or other,—the word alacrity, or some equivalent locution, has been employed. But by no person has any attempt been made to show—by no person will any successful attempt be made to show—that benefit in any determinate shape has ever been experienced by any person from this source, nor how it is ever likely to be experienced.

In the case of the fee-fund, completely is the door shut against this supposed benefit. Emolument, none; alacrity, none. The sole assignable cause ceasing, so does the effect.

Put aside the fee-fund, thereupon comes into consideration the nature of the service in the several shapes in which remuneration in this shape is desired to be attached to it. Let any one by whom the benefit is supposed to have place, look into the service in each case, and say how it is that from the attaching to it remuneration in this shape, benefit, in the alleged shape or any other, can be seen to follow.

Let him look out for the several interesses; for the parties whose interest is any way affected: these he will find to be on the one part the several suitors, who, in person or at a distance, have need to hold intercourse with the several functionaries; on the other part, those same functionaries; and as to the suitors, they will be seen to be either—1. Persons applying to have their documents or information thereof received into the archives of the offices; or, 2. Persons having need, or being desirous of making inspection into or inquiry concerning the contents of those same archives.

True it is that under the fee-fund system, while the functionary is secured against loss, he has, in some cases, a chance and hope of profit; and in that hope a source of alacrity. But what an atom of good is this to set against the weight of the evil which has been shown to have place in the other scale!

Note that for the tutelary inspection performed by the eye of public opinion, a continual demand will be created by the danger lest, by a conspiracy between the functionaries on the one part, and solicitors or other agents of suitors on the other part, additions be made to expense, and for that purpose to delay, as above.

Shocking, in the extreme, to the delicacy of gentlemen in both these situations will, of course, be any such suspicion. But what has happened once may happen again; much more what has had place universally as well as constantly. How it is that by a conspiracy between the species of judges styled Masters in Chancery on the one part, and the solicitors of parties on the other part, may, to an enormous amount, have been habitually,—under and by virtue of the matchless corruption engendered and fostered by Matchless Constitution,—a pitiless extortion obtained from suitors on pretences knowingly false, and justice thereby to all but the very few denied, and to the few sold, has now not only been completely authenticated, but rendered universally notorious. And whether the fountain of this corruption be yet dried up, let any one who is so minded speak.

On this subject, matter may be seen in various works of mine, but more particularly that which is entitled “Justice and Codification Petitions,” &c.; for on most points close is the analogy between the sort of official service by which what is called justice is administered, or professed to be administered, by the judges and their subordinates, and that by which pre-appointed written evidence is registered. The case is, that the sort of service rendered by the functionaries belonging to a register-office of the kind in question, is, as elsewhere observed, subsidiary to the sort of service rendered by the functionaries who are considered as belonging to the judiciary establishment, and is liable accordingly to abuse in the same shapes produced by the same causes.

3. The manifold mode of writing employed: thence (besides the production of other beneficial effects to a vast amount) by reduction made in the expense, contribution made to the maximization of the number of the persons to whom the benefit of registration is imparted.

In an essay of mine on the subject of the late Mr. Humphrey’s work on Real Property, is contained a description of this invention, with a detailed explanation of the uses to which, in the field of registration, it is capable of being applied. This essay made its appearance in the form of an article in the Westminster Review, No. XII. for October 1826; and, having reserved some numbers for gratuitous distribution, I took the liberty of presenting a copy to each of the gentlemen to whom, in their quality of Commissioners of Inquiry into the Law of Real Property, this paper is addressed. Of all these copies the receipt has been acknowledged.

Of a contribution so highly important as this invention seemed to me to be to that service to the cause of justice, the conferring of which was the purpose of the commission given to them, to find no notice taken was to me a disappointment of no ordinary severity. But, at present I have in hand a security for the cognizance which they will take of it; I mean, the engagement which I set out with begging their attention to—an engagement, fruit of that public spirit by which they stand so eminently distinguished—I mean the engagement to give publication in their reports, to whatsoever suggestion I shall have submitted to them for that purpose.

Here follows, then, of that same article, such part as regards the manifold mode of writing. [Here follows the passage, from “Now as to Registration” near the end of p. 405, to “Marriage Settlement,” near the beginning of p. 408, antea.]

Gentlemen, you have read what is above. I now call upon you—I hereby call upon you—either in your report or proposed law, to give to that instrument of justice and security against fraud on one part, and ruin to countless individuals on the other part, the attention and employment so incontestibly due to it, or if not, to say why not; for, on the score of conciseness, this locution I am content to borrow even from the judicatories which by so sad a misnomer call themselves Courts of Equity.

Yes; fixed upon you already is the public eye; and under the sharpened eye of a reformed parliament, fastened upon you it will be with unprecedentedly searching energy.

Pretences, indeed, I have heard—reasons I will not call them—the name of reason I will not profane with them—pretences, then, I will call them; but such pretences—I am ashamed to think of them. I am ashamed to think from what lips it is that I have heard them. Name those lips I will not: they were such from which I should have hoped for better things. “Of any such number of copies (said the voice)—of any greater number of copies than are at present in use there is no need. The remuneration for skill in a laborious profession ought not to be cut down too low.” Then there is the paper—the paper not white enough—the ink not black enough. In a word, the thing was (I found) an innovation—the offspring of theoretical fancies—instead of conformity forming a perfect contrast to the precious fruit of ancestor-wisdom—the existing practice. As to practice, true it is it had already been in use for years. In use?—but with whom? Is it for official dignity to put itself to school?—to school?—to the school of a newspaper?

So much for the arguments against the use of this instrument of security against forgery and of reduction of expense. Now for some matters of fact, some states of things, in favour of it.

1. First, as to the notion about uselessness. I turn to the masterly and admirably-instructive work, the gratuitously-distributed volume of one of your number, Mr. Tyrrell, intituled, “Suggestions to the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Law of Real Property.” In it I read the following passages:—

Page 263. “If it be thought improper to take the custody of wills, which may include any personal estate, from the Ecclesiastical Courts, office copies of them might be registered upon being authenticated by an affidavit made by the officers who have examined them, and heavy penalties should be imposed upon them in case of negligence in overlooking a mistake. The errors in the official copies made at Doctors’ Commons are so frequent, that few counsel will venture to advise upon an obscure will without requiring to see the original, or requesting the solicitor to ascertain the accuracy of the copy. I have met with several instances of important mistakes. In one office copy which was examined with the original by my desire in the last year, four verbal errors were found in about as many lines, every one of which altered the interest of the devisees.”

Page 264. Speaking of Judgments: “They are not binding, under the present act, upon lands in a register county until they have been registered in that county, and in like manner they should be required to be registered separately with respect to every different county in which there may be estates intended to be charged with them, and not to be effectual as against other securities or assurances of lands in such county which may have been previously registered.”

That which it seems clear to me was, on this occasion, contemplated by Mr. Tyrrell, is—an indefinitely repeated process of registration; and, if this be really what was meant by him to be proposed, the consequence is, that in relation to the demand it presents for the manifold mode of writing, it makes no difference where the scene of the operation lies: whether in one and the same edifice or in so many different edifices. I say in so many different edifices, or at least in some considerable number of different local edifices: for, as between the one plan and the other, the option is (in p. 274) stated by him as hanging nearly in equilibrio.

Page 275. “An official copy of any deed, will, or other document might be given to any person entitled to an interest in the estate, and might be signed by the two clerks, by whom it may have been examined with the original, and who should be liable to a penalty for every mistake in it.”

So says Mr. Tyrrell. Now then for a few questions to him:—

1. To the number of the persons to each of whom it may happen to have an interest in this same estate, what is the limit that can be set?

2. Accordingly, what is the limit that can be set to the number of the copies which on this plan might be needful? with a fee for each?—a fee increasing with the length of each such copy?

3. Or to the number of the fees, payable in respect of these proposed double attestations?

4. Or eventually to the number of the mistakes to which it may happen to have been made, with fees for the several persons employed in the correction of those same mistakes?

Not to speak of the quantity of time consumed in the discovery of the error, and the applying the corrective to it.

5. On the supposition, that in lieu of the ordinary mode of taking copies, exemplars—all of them equally entitled to the appellation of originals—were taken in the manifold way, what possibility would there be of any one such mistake?

True it is, that, supposing the number of such exemplars to exceed 14, there would not be a possibility of furnishing an exemplar to each of the persons in question, without the necessity of a transcript from the original set of exemplars; in which extraordinary case a possibility of mistake would have place; and perhaps it might even happen that the number in which in this case the marks were sufficiently clear, might not be quite so great as that of the copies taken. But in this case nothing could be easier nor more efficacious than the remedy: namely, a few words written on one of the leaves of the ulterior batch or batches, stating them not to belong respectively to the first.

Page 273. “The duplicates of registers of births, marriages and deaths, should be kept in the public office for the county in which they may be made.”

To this passage applies with equal propriety the observations made on the passages in p. 263 and 264; in which observation is stated the ground on which I concluded that what he assumed the existence of was, on each occasion, a not improbable demand for indefinitely large numbers of copies.

Page 276. “An official copy of any deed, will, or other document, might be given to any person entitled to an interest in the estate, and might be signed by the two clerks by whom it may have been examined with the original, and who should be liable to a penalty for every mistake in it.”

Thus far Mr. Tyrrell. Now then say I.—Where is the man that will undertake to set any and what bounds to the number of the copies which for this purpose it may happen to a will, for example, to present the need of, with the skilled labour necessary to the examination applied to each of them? that skilled labour to the inadequacy of which to the purpose of preventing evil consequences to an indefinite extent, you have just been seeing him bear such ample testimony? On the other hand, see how the case stands on the supposition of the writings being performed in the manifold mode: 8, 10, 12, or even if necessary as many as 14, written by one and the same hand, at one and the same time. I say 14: this is capable of being done; for this has been done. If of the whole number any one is correct, so are all the rest. If in any one there be any error, that same error has place in all the rest; and for the detection of it in them all, no skilled labour is necessary or of use.

Then as to the correction of these errors. With pen and ink, in the common way, correction made in the manner in which corrections are made in a proof sheet in printing having been made in any one of them, the number of words the aggregate of these corrections consisted of, would be all that would be to be copied in the others; and of these errors—one or all of them—how great soever may be the importance, not frequently can it happen that the number should be very considerable.

When the worst comes to the worst, all that would be to be done is, the copying over again such of the leaves, and such of them only, in which the errors make their appearance. And this is one advantage resulting from the moderateness and uniformity which may be given to the size of the leaves, whereas for anything that appears in the bill, the documents sent into the office for registration may be of the great and greatly diversified extent of which papers and skins of parchment are susceptible.

Page 278. “It would be convenient to require that every deed, will, or document, brought for registry, should be accompanied with a short synopsis or statement of the contents; in order that, when found to be correct, it might be copied into the register book, as a marginal index to the copy of the instrument, and also with such other description of the nature of the document as ought to be inserted in any of the indexes or books of reference.”

Supposing the sort of abridgment in question to be of use, and for facility of conception (it should seem) it would be—for so it is in the case of a bill and an act of parliament, it might be ordained to be made in the original, in which case it would have place of course in each of the several exemplars of it. But a standing and universally-applying rule should be enacted, declaring that no words employed in the abridgment shall be understood as influencing the construction to be put upon the text at large.

Will it be said that by the employing exemplars of the whole of each document instead of the proposed abridgment, the bulk of the aggregate number of the deposits would be swelled to such a degree, that the expense of the buildings necessary for the reception of them would be so great as to constitute a decisive objection against the use thus proposed to be made of the manifold mode? At any rate, this objection would not lie in the mouth of any man to whom (as in p. 275) the choice of having a building for each one of the forty-two counties, and the having but one for all the counties together, is stated as being nearly a matter of indifference.

On the plan proposed in the above extract, here would be for learned gentlemen the profit, and for unlearned parties the expense, of skilled labour to be employed in the drawing of these same synopses with the danger of errors therein occurring, and the certain expense of corrections to be applied to those same errors: in the case of the manifold exemplar of the document at large, no demand for any such synopsis, nor any possibility of any such errors.

Page 278. “The office,” he goes on to say, “might be divided into two departments, one for ascertaining the authenticity of documents proposed to be registered, and the other for preserving and affording facility of reference to them; and they might be so regulated that the one should afford a check against negligence or error in the other. The latter department might be divided into as many different offices as there are counties or ridings, including the cities and towns, which are counties of themselves in the districts in which they are locally situated: and there might be an additional office for such documents as relate to more than one county.”

Thus far Mr. Tyrrell. For my part, I do not clearly perceive the utility of this reduplication of the expense: still less the preponderance of the benefit in this case over the burthen: all that in relation to this matter I do clearly perceive is—that, by the use of the manifold, the expense, whatever it is, would be nearly, and the danger of error altogether, done away.

So much as to the notion about needlessness.

In fine, to the employment proposed to be given to the manifold mode of writing, is there now any really operative objection, other than that which is opposed by the fees, which by it would be kept out of the pockets of learned gentlemen, and kept from taking their departure out of the pockets of unlearned suitors?

While writing this, I am also employed on my plan for extinguishing the factitious delay, factitious and mis-sealed expense, with the thence-resulting sale and denial of justice. The manifold mode of writing applied to the minutation of evidence, is a means and instrument altogether indispensable, the employment of it a condition sine quâ non, to the giving to that unspeakably-important benefit the degree of perfection it is susceptible of: and of its usefulness with reference to that ulterior purpose, mention may be seen hereinabove made.

By adopting and exemplifying these my suggestions in relation to it, it depends upon you, gentlemen, to bring under the eyes of all whom it may concern, a demonstration of its practicability and usefulness, for that the most important of all purposes.

The subject-matter committed to our consideration (says somebody) is, not how justice may be administered at least expense, but how the respective owners of what is called real property may be best secured against the loss of it. True: but if the instrument in question, be it what it may, is good for the purpose in question, its being also good for another purpose, or for other purposes in any number, is most assuredly, to any intelligent mind, no reason why use should not be made of that same instrument to that same purpose.

Yes: should it (which I ardently wish that it may not, and venture to hope that it will not) be my misfortune, gentlemen, to see you wilfully suffering this grand instrument of justice and security to remain unemployed, for want of any endeavours on your part to give adoption and support to it, and the community to remain destitute of the benefit of which it affords so bright a prospect,—parliament, and through parliament, or without parliament, other nations as well as this shall hear of it; and to the latest posterity the shame of such a wilful neglect shall lie on the heads to which it belongs. No; never so long as I have a voice, or a pen, capable of giving utterance to these my wishes,—never shall cease my endeavours for the adoption of it—my incontestably just reproaches for the neglect of it.

VII.Object the Seventh.—Minimization of the burthen in the shape of expense, with which the benefit produced by registration is clogged.

Means of effectuation, these—

1. Burthen transferred from individuals to public.

The burthen thus transferred from the shoulders least able to the shoulders most able to bear it.

In the shape of fees, unless proportioned in each instance to the pecuniary ability of the individuals at whose hands respectively they were called for (which is what they could not be,) the burthen would, in so far as paid, press on each individual with a weight of affliction more and more heavy, in proportion as he was less and less able to bear it; and, in individual instances to an indefinite number, the individual not having wherewithal to pay the fee or fees, would exclude him altogether from all participation in the benefit of the institution.

For, to the smallness of the value of the subject-matter in question, no limit can be set.

In regard to feelings, what the smallness of the value in question is too apt to do—indeed, to a greater or less degree, it may be affirmed, has accordingly done,—in the breast of every public man by whom the matter has ever been taken into consideration, is, to diminish the idea of the pressure; and that in such sort as to exclude from his affections all regard for it: unhappily no such effect has it upon the feelings of the individual who is thus dealt with.

2.Fees, as above, none: remuneration of the functionaries, the whole of it, in another shape; namely, that of salary.

Of the importance of this object, considered in another point of view, namely, the minimization of the expense, whatsoever be the shoulders on which it is laid,—a view has been already given; that is to say, under the head of the first object—Expense minimized.

3.Means of communication for documents and other writings, the letter-post: thence, expense of separate communication through skilled labour, saved.

In the bill, I have the satisfaction of seeing this mode of communication ordained to be employed. How well adapted it is to this purpose, and how prodigious the saving made by it, in comparison with that mode of communication, by special messengers, which is employed where law proceedings are the subject, has been abundantly shown, and is much too abundantly felt.

In a work of mine, intituled Petitions for Justice and Codification,—namely, in p. 158 of the Petition for Justice, art. 9, of the part, which has for its subject-matter the judiciary establishment,—a proposition to this effect is contained: “That, for trustworthiness and economy,” (says the passage in question) “the business of message-carrying be, as far as may be, performed by the machinery of the letter-post.”

Gentlemen! I have now said my say. For your part, you have a choice to make: you will either break your engagement and consign these pages to oblivion, or keep to your engagement, and to this address, presumptuous as it is, give publication in your next report. Dixi.Jeremy Bentham.

Queen’s Square Place, Westminster,

4th July 1831.

JUSTICE AND CODIFICATION PETITIONS: BEING FORMS PROPOSED FOR SIGNATURE BY ALL PERSONS WHOSE DESIRE IT IS TO SEE JUSTICE NO LONGER SOLD, DELAYED, OR DENIED:

AND TO OBTAIN A POSSIBILITY OF THAT KNOWLEDGE OF THE LAW, IN PROPORTION TO THE WANT OF WHICH THEY ARE SUBJECTED TO UNJUST PUNISHMENTS, AND DEPRIVED OF THE BENEFIT OF THEIR RIGHTS.

DRAFTS FOR THE ABOVE PROPOSED PETITIONS,

BY JEREMY BENTHAM.

[* ]These proportions are printed as in the first edition; in the present, the number of lines in each deed being respectively 24, 27, and 131, the number of surplus lines will be correspondingly increased.—Ed.

[* ]In line 67 of the Draught in this Edition.

[† ]Here 6 out of the 131.

[* ]The words regarded as superfluous are distinguished by the black letter; but in some instances simple elimination may not be sufficient: substitution may be necessary: as to these, see notes on Reviewer’s Draught. The words employable in a blank form are in Roman characters; those which must be different on each individual occasion, in italics. So likewise in the deed of mortgage. To the marriage settlement, for reasons mentioned in note (1) thereto, these differences in the type do not extend, except as to the black letter in a few parts.

[a ]This deed made.] Pregnant—always with ambiguity, frequently with falsehood, sometimes with deception and unexpected loss—loss to the amount of the whole value of the property, is this word made. Made? To which of a number of persons in quality of maker or makers, does this participle make implied reference? The draughtsman by whom preparation, or the parties by whom adoption and authentication are given to it? I say to which:—for, seldom does it happen that the two so different operations, are the work of the same day: not unfrequently days, weeks, or months—not to say years—must, in the nature of the case, intervene between the performance of the draughtsman’s part, and the performance or performances of the part or parts of the party or parties; in particular, on the purchaser’s side. On each side of the transaction, what may happen is—that parties in any number may be separated from each other by any interval in the field of space; and, in consequence, the acts by any interval in the field of time. Moreover, in the case of any one or more of them, payment may be divided amongst times in any number; it may be made, as the phrase is, by instalments.

Here, then, is a gordian knot, which, somewhere or other, and somehow or other, Judge and Co. must have cut by their instrument of all-work—falsehood. Of the statement here in question, the truth has, somewhere or other, been pronounced immaterial. But—in the nature of the case, far indeed is it from being so: it is of no small importance. While without prejudice to the currency of the instrument, a false place of signature or a false time, or both, may be inserted,—a forgerer is comparatively at his ease:—not so where place and time are, each of them, required to be individualized. In, for example, the house asserted in the instrument,—on the day asserted in the instrument,—was the party, in fact, actually present? In these questions may be seen an obvious subject-matter, for an inquiry,—the searchingness of which, a forgery will be in no common degree fortunate, if it abides.

[b ]Part.] In the correspondent place in the mortgage deed, this word is omitted, supposed by error of the press.

[c ]£1000 sterling.] Sums should be expressed rather in words than in figures. Example: draughts on bankers. Reason: in figures, danger of ambiguous delineation, and subsequent falsification: accordingly, in the author’s deed, words are employed. Sterling? In these days, is there any use in this word? Yes; to distinguish English, not only from Scottish pounds, but from the pounds of several other nations: in Ireland and the distant dependencies, to distinguish real money, from fictitious—called currency.

[d ]Absolute purchase.] Of this term,—to render it clear of ambiguity and obscurity,—in the eyes of parties, if lay-gents, not to speak of lawyers,—fixation and explanation,—authoritative, appropriate, and adequate—would be altogether needful. Nowhere at present is any such explanation to be found. No otherwise can it be brought into existence than by a code. Supposing it thus brought into existence, reference to the text of the code is among the references which would require to be made from, and inserted in, the draught. As for judge-made, alias common law,—it fixes nothing; it keeps everything afloat: it explains nothing; it keeps every thing involved in clouds: it is a tissue of self-contradictions: a sage of the law gives no clear view of anything: nemo dat quod non habet; at the head of them sits and rules a judge, who—(as everybody knows)—knows less than any of them how to do what he is employed to do—to decide,—and knows not how to do anything but the reverse of what he is employed to do—anything but how to raise and introduce, instead of dispelling and excluding, doubts.

[e ]Sell.] By this one word sell, reference is made to two distinct topics: 1. The quantity of interest disposed of; 2. The absence or presence of an equivalent: only in so far as regards the quantity of interest, does this topic coincide with that to which reference is made by the words purchase of the absolute property, as per note b:—benefit of transmission, to successors determined by the choice of parties, included.

As to what concerns equivalents,—the transfer may be, as here, with and for an equivalent, or without one: if with and for, the equivalent may be either, as here, of money (call it in this case pecuniary)—or of money’s worth, in any other shape (call it in this case, quasi-pecuniary): if without equivalent,—the transfer is gratuitous; the transaction may be termed a gift; the instrument a deed of gift.*Grantor is a term which—where the transfer is not gratuitous, but for money—our learned draughtsman, I observe, employs on several occasions. It has, however, the inconvenience of presenting to view the idea of gratuitousness. Disposer, a term having for its conjugates the verb to dispose, and the substantive disposition—a term in familiar use—would have the convenience of including the three transactions, sale, mortgage, and marriage-settlement. For a correlative to it, an obvious term is disposee: and this same termination ee is indeed used in the same sense in the word mortgagee, and in many other words. But, it has the disadvantage of presenting to view the subject-matter disposed of; in which case no person is, unless he has the misfortune of being a slave. Accordingly, if it depended on me to choose a word,—a word I would rather employ is receptor: receiver—the word already in use—having the disadvantage of presenting, exclusively, the idea of a person, whose interest in the subject-matter is only that of a trustee. In the case of an immoveable subject-matter of property, as here,—gratuitous transmission, as everybody sees, is not, by a great deal, so frequent as in the case of a moveable; obvious cause of the difference, the difference in respect of value. Nor yet (as everybody knows) is gift of an estate—absolutely without example. This, therefore, is a mode of transfer, or say transmission, for which also provision will require to be made. In the arrangements proper to be made in the code for the two cases,—one difference, there is, which is highly important, and not unobvious. In the case where an equivalent is received,—the eventual obligation designated by the word warranty, presents itself as being prescribed by established principles: not so, in the case where no equivalent is received. In both cases, this word warranty presents itself as an obligation, of which,—either in the draught or in the code, with reference to it from the draught,—express mention should be made: and of which it should accordingly be said, either that it is, or that it is not, intended to have place.

[f ]All that.] As to the insufficiency and consequent inutility and redundancy of the necessarily incomplete particularization, of which these words form the commencement,—see above, in the observations as to all those deeds considered together.

[g ]Appurtenances.] Appurtenances? No, not I: if I were Mr. Benedict Butler, no such things would I have. Needless, useless, and, unless inoperative, mischievous,—would be this word. Look at the books: the only definition of it you will find warranted is—anything, and everything which, in virtue of some other word in the deed, would pass without being mentioned in it: but if so, then to what use mention it? Not to Miss Campbell, not to Mr. Butler, no, not even to Squire Allen—would information in any shape be presented by it: nothing better than appalment and perplexity. Not that imagination could present them with anything like the uncertainty and consequent mischief it is pregnant with. Look for it in the books, though it were no further than Jacob’s dictionary, you will find that outhouses are appurtenances to messuages; messuages to messuages, not. Orchards and gardens are appurtenant to messuages; lands, not: whereby you will learn that orchards and gardens are not lands. See now one effect of it in these same formulæ. In this same deed of sale, mention is made of it; in the mortgage deed, in the family settlement, not. A tyro conveyancer—what might not his sagacity infer from this? that, in the case of a sale, appurtenances, whatever they were, would not pass without express mention made of them; in the two other cases, yes; a tolerably good sample this of the effects of surplusage. If, to any mind, this word presents any idea more definite than the above, it must be that, for giving expression to which, our author employs the Rome-bred law-word, servitude—mention of which may require to be made further on.

[h ]Annext.] This word is here inserted, as having (obviously by error of the press) been, or the equivalent of it, omitted out of the letter press.

[1 ]Mortgage.] Mortgage is the denomination, by which, for the present purpose, I designate this sort of deed: this being the most important and obvious species of the genus for the designation of which our learned author has employed the word charge. Preferable however to mortgage—preferable in every point of view, and to a most important effect—would be land-pledge. Mortgage is understood by nobody; land-pledge would be understood by everybody; by everybody, male and female, who has ever seen or heard what passes at a pawnbroker’s. So much for name.

Behold now how much may depend upon a right name: behold the instruction that may be afforded by it. Give validity and currency to either of these forms—the author’s or the reviewer’s,—and there will be no more need of equity suits, nor any more need of delay, where land is the pledge, than where a pair of ear-rings, worth the same money, or a table-spoon, is the pledge: and the present licensed depredation—in some circumstances, on the part of the lender, in others on the part of the borrower,—is at an end. What is it that should make the difference? Is not a sheet of paper as easily passed from hand to hand as a pair of ear-rings? As to difference, if any there be, it is all of it in favour of the immoveable pledge; for, the jewels may be run off with; the land can not. Secresy—in regard to rents—is that an object? for example, on the borrower’s account, lest the state of his finances should be made known. More effectually can that be provided for in the case of the land, than in the case of the diamonds: the receiver of the rents, whoever he is, being supposed an object of confidence on both sides, the transfer is made to him: made to him, in trust, in case of payment on the appointed day, to deliver the money, or the land to the one party; in case of non-payment, to the other. Here, too, as far as regards the principal, all danger vanishes: trustee can no more run away with the land, than borrower or lender could; and as to the interest, it is no more than what every man, who employs a steward, by so doing trusts him with.

Indulgence to debtors—is that an object? How much better could it not be afforded, how much likelier would it not be to be afforded—by a creditor who had no law-charges to apprehend, than by one who has law-charges to apprehend—especially such as those which hang over his head at present?

Behold now the extent of the benefit which this theory, simple as it is, may be made productive of, if carried into practice: benefit to landlords in general; benefit to tenants in general; benefit to everybody, but to those who are among everybody’s worst enemies, and who will be sufficiently known by that name. Where recovery of rents is the object, in so far as there is property enough of the tenant’s, or anybody else’s upon the premises,—landlords—nor yet altogether without good reason—are by themselves trusted with the power of being themselves judges in their own cause. Well then—where recovery of possession is the object—pledges on the spot being wanting or insufficient—with how much less danger might they not be trusted with the power of being, to the effect in question, judges in the cause of others—meaning of course by others, those with whom they have no connexion? On this plan, in case of appeal—and in that case only—might those judicatories have cognizance, which at present have it in the first instance. Of the essentially and incurably corrupt, and, in every respect, unapt judicatory in question, my opinion is the same as that of the Morning Chronicle: but, so long as the people continue oppressed with it, I see much less danger from this power in its hand, than from most of that which is at present exercised by it.

As to the species of conveyances to which this system would be applicable,—the same principles which would give simplicity to deeds of sale, mortgage and settlement, would give correspondent simplicity to leases.

Turn now to the gaming-table. On a visit to it,—why, in that case, should not a noble lord, or honourable gentleman, put into his pocket a few papers of sales, mortgages, or leases, as well as the correspondent number of rouleaus? This is not a mere jest: for, if ruined, why might he not be so,—for the benefit of a set of companions of his own choice, with whom he was living on convivial terms, and in regard to whom, in conjunction with the chance of being ruined by them, he possessed an equal chance of enriching himself by their ruin, and from whom he might receive more or less of indulgence, why not as well for their benefit alone, as partly for their benefit, partly for the benefit of a set of lawyers whom he knows nothing of,—from whom nothing is to be got,—and from whom, on his part, nothing but ruin, or a more or less near approach towards it, can be expected?

Lawyers, by whom, comparatively speaking, such facility has been left to transfer, in the case of moveables,—whence happens it that they have dealt on so opposite a footing by it in the case of immoveables? Answer, altogether simple. Society could not have held together, and the matter of legal plunderage would either never have come into existence, or, as fast as it had come, would have been swallowed up,—had they thus loaded it in the case of moveables; but, in the case of immoveables, the magnitude of the masses is such as renders it possible for them to bear the load. Sweet, accordingly, is the “savour of the realty,” to learned noses.

[2 ]Another half year’s interest.] But what, if that happens which most commonly does happen? What, if the loan is continued, as it sometimes is, for years by dozens, beyond the twelvemonth? For this case no provision is here made. [See notes on the Reviewer’s Draught.] In any case, on failure of payment, prompt is the remedy needed; and next to instantaneous is the remedy which, as above, the nature of the case affords; yes, and which would be afforded in fact, if those judicatories, which are law and equity courts in name, were not iniquity courts, if not in purpose, in effect.

[1 ]Proposed Code.] Matter, which, for reasons above mentioned, namely, in the observations on the three draughts taken together, is regarded as superfluous,—is, for distinction’s sake, here printed in black-letter. Owing, however, to the want of correspondency between the plan of the Author’s and that of the Reviewer’s draught,—a considerable quantity of matter, regarded as superfluous, is left undistinguished; as not being, without explanation, capable of being disentangled from needful matter. This, however, may, by any person to whomthe restriction presents itself as being worth the trouble, be seen by a comparison between the two draughts.

[2 ]Except as aforesaid.] Three times the same exception—each, all three times, imbedded in the same sentence, and a different set of words employed each time for the expression of it. In the Reviewer’s draught, this and every other instance of involvement is avoided. In his form of locution, an article, out of which an exception is taken, opens with the words, “Exceptions excepted;” and in the next article, next to the words “Exceptions are as follow,” or “Exceptions are the following,” come the exceptions one after another, each for distinction preceded by a numerical figure. See Official Aptitude Maximized: Expense Minimized. On this, as on every such occasion, never is Mrs. Allen (late Miss Campbell,) with her misfortune, in not having had the benefit of Mr. Peel’s lawyer-making dinners, out of his sight.

[3 ]Levy and raise.] Doubts and solutions, the same in this case as in that of Mortgage; which see. If in this case both these correlative expressions are necessary, not less so were they in that.

[* ]What is in Roman type, being of general application, may be in print; that which, being in each instance different, cannot be included in the letter-press, is shown by the italics. So in the mortgage deed and deed of settlement. The numbers, the addition of which is proposed by the reviewer are in smaller type.

[a ]Seller’s name.] Write all names at length: christian names if more than one, as well as surname or surnames. In the case of a non-christian, (Jew, or Mahometan, for example) the equivalent, if any, to the christian name, will be included.

If more than one join in the sale, their names will be written, beginning with that surname which, in the order of the alphabet, stands first.

[b ]Seller’s condition.] In case of dignity, insert the title; of titles more than one, the highest: in the case of a lord, if a peer, the peer’s name, with that of the peerage: in the case of a bishop, his name, with that of the bishoprick: in case of a professional man, his profession: in case of a commercial man, his business, as manufacturer (naming the subject-matter of manufacture,) merchant, shop-keeper, tailor, shoe-maker, carpenter, smith, &c.: in case of a man not following any profit-seeking occupation, say esquire or gentleman.

In the case of a female—if never married, say, in the old accustomed form, spinster: adding the dignity, if any, or the profit-seeking occupation, if any: single woman will not serve, as not including females under age, and as not distinguishing married females from widows. In case of a married woman—concurring, for example, with her husband in the sale,—mention her maiden name, then her husband’s, as directed in note a, and his condition as to occupation, as per note b.

[c ]Seller’s habitation.] If there be no fixed habitation, write the word none. If there be a habitation, express it as in letters brought from the General Post-office. If the habitation be not in a town, insert the name of the county and that of the parish: if in a town, insert, between the name of the county and the name of the parish, the name of the town. If there be fixed habitations in places more than one, insert them all. Add in every case either householder or inmate.

[d ]Subject-matter . . . . it’s species.] For instance, where integral, and uncompounded, say a piece of land, cultivated or not cultivated, or a dwelling-house, or another building, as the case may be: when integral, and compounded, of a dwelling-house (with or without outhouse and garden respectively,) with cultivated land, say house with land annexed, or farm, as the case may be: if the subject-matter be a fractional right, as a right of mine-working under land which belongs to a different proprietor—or right of fishing, or right of drawing water from a mass, current or stagnate—or share in the tolls of a road or canal—mention it accordingly. If subject-matters more than one are included in this deed, mention them accordingly.

[e ]Purchase money.] For certainty, write the sum at full length in words; adding it, for facility of conception, in figures. If in whole or in part, the equivalent transferred consists of specific subject-matters of property, moveable or unmoveable, one or more,—a ship (for instance,) a piece of jewellery, or another piece of land,—mention them.

[f ]In his hand-writing.] If able to write, the person writes it, as above directed; if not, he makes with his pen and ink the mark of a cross +; after, and close to it, some other person writes the name, adding the word witness with his own name, written as directed in note a. In the case of a person of the female sex, a line is to be drawn through the word his, and the word her written over it.

[g ]Day.] The year, month, and day of the month: first in words; then in figures. Properest writer in each case, the seller or purchaser himself. For greater certainty, the day of the week may be added. If (as may happen by mistake) the day of the month and that of the week do not agree, the day of the week will be most likely to be rightly supposed; the days in a week being, in comparison of those in a month, so much fewer.

[h ]Place.] Designate the place as directed in note c.

[i ]Agreement.] This accordingly will, in general, in respect of the payment of the money, be also the day, and the place, the place of performance; and on this account, to avoid carrying the form of the draught to an inconvenient length, the circumstances which here follow are not inserted in the list of topics. But, in possibility, they are susceptible of diversification without limit; and in practice they are accordingly diversified. To prevent mis-statement, with the falsehood involved in it,—the attention is therefore, in the proposed additional Nos. drawn to them, that appropriate provision may be made in the code. In the present practice, falsehood is an instrument ever at hand for the solution of all difficulties: by the practitioner, employment is given to it; by the judge, the desired effect. Here follow the numbers.

• No. 16. Day or days in which the purchase money was made over.
• 17. Place or places, at which the money was at the respective times made over.
• 18. Person or persons, by whose hands respectively the money was made over.
• 19. Day or days, on which the purchase money was received.
• 20. Place or places, at which the money was at the respective times received.
• 21. Person or persons, by whose hands respectively the money was received.
• 22. Form or forms, in which the money was made over.

An additional topic this last, under which, as a preservative against fraud, particularization may have its use. In case of paper money at a discount, as in the instance of currency in a distant dependency,—without this particularization, in conjunction with that of the time of payment, the real value of the alleged equivalent will not be discernible. As to the word sterling, if there be any need of it or use in it, it will be for the purpose of distinguishing metallic money from currency as above. As for pounds Scots, there being no such money either in metal or paper, no actual payment can be made in it.

Note that, on every occasion, on which the money is sent by a public conveyance, the times of receipt may be different from the times of payment. So, when sent by a private hand.

[1 ]Pin-money.] This word, and the succeeding word, jointure, are in the same case. Being the words in common use, and sure of being familiar to every person who is likely to become a party in a conveyance of the sort in question;—here, in a deed of which it so highly imports them to possess, on every occasion, an adequate conception,—here is a perfectly good reason why these terms should be employed; nor is there any why they should not. As to pin-money,—nobody, at the sight of this word, is in any danger of supposing, that the whole £200 a-year is to be laid out in pins; any more than, at the sight of the word spinster, anybody would suppose that the whole life of the lady had been occupied in spinning.

[2 ]A rent charge.] On this occasion, a question or two the reviewer cannot avoid putting, in behalf of the future Mrs. Allen.

1. This same rent charge—from what day is it to be computed?—from the day of her unhappy loss?—from the quarter-day next before it, or from the quarter-day next after it?

2. By whose hands is it to be paid?—on failure of payment, what is it that, to save herself from starving at the end of a few days, she is to do? At the end of a few years or so, Eldon and Co. are ready, in the way that everybody knows, to supply her necessities, provided always that she has—what by the supposition she has not—money enough to satisfy their cravings, as per note on the Mortgage-Deed. Here then comes another demand for prompt judicature: for prompt judicature, even though it were not to end in justice.

To some of these questions, answer is given in the Author’s Code, p. 262; reference to which is made for the present purpose, in a note to the Settlement Deed, p. 399. Not, however, to all; nor, in and from the Deed, is reference made to the document, to wit, the Code, in which an answer to them may be found. In the Reviewer’s Draught, a supply, for this deficiency in the Deed, is provided; to wit, by reference made to the Code.

[3 ]Inalienable.] What does it mean? what ought it to mean? Inalienable to all purposes whatsoever, or with the exception of certain purposes? If with exceptions,—(1) Inalienable for joint benefit by joint consent? (2) Inalienable for husband’s benefit with wife’s consent? (3) Inalienable for wife’s own benefit, at wife’s desire? (4) Inalienable for children’s benefit, on joint desire, at (5) husband’s desire, at (6) wife’s desire, as above? (7) Inalienable at suit of creditors for payment of debts, contracted by husband or by wife?—Matters all these, presenting the same demand for discussion and decision somewhere, but against all which the Author’s draught shuts the door, by the all-comprehensive word inalienable. In the Code, by article 22, under the security for freedom afforded by the wife’s secret examination, he allows the alienation of the whole of the subsistence provided for her by general law during widowhood; also, of any property derived by her during marriage from the bounty of a third person. But, is not the danger to her from fraud or improvident alienation incomparably less, in the case of pin-money, than in the case of jointure?—in the case where superfluities alone are at stake, with her husband’s property as a resource for necessaries, than in the case where necessaries are at stake, and that resource is at an end?

Supposing, for any purpose, alienation with her free consent, allowed,—in that case, for giving the allowance, the words without her free consent would suffice; but, for particulars, in that case, as in so many others, reference should be made from the Deed to the Code.

Rendering this pin-money—rendering the estate itself, alienable for any one or every one of these purposes—would this render the provision ineffectual altogether? Not it, indeed: any more than establishing a general course of succession by law, failing ditto by deed or will, renders the power of transfer by deed or will ineffectual.

Now, as to alienation for payment of debts. Render the property inalienable altogether, you leave, exposed to the risk of disappointment by loss, one set of persons: render it alienable to this or that purpose, you leave, in like manner, exposed to the risk of disappointment by loss, another set of persons. Query: In which case is the evil greatest?

Answer: Render it inalienable altogether, to the number of persons thus exposed, there is no limit: for, all persons who, in the capacity of workmen, for example, or petty traders, have dealings with the parties, are included in it; and among them there may be those, in whose instance, owing to difference in respect of income, the same nominal loss may be productive of a dozen, a score, a hundred, a thousand times the suffering produced in the instance of the parties to the marriage.

Render it alienable for the benefit of creditors,—the suffering is confined to the sometimes indeed blameless, and merely unfortunate, but most commonly imprudent, and thence culpable, parties; with the eventual addition of their children, whom, as well as themselves, they had it in such case in their power, by ordinary prudence, to have secured against such loss.

For other landed property of the same kind—for other landed property of a different kind—for property in any other shape—(government annuities, for example, or life-assurance company annuities,)—it may happen that, to the benefit of the parties, to an unlimited amount, an exchange might be made. Under a rational system of procedure, with a correspondent judiciary establishment,—all parties interested, whether on self-regarding account, or on account of sympathy towards the parties, being allowed to intervene,—exchanges of all sorts might, for these purposes, be made, by any sets of persons, with little or no expense. Even at present, they are not unfrequently made. Yes; but by what authority?—in what way? Instead of judicial authority, in the appropriate and apt way, by legislative authority, in an anomalous and unapt way: and at an expense which not one person out of several thousands is able to defray. And why thus made? Only that a set of placemen and lawyers may, on each occasion, share among them so many hundreds of pounds.

But, the beings who have as yet no existence—the children’s children, one set after another, down to the world’s end—these are the dear possible creatures, by whom, to the exclusion of so many existing and suffering ones, whatever sympathy has place in an aristocratical bosom, is engrossed: nor yet the whole number, but that half of it alone, whose merit and title will have consisted in the having received, from the hand of positive and ungrounded law, the name of their supposed male, in preference to that of their female, and thence more certain, progenitors; and it is for these same possible, that actually existing human beings, in unlimited number, are to be cheated, and to an unlimited amount made sufferers.

If, during the existence of a form of government by which the interest of all besides is sacrificed to the assumed conjunct interest of the one and the few,—it be on any account advisable to provide leading-strings to check aristocrats, in their individual capacity, in their propensity to run into ruin, the recent French institution of majorats would, perhaps, be the best adapted to the purpose: always understood, that in England it be confined to peerages.

In this case, for the preservation—not, indeed, of the spendthrifts themselves from ruining themselves, but of their relatives from suffering disappointments from them,—inalienability would be the sole and tolerably efficient remedy. But, for preservation of all persons besides from being cheated and made sufferers by them,—registration (of which presently) would be an indispensable, and the sole remedy, though unhappily, as will be seen, never more than an imperfect one.

[4 ]Without impeachment of waste.] An odious locution this—relic of antique barbarism, altogether unfit for any honest purpose. In respect of morality, what a lesson! Mischief under its own name expressly authorized by law! By this expression, when made use of, what is it that is really intended? That the estate should be wasted? No: only that, in a particular shape, a fair profit, adapted to the nature of that shape, should be reaped from it. The profit thus intended—what is it?—profit from the sale of timber growing on the estate? This, then, is what should be said;—more demand here for reference to an appropriate section in the appropriate code; a section having for its object, the confining within limits beneficial to all interests concerned, the profit derivable from this source. Is any other fractional right intended to be reserved out of the aggregate right of ownership? If so, in conjunction with the right of cutting and selling timber, it should be designated by some adequately-comprehensive locution, such, for instance, as lifeholder’s profit in the shape of capital: with reference, for explanation, to the codes.

In the Equity books, to the head of waste, under the sub-head permissive waste for contradistinction from positive, is referred omission to keep in repair. Under its ordinary and specific name, in speaking of the correspondent obligation, mention should be made of it in the code, and referred to in the deed. Under both heads, matter proper for the code will be found in those same books.

[5 ]Gives up] More demand for reference to the appropriate Code. The arrangement which Mr. Humphreys, and with incontestible reason, proposes is,—that, in the Code,—to dower, with its uncertainties, be substituted—a provision as clear as may be of uncertainties. This supposed done,—thereupon will come a clause, giving legality to whatever arrangement may, in relation to this provision, be made in a marriage-settlement; for it is not for the legislator, to whom all individuals are alike unknown—it is not for him, on any such occasion, to take upon himself to force upon them an arrangement which does not suit the purpose of the only individuals interested. So far as their interests are alone concerned, and laying out of the question whatever interest the public at large may have in the matter,—what belongs to him is neither more nor less than to provide against fraud, accident, and on their part inadvertence; and, for these purpose alone, to establish such all-comprehensive arrangement as presents a prospect of being well adapted in a greater number of instances than any other all-comprehensive arrangement that the case admits of. But, this supposed done,—here, in the tenor of the code, would come the necessity of a subsidiary arrangement, having for its object the securing to the widow, at all events, and at every point of time, one or other of the two alternative provisions: to wit, that under the general rule, and that under the particular rule agreed upon and laid down in the settlement. Employ the summary plan, as per the note to the Mortgage Deed, this security is established: deny it, you deny justice, and leave the afflicted female in the condition expressed by the proverb of the two stools.

[* ]How many hundred thousand pounds, spent in misery-making litigation, for the benefit of Judge and Co., would not a law to this effect, if enacted in time, have saved? Calculate from the cases alluded to by Mr. Humphreys.

[6 ]Father’s decease.] When arrived at this point, not inconsiderable (it cannot but be acknowledged) would of course be the perplexity of Miss Campbell, if she regarded herself as being under the obligation of obtaining any particular as well as clear conception of the contents. But to no such painful obligation will the lady regard herself as subjected:—so small will be the probability,—and at any rate so great the distance,—of such a state of things, to an imagination occupied by the idea of near-approaching happiness: and, should the desire ever come upon her, of seeing—in what way, in any proposed state of things, the division may come to be made—(a desire not likely to arise till she has marriageable children,) there, in one of her drawers, lie the means of satisfying it.

Miss Campbell throughout—Miss Campbell is the chief object of my care. And why? Even because—whatsoever is either not understood or misunderstood, is in proportion mischievous; mischievous, in the joint proportion of the importance of the matter, and the number of persons interested, from whose minds the true import is in either way excluded. For, from non-understoodness or misunderstoodness comes oppositeness to expectation; from oppositeness to expectation, disappointment; from disappointment, suffering, in proportion to the importance of the consequences.

[7 ]Heirs.] Heirs (coheiresses included.) Inserted here of necessity, and in want of a better, is this word, which none but lawyers can understand; better a word such as successors, which those, whose property is at their disposal, may understand. That which, for this and all other occasions, is wanted, is—a term which shall apply to property at large, whichsoever be the subject-matter—to wit, immoveable or moveable—or (what in law-jargon comes nearest to that expression) say real or personal; to which will require to be added incorporeal; so, whichsoever be the mode of derivation from such its source: to wit, whether simple and immediate, as in the case of genealogical succession, or unimmediate, and with the intervention of individual will, as in the case of transfer, whether by deed or last will; a desideratum this, which may and should be provided for us, instead of our being sent for a meaning to the obscure history of a barbarous state of society, altogether different from the present. This desirable term is presented by the word successors: this, then, if found apt for the purpose, is the word that will naturally be employed, should ever a rule of action be provided, which it is intended that those whose actions are to be determined by it should have the possibility of understanding. On the present occasion, the distinction might, in that case, be expressed by some such words as land-taking successors and money-taking successors. Heirs should, in that case, be, in all its applications, eliminated out of the code, and abandoned to the society of antiquaries.

As to lawyers,—as, in respect of honour as well as profit, it is their interest, so of course is it their desire and endeavour, that the rule of action, more especially in matters of property, be understood by as few, and to that end be as unintelligible, as possible. As for what the rest of the community suffer from this state of things, this is what scarce one in a thousand ever thinks about. As it is with wolves, so is it with lawyers; what sympathy they have, if any, it is sympathy for their own kind, all of it; for their prey, none of it.

Thence comes, in the arrangements themselves, that complicatedness, by which so much complicatedness in the expression given to them is necessitated. Complicated is the description of those persons who, separately or collectively, are to be in the possession of the estate. Correspondently complicated accordingly is the description of those who are not to have any part in the estate. What simplicity of description there is in the case is confined to this, namely, that whoever has the whole of, or any part in, the estate, has not any part in the money; and that whoever has the whole of or any part in the money, has not, at that same time, the whole of, or any part in the estate, unless by the death of some anterior taker of it.

[8 ]Weston, Shropshire.] Between wordiness and sufficiency some difference, it is hoped, will now have been seen exemplified:—every superfluous word is an additional cloud. Of wordiness, in the degree in which it is exemplified by English law practice, so far from sufficiency, deficiency is the result. For, when on this or that occasion, such is the quantity of the heap of particulars inserted, that the draughtsman is not able to bear the whole list continually in mind, the consequence is,—that on this or that other occasion, though exactly parallel to it, and calling for exactly the same list,—some of them are omitted, or other added or substituted: whereupon, in argument, the difference, in legislative or professional expression, is, of course, made use of as a ground for difference in justicial decision. Of this sort of style,—expensiveness and uncertainty, with the profit from both, were the manifest final causes, and never were ends more abundantly accomplished.

Now as to Registration. Uses, as applied to instruments of conveyance and contract relating to property in immoveables, these—

1. Preservation of these documentary evidences from loss and destruction.

2. Preservation of them from falsification.

3. Exclusion of corresponding counterfeit documents.

4. In so far as the document is proof, of incumbrance applying to the property of the possessor of the estate, in relation to which the document registered operates as evidence of title,—affording, to all persons disposed to give him credit for money or money’s worth, the means of guarding themselves against loss by insolvency on his part.

5. Affording, by means of the aggregate of the evidence thus preserved and rendered susceptible of appropriate publication,—information of the statistical kind, capable of being turned to account by government for the benefit of the public in a variety of ways.

Of these five good effects,—the first gives security to the owner of the estate, against accident; the second and third, against fraud and depredation, at his expense, on the part of the rest of mankind; the fourth, to the rest of mankind against fraud on his part; the fifth contributes to form a basis for the exercise of the legislative and administrative functions.

Alive to the importance of this means of security,—Mr. Humphreys, taking it up upon its present footing, affords for the improvement of it a quantity of highly valuable matter, as to which I must content myself with referring the reader to his work. I promised him a treat; I now fulfil that promise; such if it be to him, such will the invention I have to present to view be to every reader, in proportion as in his eyes security, to a degree beyond everything that as yet has been experienced, or can have been so much as anticipated, is an object of regard. By it, if narrow and sinister interest in powerful breasts can but be induced to permit the employment of it—by it, will preservation and appropriate publication be given to documentary evidence, to whatever purpose needed: preservation, and what is of correspondent importance, equally unexampled cheapness. It is an invention of which I can speak my admiration the more freely, as not having in my own person any part in it.

For the description of it, and in a more particular manner, of its uses,—I have but to transcribe a passage of an about-to-be published proposed Constitutional Code, ch. viii. Prime Minister, § 10, Registration System.

“Art. 1. For the more commodious, correct, prompt, uniform, and all-comprehensive performance, of the process and function of registration in all the several departments and sub-departments—as likewise on the part of the Prime Minister, for the correspondent receipt by him of all documents, the receipt, and, as occasion calls, the perusal of which may be necessary to the most apt exercise of the several functions belonging to his own office—he will, as soon as may be, cause to be established, and employed in practice, in the several offices of the several departments and their sub-departments, the sub-legislative included, the mode of writing styled the manifold mode.*

“Art. 2. Particular uses of the manifold mode of writing are as follows:—

By the multitude of exemplars, produced at an expense which, with the exception of that of the paper, is less than the expense of two in the ordinary mode it affords means for furnishing, at that small expense, to parties on both sides, for themselves and assistants, all such documents as they can stand in need of.

“Art. 3. Every exemplar being, to an iota, exactly and necessarily the same as every other, the expense of revision by skilled labour is thereby saved, as well as unintentional aberration rendered impossible.

“Art. 4. An exemplar, kept in the Registrar’s office, will serve as a standard, whereby a security will be afforded against all intentional falsification, on the part of the possessor of any other exemplar.

“Art. 5. By the reduction thus effected in the expense of all judicial writings emanating from the judicatory,—the protection afforded by judication in its best form,—to wit, that which has for its ground orally elicited and immediately minuted evidence,—will be brought within the reach of a vast proportion of the whole number of the people, to whom it could not otherwise be afforded.

“Art. 6. A collateral benefit—a degree of security hitherto unexampled against destruction of judicial documents, by calamity or delinquency—may thus be afforded, by the lodging of exemplars in divers offices in which they would be requisite for other purposes: exemplars of documents from the immediate judicatories being, at the appellate judicatory, requisite for the exercise of its judicial functions; and, in the office of justice-minister, for the exercise of his inspective and melioration-suggestive functions.

“Art 7. To save the expense of custody, and prevent the useful from being drowned in the mass of useless matter,—the legislature will make arrangements for the periodical destruction or elimination of such as shall appear useless: care being at all times taken, for the preservation of all such as can continue to be of use, either eventually for a judicial purpose, or for the exercise of the statistic and melioration-suggestive functions, as per ch. ix. § 11, Ministers collectively: ch. xi. Ministers severally, § 2, Legislative Minister: and ch. xii. Judiciary collectively, § 19, Judge’s contested-interpretation-reporting function: § 20, Judge’s eventually-emendative function: § 21, Judge’s sistitive or execution-staying function: § 22, Judge’s pre-interpretative function: § 23, Judge’s non-contestational-evidence-elicitative function.”

Here, then, of every such conveyance,—without any addition to the expense, the trifling expense of the paper excepted,—we have no fewer than eight copies, and upon occasion as far as twelve, no one differing in a single tittle from any other; and this identity effected, without a particle of that skilled labour, the purchase of which, on the present plan, can never fail to be so seriously expensive. On this plan, unless it were for concealment of particulars, no need would there be for any such inadequate representative of the original, as that which, under the name of a memorial, is employed in present practice.

To each one of the parties, how numerous soever, an exemplar would be given of course. To obviate the case,—at present so pregnant, not only with delay, vexation, and expense, but even with loss of estate, for want of a producible title,—as many exemplars might be had by one party, as there were distinguishable parcels, which he might anticipate an occasion for making disposition of. So, when it happens that one estate, disposed of, the whole of it, by one and the same instrument, is situated in the territories of registration offices more than one,—so many of these offices, as there are, so many exemplars may there be. And finally, if, whether for ulterior security against accidents, or for all-comprehensive government purposes, it were found desirable that, for the whole territory of the state there should be one general office, in which an aggregate of the documents received into the several local offices should be kept—here, is an additional accommodation, that might be afforded with a comparatively inconsiderable addition to the expense.

For, the documents being thus distributed, every syllable of each would thus be made secure—not only against deperition by accidents, but against all possibility of falsification. For, suppose, for example, one of the parties dishonest, and disposed to commit this crime, what possibility of a successful issue could he contemplate? In his own exemplar he makes the requisite alteration: but what can it avail him, when, in case of the slightest degree of suspicion, there lie, in the custody of a public functionary, as well as in that of each of the several parties, so many exemplars, to which, for any such purpose as falsification, all access on his part is perfectly hopeless.

For the application of the registration system to the case of dispositions made of property, the appropriate course might be this: adequately-registered estates, all of them, to the extent allowed by law, secured against eventual as well as against actual alienation: secured against it, no estates not so registered. A charge is an efficient cause of eventual alienation: considered in respect of the subject-matter it applies to, a charge may be termed general, or say generally-applying, or all-comprehensively applying, when it applies to the whole of the property belonging to the charger, as in the case of a judgment or a recognisance; specially-applying, when it is only to one particular parcel of his property, are that expressly mentioned in it, that it applies: as in the case of a mortgage, or a marriage settlement.

The misfortune is that, be the registration and publication system ever so perfect, no lender of a comparatively small sum,—no person supplying goods or labour to a comparatively small value,—can have in his mind at all times a sufficiently correct conception of the solvency of the landholder whom he serves: the consequence is—that every estate non-alienable for debt, is a ready source,—and, at the pleasure of the owner, an instrument, of fraud. But, so long as the fraud is protected and encouraged by law, the impossibility, of doing every thing, that ought to be done, affords not any reason why as much as can be done should not be done; but, on the contrary, it affords a reason why as much as can be done should be done. True it is, that against loss, in comparatively small masses,—or against loss out of income,—small, as above, will be the security thus afforded: but, against loss in large masses; against loss out of capital; against the too frequently happening total losses of capital;—it would, in a tolerable degree, be effectual. Under “Matchless Constitution,” it is true, no regard for the bulk of the community can rationally be expected: but, for the class to which the rulers themselves belong, more or less regard may be expected on the part of each: and the greater the number to which, to whatever classes belonging, the benefit can be made to extend, the more fully will the wishes of a well-wisher to all alike, be accomplished.

My learned master, I observe, makes much and good use of French law; but he seems not to be aware of the pattern of good management afforded by that law in this part of the field.

Under Matchless Constitution, interest being throughout the whole at daggers drawn with duty,—in this case in particular, the same individual being concerned in conveyances and in suits, the right hand adds to its other occupations that of making business for the left. Thus, under English-bred law: not so under Rome-bred law: in particular, in France. There, the class of notaries is a class altogether distinct from that of other lawyers. In that country, the other professional classes cannot indeed but be more or less deeply tinged with the vices inherent in the profession: howsoever less deeply than here, where, in every part of it, the whole chaos—substantive law, procedure law, and judicial establishment—has with such matchless skill and success been adapted to the purpose of unpunishable depredation. But, in the notary class, on the contrary, to such a degree of intimacy is brought, in that instance, the connexion between interest and duty—in the notary class, may be seen an example of a degree of integrity, scarcely to be matched in any other profit-seeking occupation whatsoever; accordingly, in that, above all others, may be seen an object of universal confidence. Hands altogether pure from the waters of strife, the notary adds to the trust of the conveyancer that of the banker: but with this difference—that it is only during short intervals that the money remains in his hands; those intervals, to wit, in which such custody is requisite for the purpose of the negotiation; and that, during those same intervals, he keeps the money without lending it.

Out of this state of things sprung just now an individual occurrence, more forcibly probative than can commonly be afforded of the truth of a general allegation. In France, the notaries form a sort of body corporate. In Paris, an individual of this profession went off, t’other day, with the value of about two or three thousand pounds sterling destined for a purchase. Scarcely had any such act of delinquency been remembered: a commotion, like an electric shock, went through the whole body: on recovery, they made up a common purse, and replaced the loss. In England, Ireland, Scotland (for in Scotland this institution of Rome-bred law has not, to any considerable extent, if at all, been adopted)—in these countries, Diogenes, with his lantern, might trudge on till the last drop of his oil was spent, ere he found the object of his search: in France, where they exist by thousands, he would save his oil, and the labour of laying a trap for his joke.

Apropos of notaries. I will take the liberty of suggesting to my learned master, the adding to his French-law library the standard book on the subject, Le Parfait Notaire, &c. par A. J. Massé, 3 volumes 4to. Paris, 1825, cinquième edition; the precedents in it he would find of a very different complexion from those which have given him so much trouble: much superior in aptitude to those in the Scotch law-book, intituled, The Office of a Notary-Public: in my copy, 4th edition, 1792.

Notaries being on the carpet, a word I must put in, in favour of an humble class of late years brought into notice. Poor man’s notaries they may be styled, or poor notaries, or pure notaries: pure notaries, in contradistinction to attorney notaries, as pure surgeons, as by some styled, in contradistinction to apothecary surgeons. But pure my notaries may be styled in an additional sense—in the moral sense: pure from the sinister interest which the attorney notary and the barrister notary have, in making, with the instruments in question, work for themselves in the field of litigation. They are for the most part (it is said) country school-masters. These, the attorney notaries, have, as is natural, been, for some time labouring to put out of their way. Petitions for this purpose have for years been coming in. Alleged grounds—of course, relative inaptitude of these intruders: alleged consequences—immediate inaptitude, in all imaginable forms, on the part of their instruments; ultimately, increase of litigation on the part of their employers. But, if these same alleged, were the real, ultimate consequence,—with no such petitions would honourable table he encumbered. So says evidentia rei. Now as to evidence ab extrà. That, of the alleged inaptitude, by due search the country over, a body of evidence, larger than could be wished, might be found—the present state of the law is, of itself, sufficient to render but too probable: evidence, of the satisfactoriness of which to an appropriate committee, under the guidance of learned gentlemen, no great doubt need be entertained. But, as in other cases, so in this,—from positive inaptitude no conclusion can be drawn, capable of affording a sufficient warrant for the desired practical result, unless it be also comparative. Unfortunately for the unlearned clients of the unlearned advocate,—on this ground likewise, learned gentlemen are prepared to ride triumphant. Of law-learnedness in this and the higher grade together, tests over and over again established, approved, and incontestably and exclusively probative, two:—the financial, and the convivial, or say manducatory. Financial: clerkship articles duty, £120; admission duty, £25; total, on capital, £145; add, on income, £8. Tests preferred by Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, presumably the financial; by Mr. Secretary Peel, declaredly the convivial; by their humble servant, the examinational.

Be this as it may, for clearing away every shadow of objection on the ground of want of intellectual aptitude,—nothing is wanting but the proposed appropriate code, with an appendix composed of the proposed authorized instruments, adapted to the purpose by the brevity and intelligibility above exemplified. This boon granted, better qualified for the business would be the least learned country schoolmaster, than, under the reign of the present Chaos, the most learned of learned gentlemen can be. In this comparatively halcyon state of things,—in matters of small concern, the instruments of sale and mortgage, together with ordinary leases, wills of personal property, and the most ordinary species of contract, such as apprenticeship articles, hirings,&c. would remain to the humble class of notaries; family settlements and wills of land, to the elevated class. Even thus the business of the unlearned class would naturally be mostly confined within the field marked out by the ready prepared and authorized blank forms: while, for anything special, recourse would be had, by those who could afford it, to the learned class. As to examination,—plans, applicable to this as well as higher purposes, will, before the meeting of parliament, be at every body’s command: title of the work, “Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized.”

Before registration is done with, one word as to the means of enforcement. Speaking of the instrument,—in case of non-observance of enactments, “utterly void,” says page 312. Nor is this (it is feared) the only page. Observe now the effects. In every case, client sinned against; lawyer the sinner: client punished; lawyer unpunished. In the present case, note the situation in which the client is placed. Under the name of a memorial, an instrument, containing matter under no fewer than eight specified heads, is required to be drawn up “in the form or to the effect of” a certain article (Art. 101,) . . . . “but with any alterations or additions which the nature of the case may require: otherwise,” that is to say if, by the draughtsman, in respect of any one of these particulars, anything is done which, by an equity judge, may be pronounced not to be to that same effect—“every such deed” (it is said) “shall be utterly void.” Now, then, as to the effects. Frequently, in the shape of capital, is the whole property of the purchaser of an estate embarked in the purchase: not to speak of the cases where, the purchase money being more than his all, a part of it remains charged on the estate, after the estate has passed into his hands. Think what, with a trap of this sort set for him, the hapless non-lawyer has to do, to save himself from it. At his peril he must turn lawyer: do, what by the supposition he is unable to do: for, if able, no need would he have for the professional assistance. But, in this case, an indemnity is provided for him: return of his money. Indemnity? Oh yes. Source of it a few years of equity suit, against the perhaps ruined man, by whose indigence most commonly the sale was produced. Lawyer ruins client, loses not a sixpence, and perhaps gets for himself a new suit. For, everywhere so it is—as in procedure, so in conveyancing; making flaw in draught, makes more business for draughtsman. But reputation? Oh, as to this, small here is the risk: known uncertainty of the law offers its ready cover to all learned sins. Thus, while in the shape of pain of nullity, punishment is in appearance employed in the prevention of the mischief, reward is in reality employed in the augmentation of it. Punishment? Yes: and what punishment? Punishment, the evil of which rivalizes with those which are inflicted for the most mischievous crimes. Not unfrequently, sooner than subject himself to any such forfeiture, the defendant—simple debtor or criminal—has been known to embrace imprisonment for life.

Then as to time. Thirty days fixed inexorably for all cases. But who shall reckon up all the accidents, by any of which, without a particle of blame to the purchaser, performance of what is required, within that time, may be prevented? Day reckoned from, “the date of the deed:”—a day hereby supposed to be, in all cases one and the same for all parties: but how often, the act in question is of necessity the work of different days, has been seen above.

One instance more, page 185. Transgression, misapplication of any one of the three obscurified terms—trust, use, and confidence: penalty, here too expressed by the words “utterly void,” applied to the “assurances,” whatever they may be. Sin here, in every case exclusively the lawyer’s: client altogether incapable of ever committing it. Author’s design, in this case as in all others, meritorious. But, mode of execution how unfortunate!

Conveyances and contracts, which it is the intention of the law should not take effect—yes, to these, it is true, the effect indicated by the words void and nullity, and their conjugates and quasi-conjugates cannot but be attached. But then these cases ought to be, as without difficulty they might be, made known to all clients: known, by being particularized in the Code; and every lawyer, participating in the formation of such forbidden arrangements, might and should be, made punitionally and compensationally responsible.

As to our Reformist,—in extenuation, with but too much truth, may he plead on this occasion universal practice. But, the dereliction of it is one which he will see the necessity of adding to the list of his so highly-needed innovations. Great, indeed, is the progress he has made, in the shaking off the shackles of habit—result of interest-begotten and authority-begotten prejudice: one effort more, however, the present case demands at his hands.

But, what reasonable expectation can you have (it may be asked) of seeing the force of law given to a means of security so galling to the feelings of those on whom the giving that force to it depends? especially if there be any approach to truth in what is said of the proportionable number of those, the nakedness of whose property would, by such an instrument of exposure, be uncovered? Answer. In the very modesty alluded to, as a certain cause of defeat, I descry a source of success. In nothing but the fear of such exposure could any man find any motive for opposition. On the bringing in the bill, it might, without difficulty, be sufficiently made known, that the Noes will, all of them, be carefully noted down, and rendered universally notorious. In the instance of each opponent, that which would, in this way, be made universally known is—that, by a difference, the amount of which was matter of shame or uneasiness to him, his actual property wanted more or less of being equal to his supposed property; all that would remain concealed would be—the exact amount. But to any man—to what purpose can such concealment be desirable? Two distinguishable ones alone have any application to the case: obtaining money on a false pretence of solvency; or obtaining respect on a false appearance of opulence: cheating creditors alone; or cheating them and everybody else.

Now as to machinery. In his haste to arrive at the essentials of his plan, our reformist seems, on this occasion, to have taken up for his support, without sufficient examination, a broken reed of authority; and the consequence is—a choice such as will be seen. No objection, however, does this oversight make to the essentials: for,other machinery (it will also be seen) the case furnishes:—machinery also in use—machinery simple, well constructed, and adequate.

Sets of Commissioners (so say his “Preliminary Enactments,”) at least two; all of them (it is presumed) ambulatory. Annual expense, what? Amount not less than £624,000 a-year;* duration, of course as long as said commissioners can contrive to render it. Then comes the retired allowance system, and to year substitutes life. For justice, for security for the whole landed property of the kingdom, no such sum could be spared.—Royal amateurs want it for palaces; Lord Liverpool, for churches.

So much for the complicated, the slow-working, the expensive, machinery. Behold now the simple, the quick-working, the unexpensive. Precedents six; latest dates of each as follows:—Poor Returns, first accessible batch, anno 1787; (a prior one of 1777, not accessible;) second batch, 1804; third, and last batch, 1818. Population Returns, first batch, anno 1812; second, and last batch, 1822. Scotch Education Returns, 1826.

Mode of eliciting the information,—author’s the oral; reviewer’s the epistolary. For judiciary purposes, for general purposes,—incomparably the best mode, confessedly the oral; the epistolary being but a make-shift—to save delay, vexation, and expense, on the part of the examinees; for the particular purpose here in question, probable delay being much less; vexation of examinees much less; expense next to 0.

Number of elicitators;—upon author’s plan, as above, 312; upon reviewer’s plan, one. Mr. Rickman, whose appropriate aptitude shines with so steady a lustre in the Population Returns, is at his post. House of Commons’ clerk finds labour; Honourable House, authority and auspices; Mr. Freeling, with his mails, conveyance.

Time, occupied before the information is completed—on author’s plan, what has been seen: on reviewer’s plan, as follows:—Poor Returns, in the case of batch the first, time not apparent; Poor Returns, batch the second, date of the latest matter, 12th April 1803; date of order for printing, 10th July 1804: interval, months 15.—Poor Returns, batch third and last,—date of latest matter, last day of 1815; date of order for printing, 3d March 1818; date of order for elicitation not ascertainable without a search, the result of which would not pay for time and labour.—Population Returns, batch the first,—day appointed for the commencement of the operation in the parishes, 22d May 1811; month in which the digest of them was delivered in, June 1812, as per signature, John Rickman; interval occupied in collecting and digesting, not more than 13 months.—Population Returns, batch the second,—year appointed for the commencement of the inquiry, 1811; day and month not apparent; month in which digest was delivered in, June 1822; presumable interval occupied in collecting and digesting,—as before, 13 months.—Lastly, Scotch Education Returns,—date of the House of Commons’ resolution in which they originated, 30th March 1825; date of Under Secretary of State’s letter to the Lord Advocate in consequence, the very next day, 31st March 1825; date of letter from Lord Advocate, sending the first part of the whole of the information, 14th February 1826. Number of pages in the printed copy, 985: interval thus employed in collecting, not more than ten and a half months; within which time was performed a vibrating system of correspondence, composed of divers vibrations—letters written backwards and forwards.

In the case in question,—would any greater length of time be necessary? any grounds for any apprehension to that effect, can they be assigned? None whatever. Places constituting the local objects of inquiry and sources of information,—in those cases the parishes; in these, the manors. Reluctance as to the communicating the information,—in any greater degree probable in this case than in those? No; nor yet so much. In those cases, indemnities being out of the question, nothing was to be got by furnishing the information, nothing to be lost by not furnishing. On the present occasion, more or less may in general be lost, by omitting to furnish the information; more or less perhaps to be got by furnishing it; for, to each individual from whom the information would be required, the consequence of omission would be, that his interest would be disposed of, and in case of loss on his part, no indemnity would he receive.

Il ne faut pas multiplier les êtres sans necessité, says a well-known French proverb: and, of all multiplicable beings,—among those in whose instance the practice of that rule of arithmetic is most mischievous, are locusts.

As to our author’s machinery for registration and other purposes,—his quarter-sessions chairmanand his clerk of the peace—still more egregiously unapt is it for this than for its present purposes. But, to his plan, this inaptitude forms no objection: only for elucidation (so he expressly declares,) only for elucidation, does he bring it on the carpet. No fault is it of Mr. Humphreys, if, in the whole establishment, there is not a single judicatory that is in any tolerable degree fit for any other purpose than those for which, under Matchless Constitution, all judicatories, with but here and there an exception, have been invented—putting power into the hands, and other people’s money into the pockets, of the inventors. A machinery adapted to his purposes—a judiciary establishment, with a correspondent procedure code,—each of them the first that every really had for its sole object the giving execution and effect, with the minimum of daily vexation and expense, to the enactments of the substantive branch of the law,—is in progress; and the judiciary establishment plan will be in the printer’s hands within a few weeks after the present pages are out of them.

Before concluding, I will take the liberty of suggesting, for his consideration, as briefly as possible, a few supposed improvements, of which his plan presents itself to me as susceptible: to do whatsoever else may be in my power, towards lightening his labour, and promoting his generous designs, would be a sincere pleasure to me. If, for the most part, these same suggestions should be found to apply to every other part of the field of law, as well as to the part on which his beneficent labours have been more particularly employed,—they will not, on that account, be the less excusable.

Distinguishable shapes, which the matter of a proposed code may, throughout the whole texture of it, have occasion to assume, five: the enactive, the expositive, the ratiocinative, the instructional, the exemplificative. Of the exemplifications of them exhibited in this work of our learned author, presently: in English statute law, sole shape exemplified,—the enactive. As to this same enactive shape, with an exclusion put upon all the others—nothing, with a view to rulers’ purposes, could or can be more convenient. Expression of will this, nothing more: talent necessary, none beyond what is manifested by every child as soon as it can speak. Not so any of the four other sorts of matter. Not to speak of Russian, Italian, and Spanish translations—of the expositive and the ratiocinative, the French work, in which samples of them are exhibited, has been before the public ever since 1802, and another there has just been occasion to bring to view. Grades of functionaries, to either or both of which the instructional portion of the matter may be virtually addressed—subordinates, with a view to execution and effect; future legislators, for the better explanation of the designs, with a view to fulfilment.

Case to which the exemplificational more particularly applies, that of an as yet only proposed code. Legal systems, from which the matter two: may be derived, two: the home, and the aggregate of the most approved foreign ones: the home system, for the purpose of exhibiting in detail the disorder for which the code is the proposed remedy, and examples of particular arrangements, in themselves of a beneficial nature, but in respect of which the system, taken in the aggregate, is chargeable,—on account of the narrowness of the application made of them, and, throughout the remainder of the field, the employment of flagrantly-unapt arrangements, to the exclusion of them: the foreign, for the purpose of furnishing, under this other head, in support of what is proposed, the instruction afforded by experience. Note, that this same exemplificational matter must not be confounded with the matter composed of those examples, which there may be found occasion to give as an inseparable part of the enactive, though they may be considered as belonging also to the expositive.

Next to the expositive matter. Purpose of it, exclusion of the several imperfections, which, on every part of the field, and on this in particular, discourse is liable to labour under. These are, on the part of hearers and readers, nonconception and misconception: on the part of the discourse itself, unintelligibility, obscurity, indeterminateness, ambiguity. Against some of them, howsoever well framed the instrument in other respects, appropriate exposition will be an indispensable preventive remedy. But, to none of them, without the aid of another remedy, of the purely negative cast, namely, avoidance of lengthiness, can it be a sufficient one. As to lengthiness,—it applies, not only to the entire discourse, but also, and with different and still worse effect, to its component parts called sentences: and it is in this latter case that it is in a more particular degree productive of these several imperfections.

Efficient causes of lengthiness in sentences,—surplusage and involvedness. Of imperfection in both these shapes in conveyancing instruments, examples have been seen above.

Causes of imperfection in all these shapes, more particularly in that of ambiguity—not only mis-selection and lengthiness as above, but miscollocation likewise; miscollocation, whether applied to words or to phrases. For the avoidance of it, a set of rules will ere long be (it is hoped) at my learned master’s service. For the exemplification of imperfection in all manner of shapes in laws, matter in rich harvest may be found in the English statute book: the most conspicuous repository of every imperfection of which legislative language is susceptible. Towards remediation, a disposition has of late been expressed by those on whom it depends: but, before that is done which the proper end in view requires to be done—before the form in which they are presented is the same with that in use in ordinary discourse, with no other difference than what is necessary to the exclusion of the above-mentioned imperfections—not inconsiderable is the quantity of matter, which, in the form of directive rules, will require to be framed, borne in mind, and for that purpose consigned to black and white.

Collocation—is it a light matter? Is it without effect on practice? Read this one line, and judge: “Parliament,” says the statute (4 Ed. III. c. 14,) “shall be holden every year once, and more often if need be.” Miscollocation that. Proper collocation this: “Parliament shall be holden every year once—and, if need be, more often.” Not that there can be any adequate assurance, that by this or any other form of words, the would-be despot, in whose face this bridle was afterwards held up, would have held himself bound. But, if he had been—think of the effect that might have been produced in the destiny of England; and, through England, of the habitable globe. For general application, take this rule. Imbed,as above, your limitative clause in that one of two principal clauses, to which alone it is designed to be applied: imbed it in that one, instead of putting it at the end of the two, in one of which it is not intended to be applied.

Of exposition-requiring terms,—groupes, which it may be of use to distinguish, these:

I. Terms of universal jurisprudence. Examples: 1. Obligation. 2. Liability. 3. Right. 4. Power. 5. Responsibility. 6. Possession. Original source of exposition to the whole group, the idea of a command.

II. Terms peculiar to English-bred jurisprudence. Examples from the field of property-law: 1. Feoffment. 2. Lien. 3. Trusts. 4. Uses. 5. Springing Uses. 6. Executory Devises. 7. Tenures. 8. Mortmain. In regard to these,—in a code on the new plan, only in respect of the use made of them in such parts of the existing law as remains unabrogated,—will exposition be the proper course. From the enactive part of the new code, these, and all those words which nobody but a lawyer understands, should be carefully excluded:—those alone employed, which, with or without exposition therein given, will be understood,—not by lawyers alone, but by everybody else.

III. Terms belonging to the common stock of the language; but to which, by distortion, lawyers have given an import intelligible to none but themselves. Examples. 1. Applied to the subject-matter of property,—real, instead of the appropriate and Rome-bred denomination immoveable. 2. Personal instead of moveable. 3. Applied to a conveyance, voluntary instead of gratuitous. 4. Servitude, instead of partial ownership rights, with the correspondent obligations. Wanted, for this idea, a more expressive single-worded denomination. Servitude, a word unknown to English law: instead of a particular interest in a thing immoveable, the idea it presents to a non-lawyer is—the condition of a person:—a condition bordering upon slavery. Here I have to turn informer. Smuggled in, by this reformist of ours, has been this same word servitude: introduced, without notice, from continental into our insular language.

IV. Terms belonging to the common stock of the language,—but, by reason of their ambiguity, coupled with frequency of occurrence and importance, with reference to practice,—their import needing distinction and fixation:—terms universally intelligible, but by reason of their ambiguousness, not the less needing to be thus fitted for use. Examples: 1. Land. 2. Modifications of place. 3. Divisions of time. Sub-examples under this head: 1. Day, the portion of the year: day, in contradistinction to night. 2. Month lunar, month calendar. 3. Year ordinary, year bissextile.

V. Words there are, which, notwithstanding the all-comprehensiveness of their extent, and the need there will be of them in an all-comprehensive code, need not any express definition, their import being on each occasion rendered sufficiently determinate. To this head belong divers names of genera generalissima, besides the jurisprudential terms brought to view above. Examples of these terms: 1. Subject-matters of operation: 2. Operations. 3. Correspondent functions. 4. Operators. 5. Instruments. 6. Judicial and other mandates. 7. States of things. 8. Events. 9. Occurrences. A pretty copious collection of them may be seen brought together and applied, on the occasion of the employment given to them in the above-mentioned Constitutional Code, chap. ix. Ministers collectively. § 7, Statistic Function.

In the case of all those more especially influential terms,—an accompaniment, in no small degree beneficial, might be—a list of synonyms: synonyms to single words, equivalents to short phrases. Not very numerous, comparatively speaking, are perhaps the pairs of words, which, on every possible occasion, may be used interconvertibly, each with as much propriety as the other. But, on each occasion, where any difference has place, the context will suffice, for security, against the endeavour, on the part of litigants, to produce, on the ground of the attached synonym, a wrong interpretation of the word employed in the text. By a characteristic feature of the proposed system—the ratiocinative part,—an additional, and hitherto unexampled security will be afforded.

As to our learned Reformist’s Code,—short as it is, candidates in it for the honour of receiving exposition, I have made out a list of, not fewer than 289, belonging to one or other of the above divisions. These, however, in no inconsiderable number, apply not to this alone, but to every other portion of the Pannomion—the All-comprehensive Code. Of the whole stock belonging to that aggregate, the number, of course, cannot be small; but the field they belong to is proportionably extensive. The time for each of them to receive its exposition, is the time when the subject it belongs to, is for the first time brought upon the carpet.

Problems for solution: 1. How to distinguish terms needing, from terms not needing, exposition? 2. How to distinguish terms needing to receive exposition from terms fit to be employed in giving it? Scarcely, even, for statement, can room be found here; for solution, none: purpose of the statement, showing that they have not been, and saying that they ought not to be neglected.

Now as to the ratiocinative matter. For arrangements and correspondent enactments, in that part of the field of law to which the work in question more especially applies—standard of aptitude say, the disappointment preventive, or disappointment prevention principle,—or, more specifically, the unexpected-loss-preventing principle:—a branch this, of the greatest happiness principle, with a special denomination adapted to the matter belonging to this part of the field.—Prevent disappointment? Why? Answer. From disappointment, as everybody knows and feels, springs a pain; magnitude, proportioned to the value set by the individual on the benefit that had been expected. In this pain will be found the only reason, why any subject-matter of ownership should be given to the owner rather than to an usurper: to an usurper, by what denomination soever distinguished: intruder, diffusor, embezzler, thief, robber, and so on: the only reason why, to interests termed vested, more regard should be paid, than to interests not so denominated: the only reason why, for loss,—on any occasion, or from any source,—indemnity should be provided. From the non-possession of the millions of watches existing in other pockets,—you, who read this, do you suffer anything? Not you: and why not? because, not expecting to possess any one of them,—no pain of disappointment do you suffer from the nonpossession of it. But, if by any hand other than your own—a thief’s, an unjust claimant’s, or a judge’s, it were taken from you—yes; in any one of these cases a sufferer you would be:—quantum of suffering, in a ratio, compounded of the marketable value of the watch with the indigency of your pecuniary circumstances, to the purpose of replacing it, and the relative sensibility of your frame.

Here, then, is an intelligible standard, and the only one. Behold now the effects produced by the hitherto universal want of it. Succedaneums, in number infinite; but not one of them expressive of anything, besides the ungrounded sentiment, or say mental sensation, entertained, on the occasion, by him who speaks:—a sentiment of approbation or disapprobation, expressed under the expectation of finding, or producing, the like on the part of hearers, but not suggestive of any ground whatever, for the sentiment so entertained.

Examples deduced from this work of our Author’s are the following:—“1. Natural Justice, p. 118, 119. 2. Equity, 119. 3. Natural Equity, p. 129. 4. Justice, pp. 161, 221. 5. Natural feeling, p. 203. 6. Harsh law . . . . cries feelingly for correction. 7. Our present law violates the first principle of property, p. 220.” First principle of property? What then is its name? None does our author himself give to it: none has any person else ever given to it. Not so much as that given in Rome-bred law, in the quasi-Hibernian style, to the species of contract denominated the undenominated. Yet, for it to have a name—and highly urgent is its need of one—somebody must stand godfather. Well, then, this is done. As to the thing itself, gratifying it is to me to see my learned master already recognising it, and applying it. Witness two passages, § 114; “One claimant ought not to disappoint another:” p. 148, “The lord’s gain is far from commensurate to his tenant’s loss.” Compare this with what, by the courtesy of England, is called reasoning, in judge-made law!

The honest and excellent work in French law on this subject, Le Parfait Notaire, has been already mentioned. In cutting open the leaves of it, no fewer than fourteen of these gaseous standards caught my eye. A list I took of them has unfortunately been mislaid. In addition to those above-mentioned, “Policy, Right Reason, Natural Reason, Law of Nature,” &c. &c. were of the number. In many instances, they were even brought together, and stated as conflicting. Now, then, of these non-entities, suppose eight on one side, six, and no more, on the other,—then indeed should we have a majority. But suppose fourteen of these puissances ranged, seven on one side, seven on the opposite side; if these are to be taken for reasons, the most clear-sighted and decisive judge may avow himself a Lord Eldon without shame.

Now as to our learned author. Expositive matter he has given us a specimen of in 10 out of 118 articles: namely, in Art. 5, Land; 28, Execution of a Deed; 29, Conveyance; 30, Settlement; 31, Charge; 32, Assignment; 33, Release; 35, Execution of a will; 74, Warranty; 88, Trustee.*

His mode of exposition is,—in the case of all but Land, Execution of a Deed, Execution of a Will, and Trustee,—definition per genus et differentiam: in the case of Land, not found referable to any general head: the expression not quite so correct as could have been wished: ground-works and underground-works not found comprised in it. In the case of the remaining three, paraphrasis; of which, elsewhere.

But, with this, or any other incomplete assemblage, we shall not be satisfied: nothing less than an all-comprehensive one does the purpose require. Composed of the two first of these five sorts of matter is his Code, distinguished from the rest of the work by being printed in italics; of the ratiocinative, instructional, and exemplificational indistinguishably blended, the rest of the work; rest, residue, and remainder in the language of learned gentlemen.

At the head of each article, a notice,—affording, by means of one or more of these five denominations, intimation of the nature and design of the articles,—is a document, that has presented itself as having its use, with the exception of the exemplificational, which had not as yet occurred to me; they accordingly exhibit themselves throughout the whole texture of the so often mentioned Constitutional Code.* Unfortunately, so to order matters, as that under no one of the four first of the above-mentioned five heads, shall any matter be inserted, that can be referable to any or others of them,—has not been found practicable. On the contrary, all the changes, of which the number of heads prefixt to the same article is susceptible, will perhaps be found rung upon them.

Nomenclature, for a series, or chain, of any length, of the results of successive divisional operations, performed upon the same integral subject-matter. Principle of denomination, the numerical. Subject-matters, to which, in the character of integers, it is applicable. 1. Our globe, or any portion of it. 2. The three kingdoms metaphorically so called—the mineral, vegetable, and animal. 3. Weights and Measures. 4. A mass of discourse committed to writing—a literary work. In this last instance it is that the idea applies, on the present occasion, to our author’s case.

Denominations, section, bissection, trissection, quadrisection, and so on. Correspondent visible sign for the eye, the present mark employed for designating a section, a double long ff—; between its two lines the figure indicative of the number of divisional operations, to the result of which it is employed to give expression. By the little swelling produced by this pregnancy, no peremptory objection will, it is hoped, be found produced: or, to avoid it, instead of being imbedded between the two ff, the numeral may have a single f, in a fine stroke drawn through it. By these little arrangements, simple as they are, order might, for the first time, be substituted to the as yet universally existing chaos: and, to an inconveniently inadequate, an adequate stock of denominations substituted. Part, Book, Chapter, Section, Article, Title; scarcely beyond this does the list extend; and, as to the order in which they are made to follow one another, the changes are in a manner rung upon it.

Now as to our author and this his work. Denominations employed in the order in which they here follow, these: 1. Part. 2. Title. 3. Chapter. 4. Section. 5. No. At this last stage, his stock of denominations is exhausted: the consequence is,—that for the results of the division made of the aggregate to which he has given the name of No. are employed the words firstly, secondly, thirdly, fourthly, fifthly, all in a state of anarchy, without any common head for keeping them in a state of society.

Of all these denominations, section (from seco, to cut) is the only one completely characteristic. Reason for employing it—its having, as above, an appropriate sign belonging to it. Article followed by No. there may be a convenience in employing,—for the last, whatsoever may be the number of the intervening divisional operations: these being the two denominations most commonly so employed.

Alike applicable to whatever languages are in use in any nation—this mode of designation might form part and parcel of an universal language. In the above-mentioned proposed Constitutional Code, I regret to think it will not be found applied: it had not occurred time enough.

Two other little tasks, at parting, for our Hercules.

I. For the instruction of testators and their draughtsmen,—a paper, exhibiting a picture of the most commonly-exemplified diversifications, which the state of a person’s family connexions admits of, with a view to the provisions desirable, and likely to be desired to be made for them, in a last Will. For such provisions as require to be made by a Deed, this picture is already afforded by the Family Settlement Deed. But in this case the provision goes not beyond a future contingent family. Remain, for the objects of the hereproposed provision, all such families as are already in existence.

II. Provision, against the mischief, liable to be done by the retroactive effects of the proposed new system:—mischief, of the nature of that, by which the name of an ex-postfacto law in English-bred law language (of kin to which is that of privilegium, in Ciceronian and Rome-bred law-language) has with so much justice been rendered a name of reproach. Here, if I mistake not, he will feel the convenience of taking the disappointment-preventing principle for his guide;—and, doing so, will find in it an adequate defence against all objections. What the occasion seems to call for is—a detailed exposition of the arrangements proposed for the exclusion of mischief from this source. Self-regarding prudence presents itself as joining with benevolence in calling for a careful attention to this subject. On this part of the ground, I see the enemy lying in wait for him. His defences, I fear, are not, as yet, in quite so good a condition as the occasion requires.

One passage exhibits a spectacle I was not prepared for: where our author, taking a sudden spring, mounting Pegasus, and from civil, making an excursion—an uncalled-for excursion—into constitutional law. It is in page 206. Libellous the result: “feelings,” not the less acute by being democratic, “hurt” by it. Revenge is sweet: retaliation cheaper than prosecution.

Author.—“The many are a rope of sand.”

Reviewer.—Say, are they so in Yankeeland?

Answers, like Irish Echo, envious Muse.

Was it, to propitiate those on whom every thing depends for success, that this tirade was inserted? If yes, when Sterne’s Accusing Angel goes up with the passage, the Recording Angel shall have my consent for dropping his obliterating tear on it.

To preserve myself from the consciousness, as well as the imputation, of injustice,—one last word more. Bringing to view supposed imperfections and deficiencies has all along been the chief occupation of this Review:—imperfections, for correction; deficiencies, for supply. Of the mass of useful information, for which we are indebted to our philanthropic reformist,—of the ability, as well as honest zeal, displayed in the exposure of the peccant matter of which the existing system is almost exclusively composed,—of the ingenuity, manifested in so large a proportion of the remedies suggested,—no mention has been made but in the most general terms. But, to have conveyed any thing like an adequate idea of the merits of the work, would have required what, in classical editor’s language, is called a perpetual comment on it, including a reprint of the greatest part of it.

As to myself, never, but for my learned master, should I have obtained any tolerable insight into this chaos. No probable further prolongation of my life would have sufficed for enabling me to look into it without the lantern with which he has furnished me—“lucerna pedibus meis:”—to look into it—I mean for the only purpose—the remedial—for which I could have brought myself to look into it.

—Hoping that such rare talent, coupled with such still more rare virtue, may not be lost to the world, or wait long, ere it be employed by those in whom alone is the power of giving effect to it,—I conclude.

[* ]Namely, the work intituled, “Constitutional Code,” &c.

[* ]See (when published) Dispatch Court Bill, § xi. Auxiliary Judges.

[* ]Cassini is the person of whom the muniment of that sort constructed in France bears the name: Charte Trigonometrique (if I am not misinformed) the name of the muniment itself.

[† ]If I am not misinformed, offer has been made, either to complete that survey or to make a new one, and construct the hereby desired map for £50,000.

[* ]See Return intituled Parish Registers; Honourable House papers, date of order for printing 25th and 30th March 1831, No. 298.

[e ]Sell.] By this one word sell, reference is made to two distinct topics: 1. The quantity of interest disposed of; 2. The absence or presence of an equivalent: only in so far as regards the quantity of interest, does this topic coincide with that to which reference is made by the words purchase of the absolute property, as per note b:—benefit of transmission, to successors determined by the choice of parties, included.

As to what concerns equivalents,—the transfer may be, as here, with and for an equivalent, or without one: if with and for, the equivalent may be either, as here, of money (call it in this case pecuniary)—or of money’s worth, in any other shape (call it in this case, quasi-pecuniary): if without equivalent,—the transfer is gratuitous; the transaction may be termed a gift; the instrument a deed of gift.*Grantor is a term which—where the transfer is not gratuitous, but for money—our learned draughtsman, I observe, employs on several occasions. It has, however, the inconvenience of presenting to view the idea of gratuitousness. Disposer, a term having for its conjugates the verb to dispose, and the substantive disposition—a term in familiar use—would have the convenience of including the three transactions, sale, mortgage, and marriage-settlement. For a correlative to it, an obvious term is disposee: and this same termination ee is indeed used in the same sense in the word mortgagee, and in many other words. But, it has the disadvantage of presenting to view the subject-matter disposed of; in which case no person is, unless he has the misfortune of being a slave. Accordingly, if it depended on me to choose a word,—a word I would rather employ is receptor: receiver—the word already in use—having the disadvantage of presenting, exclusively, the idea of a person, whose interest in the subject-matter is only that of a trustee. In the case of an immoveable subject-matter of property, as here,—gratuitous transmission, as everybody sees, is not, by a great deal, so frequent as in the case of a moveable; obvious cause of the difference, the difference in respect of value. Nor yet (as everybody knows) is gift of an estate—absolutely without example. This, therefore, is a mode of transfer, or say transmission, for which also provision will require to be made. In the arrangements proper to be made in the code for the two cases,—one difference, there is, which is highly important, and not unobvious. In the case where an equivalent is received,—the eventual obligation designated by the word warranty, presents itself as being prescribed by established principles: not so, in the case where no equivalent is received. In both cases, this word warranty presents itself as an obligation, of which,—either in the draught or in the code, with reference to it from the draught,—express mention should be made: and of which it should accordingly be said, either that it is, or that it is not, intended to have place.

[8 ]Weston, Shropshire.] Between wordiness and sufficiency some difference, it is hoped, will now have been seen exemplified:—every superfluous word is an additional cloud. Of wordiness, in the degree in which it is exemplified by English law practice, so far from sufficiency, deficiency is the result. For, when on this or that occasion, such is the quantity of the heap of particulars inserted, that the draughtsman is not able to bear the whole list continually in mind, the consequence is,—that on this or that other occasion, though exactly parallel to it, and calling for exactly the same list,—some of them are omitted, or other added or substituted: whereupon, in argument, the difference, in legislative or professional expression, is, of course, made use of as a ground for difference in justicial decision. Of this sort of style,—expensiveness and uncertainty, with the profit from both, were the manifest final causes, and never were ends more abundantly accomplished.

Now as to Registration. Uses, as applied to instruments of conveyance and contract relating to property in immoveables, these—

1. Preservation of these documentary evidences from loss and destruction.

2. Preservation of them from falsification.

3. Exclusion of corresponding counterfeit documents.

4. In so far as the document is proof, of incumbrance applying to the property of the possessor of the estate, in relation to which the document registered operates as evidence of title,—affording, to all persons disposed to give him credit for money or money’s worth, the means of guarding themselves against loss by insolvency on his part.

5. Affording, by means of the aggregate of the evidence thus preserved and rendered susceptible of appropriate publication,—information of the statistical kind, capable of being turned to account by government for the benefit of the public in a variety of ways.

Of these five good effects,—the first gives security to the owner of the estate, against accident; the second and third, against fraud and depredation, at his expense, on the part of the rest of mankind; the fourth, to the rest of mankind against fraud on his part; the fifth contributes to form a basis for the exercise of the legislative and administrative functions.

Alive to the importance of this means of security,—Mr. Humphreys, taking it up upon its present footing, affords for the improvement of it a quantity of highly valuable matter, as to which I must content myself with referring the reader to his work. I promised him a treat; I now fulfil that promise; such if it be to him, such will the invention I have to present to view be to every reader, in proportion as in his eyes security, to a degree beyond everything that as yet has been experienced, or can have been so much as anticipated, is an object of regard. By it, if narrow and sinister interest in powerful breasts can but be induced to permit the employment of it—by it, will preservation and appropriate publication be given to documentary evidence, to whatever purpose needed: preservation, and what is of correspondent importance, equally unexampled cheapness. It is an invention of which I can speak my admiration the more freely, as not having in my own person any part in it.

For the description of it, and in a more particular manner, of its uses,—I have but to transcribe a passage of an about-to-be published proposed Constitutional Code, ch. viii. Prime Minister, § 10, Registration System.

“Art. 1. For the more commodious, correct, prompt, uniform, and all-comprehensive performance, of the process and function of registration in all the several departments and sub-departments—as likewise on the part of the Prime Minister, for the correspondent receipt by him of all documents, the receipt, and, as occasion calls, the perusal of which may be necessary to the most apt exercise of the several functions belonging to his own office—he will, as soon as may be, cause to be established, and employed in practice, in the several offices of the several departments and their sub-departments, the sub-legislative included, the mode of writing styled the manifold mode.*

“Art. 2. Particular uses of the manifold mode of writing are as follows:—

By the multitude of exemplars, produced at an expense which, with the exception of that of the paper, is less than the expense of two in the ordinary mode it affords means for furnishing, at that small expense, to parties on both sides, for themselves and assistants, all such documents as they can stand in need of.

“Art. 3. Every exemplar being, to an iota, exactly and necessarily the same as every other, the expense of revision by skilled labour is thereby saved, as well as unintentional aberration rendered impossible.

“Art. 4. An exemplar, kept in the Registrar’s office, will serve as a standard, whereby a security will be afforded against all intentional falsification, on the part of the possessor of any other exemplar.

“Art. 5. By the reduction thus effected in the expense of all judicial writings emanating from the judicatory,—the protection afforded by judication in its best form,—to wit, that which has for its ground orally elicited and immediately minuted evidence,—will be brought within the reach of a vast proportion of the whole number of the people, to whom it could not otherwise be afforded.

“Art. 6. A collateral benefit—a degree of security hitherto unexampled against destruction of judicial documents, by calamity or delinquency—may thus be afforded, by the lodging of exemplars in divers offices in which they would be requisite for other purposes: exemplars of documents from the immediate judicatories being, at the appellate judicatory, requisite for the exercise of its judicial functions; and, in the office of justice-minister, for the exercise of his inspective and melioration-suggestive functions.

“Art 7. To save the expense of custody, and prevent the useful from being drowned in the mass of useless matter,—the legislature will make arrangements for the periodical destruction or elimination of such as shall appear useless: care being at all times taken, for the preservation of all such as can continue to be of use, either eventually for a judicial purpose, or for the exercise of the statistic and melioration-suggestive functions, as per ch. ix. § 11, Ministers collectively: ch. xi. Ministers severally, § 2, Legislative Minister: and ch. xii. Judiciary collectively, § 19, Judge’s contested-interpretation-reporting function: § 20, Judge’s eventually-emendative function: § 21, Judge’s sistitive or execution-staying function: § 22, Judge’s pre-interpretative function: § 23, Judge’s non-contestational-evidence-elicitative function.”

Here, then, of every such conveyance,—without any addition to the expense, the trifling expense of the paper excepted,—we have no fewer than eight copies, and upon occasion as far as twelve, no one differing in a single tittle from any other; and this identity effected, without a particle of that skilled labour, the purchase of which, on the present plan, can never fail to be so seriously expensive. On this plan, unless it were for concealment of particulars, no need would there be for any such inadequate representative of the original, as that which, under the name of a memorial, is employed in present practice.

To each one of the parties, how numerous soever, an exemplar would be given of course. To obviate the case,—at present so pregnant, not only with delay, vexation, and expense, but even with loss of estate, for want of a producible title,—as many exemplars might be had by one party, as there were distinguishable parcels, which he might anticipate an occasion for making disposition of. So, when it happens that one estate, disposed of, the whole of it, by one and the same instrument, is situated in the territories of registration offices more than one,—so many of these offices, as there are, so many exemplars may there be. And finally, if, whether for ulterior security against accidents, or for all-comprehensive government purposes, it were found desirable that, for the whole territory of the state there should be one general office, in which an aggregate of the documents received into the several local offices should be kept—here, is an additional accommodation, that might be afforded with a comparatively inconsiderable addition to the expense.

For, the documents being thus distributed, every syllable of each would thus be made secure—not only against deperition by accidents, but against all possibility of falsification. For, suppose, for example, one of the parties dishonest, and disposed to commit this crime, what possibility of a successful issue could he contemplate? In his own exemplar he makes the requisite alteration: but what can it avail him, when, in case of the slightest degree of suspicion, there lie, in the custody of a public functionary, as well as in that of each of the several parties, so many exemplars, to which, for any such purpose as falsification, all access on his part is perfectly hopeless.

For the application of the registration system to the case of dispositions made of property, the appropriate course might be this: adequately-registered estates, all of them, to the extent allowed by law, secured against eventual as well as against actual alienation: secured against it, no estates not so registered. A charge is an efficient cause of eventual alienation: considered in respect of the subject-matter it applies to, a charge may be termed general, or say generally-applying, or all-comprehensively applying, when it applies to the whole of the property belonging to the charger, as in the case of a judgment or a recognisance; specially-applying, when it is only to one particular parcel of his property, are that expressly mentioned in it, that it applies: as in the case of a mortgage, or a marriage settlement.

The misfortune is that, be the registration and publication system ever so perfect, no lender of a comparatively small sum,—no person supplying goods or labour to a comparatively small value,—can have in his mind at all times a sufficiently correct conception of the solvency of the landholder whom he serves: the consequence is—that every estate non-alienable for debt, is a ready source,—and, at the pleasure of the owner, an instrument, of fraud. But, so long as the fraud is protected and encouraged by law, the impossibility, of doing every thing, that ought to be done, affords not any reason why as much as can be done should not be done; but, on the contrary, it affords a reason why as much as can be done should be done. True it is, that against loss, in comparatively small masses,—or against loss out of income,—small, as above, will be the security thus afforded: but, against loss in large masses; against loss out of capital; against the too frequently happening total losses of capital;—it would, in a tolerable degree, be effectual. Under “Matchless Constitution,” it is true, no regard for the bulk of the community can rationally be expected: but, for the class to which the rulers themselves belong, more or less regard may be expected on the part of each: and the greater the number to which, to whatever classes belonging, the benefit can be made to extend, the more fully will the wishes of a well-wisher to all alike, be accomplished.

My learned master, I observe, makes much and good use of French law; but he seems not to be aware of the pattern of good management afforded by that law in this part of the field.

Under Matchless Constitution, interest being throughout the whole at daggers drawn with duty,—in this case in particular, the same individual being concerned in conveyances and in suits, the right hand adds to its other occupations that of making business for the left. Thus, under English-bred law: not so under Rome-bred law: in particular, in France. There, the class of notaries is a class altogether distinct from that of other lawyers. In that country, the other professional classes cannot indeed but be more or less deeply tinged with the vices inherent in the profession: howsoever less deeply than here, where, in every part of it, the whole chaos—substantive law, procedure law, and judicial establishment—has with such matchless skill and success been adapted to the purpose of unpunishable depredation. But, in the notary class, on the contrary, to such a degree of intimacy is brought, in that instance, the connexion between interest and duty—in the notary class, may be seen an example of a degree of integrity, scarcely to be matched in any other profit-seeking occupation whatsoever; accordingly, in that, above all others, may be seen an object of universal confidence. Hands altogether pure from the waters of strife, the notary adds to the trust of the conveyancer that of the banker: but with this difference—that it is only during short intervals that the money remains in his hands; those intervals, to wit, in which such custody is requisite for the purpose of the negotiation; and that, during those same intervals, he keeps the money without lending it.

Out of this state of things sprung just now an individual occurrence, more forcibly probative than can commonly be afforded of the truth of a general allegation. In France, the notaries form a sort of body corporate. In Paris, an individual of this profession went off, t’other day, with the value of about two or three thousand pounds sterling destined for a purchase. Scarcely had any such act of delinquency been remembered: a commotion, like an electric shock, went through the whole body: on recovery, they made up a common purse, and replaced the loss. In England, Ireland, Scotland (for in Scotland this institution of Rome-bred law has not, to any considerable extent, if at all, been adopted)—in these countries, Diogenes, with his lantern, might trudge on till the last drop of his oil was spent, ere he found the object of his search: in France, where they exist by thousands, he would save his oil, and the labour of laying a trap for his joke.

Apropos of notaries. I will take the liberty of suggesting to my learned master, the adding to his French-law library the standard book on the subject, Le Parfait Notaire, &c. par A. J. Massé, 3 volumes 4to. Paris, 1825, cinquième edition; the precedents in it he would find of a very different complexion from those which have given him so much trouble: much superior in aptitude to those in the Scotch law-book, intituled, The Office of a Notary-Public: in my copy, 4th edition, 1792.

Notaries being on the carpet, a word I must put in, in favour of an humble class of late years brought into notice. Poor man’s notaries they may be styled, or poor notaries, or pure notaries: pure notaries, in contradistinction to attorney notaries, as pure surgeons, as by some styled, in contradistinction to apothecary surgeons. But pure my notaries may be styled in an additional sense—in the moral sense: pure from the sinister interest which the attorney notary and the barrister notary have, in making, with the instruments in question, work for themselves in the field of litigation. They are for the most part (it is said) country school-masters. These, the attorney notaries, have, as is natural, been, for some time labouring to put out of their way. Petitions for this purpose have for years been coming in. Alleged grounds—of course, relative inaptitude of these intruders: alleged consequences—immediate inaptitude, in all imaginable forms, on the part of their instruments; ultimately, increase of litigation on the part of their employers. But, if these same alleged, were the real, ultimate consequence,—with no such petitions would honourable table he encumbered. So says evidentia rei. Now as to evidence ab extrà. That, of the alleged inaptitude, by due search the country over, a body of evidence, larger than could be wished, might be found—the present state of the law is, of itself, sufficient to render but too probable: evidence, of the satisfactoriness of which to an appropriate committee, under the guidance of learned gentlemen, no great doubt need be entertained. But, as in other cases, so in this,—from positive inaptitude no conclusion can be drawn, capable of affording a sufficient warrant for the desired practical result, unless it be also comparative. Unfortunately for the unlearned clients of the unlearned advocate,—on this ground likewise, learned gentlemen are prepared to ride triumphant. Of law-learnedness in this and the higher grade together, tests over and over again established, approved, and incontestably and exclusively probative, two:—the financial, and the convivial, or say manducatory. Financial: clerkship articles duty, £120; admission duty, £25; total, on capital, £145; add, on income, £8. Tests preferred by Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, presumably the financial; by Mr. Secretary Peel, declaredly the convivial; by their humble servant, the examinational.

Be this as it may, for clearing away every shadow of objection on the ground of want of intellectual aptitude,—nothing is wanting but the proposed appropriate code, with an appendix composed of the proposed authorized instruments, adapted to the purpose by the brevity and intelligibility above exemplified. This boon granted, better qualified for the business would be the least learned country schoolmaster, than, under the reign of the present Chaos, the most learned of learned gentlemen can be. In this comparatively halcyon state of things,—in matters of small concern, the instruments of sale and mortgage, together with ordinary leases, wills of personal property, and the most ordinary species of contract, such as apprenticeship articles, hirings,&c. would remain to the humble class of notaries; family settlements and wills of land, to the elevated class. Even thus the business of the unlearned class would naturally be mostly confined within the field marked out by the ready prepared and authorized blank forms: while, for anything special, recourse would be had, by those who could afford it, to the learned class. As to examination,—plans, applicable to this as well as higher purposes, will, before the meeting of parliament, be at every body’s command: title of the work, “Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized.”

Before registration is done with, one word as to the means of enforcement. Speaking of the instrument,—in case of non-observance of enactments, “utterly void,” says page 312. Nor is this (it is feared) the only page. Observe now the effects. In every case, client sinned against; lawyer the sinner: client punished; lawyer unpunished. In the present case, note the situation in which the client is placed. Under the name of a memorial, an instrument, containing matter under no fewer than eight specified heads, is required to be drawn up “in the form or to the effect of” a certain article (Art. 101,) . . . . “but with any alterations or additions which the nature of the case may require: otherwise,” that is to say if, by the draughtsman, in respect of any one of these particulars, anything is done which, by an equity judge, may be pronounced not to be to that same effect—“every such deed” (it is said) “shall be utterly void.” Now, then, as to the effects. Frequently, in the shape of capital, is the whole property of the purchaser of an estate embarked in the purchase: not to speak of the cases where, the purchase money being more than his all, a part of it remains charged on the estate, after the estate has passed into his hands. Think what, with a trap of this sort set for him, the hapless non-lawyer has to do, to save himself from it. At his peril he must turn lawyer: do, what by the supposition he is unable to do: for, if able, no need would he have for the professional assistance. But, in this case, an indemnity is provided for him: return of his money. Indemnity? Oh yes. Source of it a few years of equity suit, against the perhaps ruined man, by whose indigence most commonly the sale was produced. Lawyer ruins client, loses not a sixpence, and perhaps gets for himself a new suit. For, everywhere so it is—as in procedure, so in conveyancing; making flaw in draught, makes more business for draughtsman. But reputation? Oh, as to this, small here is the risk: known uncertainty of the law offers its ready cover to all learned sins. Thus, while in the shape of pain of nullity, punishment is in appearance employed in the prevention of the mischief, reward is in reality employed in the augmentation of it. Punishment? Yes: and what punishment? Punishment, the evil of which rivalizes with those which are inflicted for the most mischievous crimes. Not unfrequently, sooner than subject himself to any such forfeiture, the defendant—simple debtor or criminal—has been known to embrace imprisonment for life.

Then as to time. Thirty days fixed inexorably for all cases. But who shall reckon up all the accidents, by any of which, without a particle of blame to the purchaser, performance of what is required, within that time, may be prevented? Day reckoned from, “the date of the deed:”—a day hereby supposed to be, in all cases one and the same for all parties: but how often, the act in question is of necessity the work of different days, has been seen above.

One instance more, page 185. Transgression, misapplication of any one of the three obscurified terms—trust, use, and confidence: penalty, here too expressed by the words “utterly void,” applied to the “assurances,” whatever they may be. Sin here, in every case exclusively the lawyer’s: client altogether incapable of ever committing it. Author’s design, in this case as in all others, meritorious. But, mode of execution how unfortunate!

Conveyances and contracts, which it is the intention of the law should not take effect—yes, to these, it is true, the effect indicated by the words void and nullity, and their conjugates and quasi-conjugates cannot but be attached. But then these cases ought to be, as without difficulty they might be, made known to all clients: known, by being particularized in the Code; and every lawyer, participating in the formation of such forbidden arrangements, might and should be, made punitionally and compensationally responsible.

As to our Reformist,—in extenuation, with but too much truth, may he plead on this occasion universal practice. But, the dereliction of it is one which he will see the necessity of adding to the list of his so highly-needed innovations. Great, indeed, is the progress he has made, in the shaking off the shackles of habit—result of interest-begotten and authority-begotten prejudice: one effort more, however, the present case demands at his hands.

But, what reasonable expectation can you have (it may be asked) of seeing the force of law given to a means of security so galling to the feelings of those on whom the giving that force to it depends? especially if there be any approach to truth in what is said of the proportionable number of those, the nakedness of whose property would, by such an instrument of exposure, be uncovered? Answer. In the very modesty alluded to, as a certain cause of defeat, I descry a source of success. In nothing but the fear of such exposure could any man find any motive for opposition. On the bringing in the bill, it might, without difficulty, be sufficiently made known, that the Noes will, all of them, be carefully noted down, and rendered universally notorious. In the instance of each opponent, that which would, in this way, be made universally known is—that, by a difference, the amount of which was matter of shame or uneasiness to him, his actual property wanted more or less of being equal to his supposed property; all that would remain concealed would be—the exact amount. But to any man—to what purpose can such concealment be desirable? Two distinguishable ones alone have any application to the case: obtaining money on a false pretence of solvency; or obtaining respect on a false appearance of opulence: cheating creditors alone; or cheating them and everybody else.

Now as to machinery. In his haste to arrive at the essentials of his plan, our reformist seems, on this occasion, to have taken up for his support, without sufficient examination, a broken reed of authority; and the consequence is—a choice such as will be seen. No objection, however, does this oversight make to the essentials: for,other machinery (it will also be seen) the case furnishes:—machinery also in use—machinery simple, well constructed, and adequate.

Sets of Commissioners (so say his “Preliminary Enactments,”) at least two; all of them (it is presumed) ambulatory. Annual expense, what? Amount not less than £624,000 a-year;* duration, of course as long as said commissioners can contrive to render it. Then comes the retired allowance system, and to year substitutes life. For justice, for security for the whole landed property of the kingdom, no such sum could be spared.—Royal amateurs want it for palaces; Lord Liverpool, for churches.

So much for the complicated, the slow-working, the expensive, machinery. Behold now the simple, the quick-working, the unexpensive. Precedents six; latest dates of each as follows:—Poor Returns, first accessible batch, anno 1787; (a prior one of 1777, not accessible;) second batch, 1804; third, and last batch, 1818. Population Returns, first batch, anno 1812; second, and last batch, 1822. Scotch Education Returns, 1826.

Mode of eliciting the information,—author’s the oral; reviewer’s the epistolary. For judiciary purposes, for general purposes,—incomparably the best mode, confessedly the oral; the epistolary being but a make-shift—to save delay, vexation, and expense, on the part of the examinees; for the particular purpose here in question, probable delay being much less; vexation of examinees much less; expense next to 0.

Number of elicitators;—upon author’s plan, as above, 312; upon reviewer’s plan, one. Mr. Rickman, whose appropriate aptitude shines with so steady a lustre in the Population Returns, is at his post. House of Commons’ clerk finds labour; Honourable House, authority and auspices; Mr. Freeling, with his mails, conveyance.

Time, occupied before the information is completed—on author’s plan, what has been seen: on reviewer’s plan, as follows:—Poor Returns, in the case of batch the first, time not apparent; Poor Returns, batch the second, date of the latest matter, 12th April 1803; date of order for printing, 10th July 1804: interval, months 15.—Poor Returns, batch third and last,—date of latest matter, last day of 1815; date of order for printing, 3d March 1818; date of order for elicitation not ascertainable without a search, the result of which would not pay for time and labour.—Population Returns, batch the first,—day appointed for the commencement of the operation in the parishes, 22d May 1811; month in which the digest of them was delivered in, June 1812, as per signature, John Rickman; interval occupied in collecting and digesting, not more than 13 months.—Population Returns, batch the second,—year appointed for the commencement of the inquiry, 1811; day and month not apparent; month in which digest was delivered in, June 1822; presumable interval occupied in collecting and digesting,—as before, 13 months.—Lastly, Scotch Education Returns,—date of the House of Commons’ resolution in which they originated, 30th March 1825; date of Under Secretary of State’s letter to the Lord Advocate in consequence, the very next day, 31st March 1825; date of letter from Lord Advocate, sending the first part of the whole of the information, 14th February 1826. Number of pages in the printed copy, 985: interval thus employed in collecting, not more than ten and a half months; within which time was performed a vibrating system of correspondence, composed of divers vibrations—letters written backwards and forwards.

In the case in question,—would any greater length of time be necessary? any grounds for any apprehension to that effect, can they be assigned? None whatever. Places constituting the local objects of inquiry and sources of information,—in those cases the parishes; in these, the manors. Reluctance as to the communicating the information,—in any greater degree probable in this case than in those? No; nor yet so much. In those cases, indemnities being out of the question, nothing was to be got by furnishing the information, nothing to be lost by not furnishing. On the present occasion, more or less may in general be lost, by omitting to furnish the information; more or less perhaps to be got by furnishing it; for, to each individual from whom the information would be required, the consequence of omission would be, that his interest would be disposed of, and in case of loss on his part, no indemnity would he receive.

Il ne faut pas multiplier les êtres sans necessité, says a well-known French proverb: and, of all multiplicable beings,—among those in whose instance the practice of that rule of arithmetic is most mischievous, are locusts.

As to our author’s machinery for registration and other purposes,—his quarter-sessions chairmanand his clerk of the peace—still more egregiously unapt is it for this than for its present purposes. But, to his plan, this inaptitude forms no objection: only for elucidation (so he expressly declares,) only for elucidation, does he bring it on the carpet. No fault is it of Mr. Humphreys, if, in the whole establishment, there is not a single judicatory that is in any tolerable degree fit for any other purpose than those for which, under Matchless Constitution, all judicatories, with but here and there an exception, have been invented—putting power into the hands, and other people’s money into the pockets, of the inventors. A machinery adapted to his purposes—a judiciary establishment, with a correspondent procedure code,—each of them the first that every really had for its sole object the giving execution and effect, with the minimum of daily vexation and expense, to the enactments of the substantive branch of the law,—is in progress; and the judiciary establishment plan will be in the printer’s hands within a few weeks after the present pages are out of them.

Before concluding, I will take the liberty of suggesting, for his consideration, as briefly as possible, a few supposed improvements, of which his plan presents itself to me as susceptible: to do whatsoever else may be in my power, towards lightening his labour, and promoting his generous designs, would be a sincere pleasure to me. If, for the most part, these same suggestions should be found to apply to every other part of the field of law, as well as to the part on which his beneficent labours have been more particularly employed,—they will not, on that account, be the less excusable.

Distinguishable shapes, which the matter of a proposed code may, throughout the whole texture of it, have occasion to assume, five: the enactive, the expositive, the ratiocinative, the instructional, the exemplificative. Of the exemplifications of them exhibited in this work of our learned author, presently: in English statute law, sole shape exemplified,—the enactive. As to this same enactive shape, with an exclusion put upon all the others—nothing, with a view to rulers’ purposes, could or can be more convenient. Expression of will this, nothing more: talent necessary, none beyond what is manifested by every child as soon as it can speak. Not so any of the four other sorts of matter. Not to speak of Russian, Italian, and Spanish translations—of the expositive and the ratiocinative, the French work, in which samples of them are exhibited, has been before the public ever since 1802, and another there has just been occasion to bring to view. Grades of functionaries, to either or both of which the instructional portion of the matter may be virtually addressed—subordinates, with a view to execution and effect; future legislators, for the better explanation of the designs, with a view to fulfilment.

Case to which the exemplificational more particularly applies, that of an as yet only proposed code. Legal systems, from which the matter two: may be derived, two: the home, and the aggregate of the most approved foreign ones: the home system, for the purpose of exhibiting in detail the disorder for which the code is the proposed remedy, and examples of particular arrangements, in themselves of a beneficial nature, but in respect of which the system, taken in the aggregate, is chargeable,—on account of the narrowness of the application made of them, and, throughout the remainder of the field, the employment of flagrantly-unapt arrangements, to the exclusion of them: the foreign, for the purpose of furnishing, under this other head, in support of what is proposed, the instruction afforded by experience. Note, that this same exemplificational matter must not be confounded with the matter composed of those examples, which there may be found occasion to give as an inseparable part of the enactive, though they may be considered as belonging also to the expositive.

Next to the expositive matter. Purpose of it, exclusion of the several imperfections, which, on every part of the field, and on this in particular, discourse is liable to labour under. These are, on the part of hearers and readers, nonconception and misconception: on the part of the discourse itself, unintelligibility, obscurity, indeterminateness, ambiguity. Against some of them, howsoever well framed the instrument in other respects, appropriate exposition will be an indispensable preventive remedy. But, to none of them, without the aid of another remedy, of the purely negative cast, namely, avoidance of lengthiness, can it be a sufficient one. As to lengthiness,—it applies, not only to the entire discourse, but also, and with different and still worse effect, to its component parts called sentences: and it is in this latter case that it is in a more particular degree productive of these several imperfections.

Efficient causes of lengthiness in sentences,—surplusage and involvedness. Of imperfection in both these shapes in conveyancing instruments, examples have been seen above.

Causes of imperfection in all these shapes, more particularly in that of ambiguity—not only mis-selection and lengthiness as above, but miscollocation likewise; miscollocation, whether applied to words or to phrases. For the avoidance of it, a set of rules will ere long be (it is hoped) at my learned master’s service. For the exemplification of imperfection in all manner of shapes in laws, matter in rich harvest may be found in the English statute book: the most conspicuous repository of every imperfection of which legislative language is susceptible. Towards remediation, a disposition has of late been expressed by those on whom it depends: but, before that is done which the proper end in view requires to be done—before the form in which they are presented is the same with that in use in ordinary discourse, with no other difference than what is necessary to the exclusion of the above-mentioned imperfections—not inconsiderable is the quantity of matter, which, in the form of directive rules, will require to be framed, borne in mind, and for that purpose consigned to black and white.

Collocation—is it a light matter? Is it without effect on practice? Read this one line, and judge: “Parliament,” says the statute (4 Ed. III. c. 14,) “shall be holden every year once, and more often if need be.” Miscollocation that. Proper collocation this: “Parliament shall be holden every year once—and, if need be, more often.” Not that there can be any adequate assurance, that by this or any other form of words, the would-be despot, in whose face this bridle was afterwards held up, would have held himself bound. But, if he had been—think of the effect that might have been produced in the destiny of England; and, through England, of the habitable globe. For general application, take this rule. Imbed,as above, your limitative clause in that one of two principal clauses, to which alone it is designed to be applied: imbed it in that one, instead of putting it at the end of the two, in one of which it is not intended to be applied.

Of exposition-requiring terms,—groupes, which it may be of use to distinguish, these:

I. Terms of universal jurisprudence. Examples: 1. Obligation. 2. Liability. 3. Right. 4. Power. 5. Responsibility. 6. Possession. Original source of exposition to the whole group, the idea of a command.

II. Terms peculiar to English-bred jurisprudence. Examples from the field of property-law: 1. Feoffment. 2. Lien. 3. Trusts. 4. Uses. 5. Springing Uses. 6. Executory Devises. 7. Tenures. 8. Mortmain. In regard to these,—in a code on the new plan, only in respect of the use made of them in such parts of the existing law as remains unabrogated,—will exposition be the proper course. From the enactive part of the new code, these, and all those words which nobody but a lawyer understands, should be carefully excluded:—those alone employed, which, with or without exposition therein given, will be understood,—not by lawyers alone, but by everybody else.

III. Terms belonging to the common stock of the language; but to which, by distortion, lawyers have given an import intelligible to none but themselves. Examples. 1. Applied to the subject-matter of property,—real, instead of the appropriate and Rome-bred denomination immoveable. 2. Personal instead of moveable. 3. Applied to a conveyance, voluntary instead of gratuitous. 4. Servitude, instead of partial ownership rights, with the correspondent obligations. Wanted, for this idea, a more expressive single-worded denomination. Servitude, a word unknown to English law: instead of a particular interest in a thing immoveable, the idea it presents to a non-lawyer is—the condition of a person:—a condition bordering upon slavery. Here I have to turn informer. Smuggled in, by this reformist of ours, has been this same word servitude: introduced, without notice, from continental into our insular language.

IV. Terms belonging to the common stock of the language,—but, by reason of their ambiguity, coupled with frequency of occurrence and importance, with reference to practice,—their import needing distinction and fixation:—terms universally intelligible, but by reason of their ambiguousness, not the less needing to be thus fitted for use. Examples: 1. Land. 2. Modifications of place. 3. Divisions of time. Sub-examples under this head: 1. Day, the portion of the year: day, in contradistinction to night. 2. Month lunar, month calendar. 3. Year ordinary, year bissextile.

V. Words there are, which, notwithstanding the all-comprehensiveness of their extent, and the need there will be of them in an all-comprehensive code, need not any express definition, their import being on each occasion rendered sufficiently determinate. To this head belong divers names of genera generalissima, besides the jurisprudential terms brought to view above. Examples of these terms: 1. Subject-matters of operation: 2. Operations. 3. Correspondent functions. 4. Operators. 5. Instruments. 6. Judicial and other mandates. 7. States of things. 8. Events. 9. Occurrences. A pretty copious collection of them may be seen brought together and applied, on the occasion of the employment given to them in the above-mentioned Constitutional Code, chap. ix. Ministers collectively. § 7, Statistic Function.

In the case of all those more especially influential terms,—an accompaniment, in no small degree beneficial, might be—a list of synonyms: synonyms to single words, equivalents to short phrases. Not very numerous, comparatively speaking, are perhaps the pairs of words, which, on every possible occasion, may be used interconvertibly, each with as much propriety as the other. But, on each occasion, where any difference has place, the context will suffice, for security, against the endeavour, on the part of litigants, to produce, on the ground of the attached synonym, a wrong interpretation of the word employed in the text. By a characteristic feature of the proposed system—the ratiocinative part,—an additional, and hitherto unexampled security will be afforded.

As to our learned Reformist’s Code,—short as it is, candidates in it for the honour of receiving exposition, I have made out a list of, not fewer than 289, belonging to one or other of the above divisions. These, however, in no inconsiderable number, apply not to this alone, but to every other portion of the Pannomion—the All-comprehensive Code. Of the whole stock belonging to that aggregate, the number, of course, cannot be small; but the field they belong to is proportionably extensive. The time for each of them to receive its exposition, is the time when the subject it belongs to, is for the first time brought upon the carpet.

Problems for solution: 1. How to distinguish terms needing, from terms not needing, exposition? 2. How to distinguish terms needing to receive exposition from terms fit to be employed in giving it? Scarcely, even, for statement, can room be found here; for solution, none: purpose of the statement, showing that they have not been, and saying that they ought not to be neglected.

Now as to the ratiocinative matter. For arrangements and correspondent enactments, in that part of the field of law to which the work in question more especially applies—standard of aptitude say, the disappointment preventive, or disappointment prevention principle,—or, more specifically, the unexpected-loss-preventing principle:—a branch this, of the greatest happiness principle, with a special denomination adapted to the matter belonging to this part of the field.—Prevent disappointment? Why? Answer. From disappointment, as everybody knows and feels, springs a pain; magnitude, proportioned to the value set by the individual on the benefit that had been expected. In this pain will be found the only reason, why any subject-matter of ownership should be given to the owner rather than to an usurper: to an usurper, by what denomination soever distinguished: intruder, diffusor, embezzler, thief, robber, and so on: the only reason why, to interests termed vested, more regard should be paid, than to interests not so denominated: the only reason why, for loss,—on any occasion, or from any source,—indemnity should be provided. From the non-possession of the millions of watches existing in other pockets,—you, who read this, do you suffer anything? Not you: and why not? because, not expecting to possess any one of them,—no pain of disappointment do you suffer from the nonpossession of it. But, if by any hand other than your own—a thief’s, an unjust claimant’s, or a judge’s, it were taken from you—yes; in any one of these cases a sufferer you would be:—quantum of suffering, in a ratio, compounded of the marketable value of the watch with the indigency of your pecuniary circumstances, to the purpose of replacing it, and the relative sensibility of your frame.

Here, then, is an intelligible standard, and the only one. Behold now the effects produced by the hitherto universal want of it. Succedaneums, in number infinite; but not one of them expressive of anything, besides the ungrounded sentiment, or say mental sensation, entertained, on the occasion, by him who speaks:—a sentiment of approbation or disapprobation, expressed under the expectation of finding, or producing, the like on the part of hearers, but not suggestive of any ground whatever, for the sentiment so entertained.

Examples deduced from this work of our Author’s are the following:—“1. Natural Justice, p. 118, 119. 2. Equity, 119. 3. Natural Equity, p. 129. 4. Justice, pp. 161, 221. 5. Natural feeling, p. 203. 6. Harsh law . . . . cries feelingly for correction. 7. Our present law violates the first principle of property, p. 220.” First principle of property? What then is its name? None does our author himself give to it: none has any person else ever given to it. Not so much as that given in Rome-bred law, in the quasi-Hibernian style, to the species of contract denominated the undenominated. Yet, for it to have a name—and highly urgent is its need of one—somebody must stand godfather. Well, then, this is done. As to the thing itself, gratifying it is to me to see my learned master already recognising it, and applying it. Witness two passages, § 114; “One claimant ought not to disappoint another:” p. 148, “The lord’s gain is far from commensurate to his tenant’s loss.” Compare this with what, by the courtesy of England, is called reasoning, in judge-made law!

The honest and excellent work in French law on this subject, Le Parfait Notaire, has been already mentioned. In cutting open the leaves of it, no fewer than fourteen of these gaseous standards caught my eye. A list I took of them has unfortunately been mislaid. In addition to those above-mentioned, “Policy, Right Reason, Natural Reason, Law of Nature,” &c. &c. were of the number. In many instances, they were even brought together, and stated as conflicting. Now, then, of these non-entities, suppose eight on one side, six, and no more, on the other,—then indeed should we have a majority. But suppose fourteen of these puissances ranged, seven on one side, seven on the opposite side; if these are to be taken for reasons, the most clear-sighted and decisive judge may avow himself a Lord Eldon without shame.

Now as to our learned author. Expositive matter he has given us a specimen of in 10 out of 118 articles: namely, in Art. 5, Land; 28, Execution of a Deed; 29, Conveyance; 30, Settlement; 31, Charge; 32, Assignment; 33, Release; 35, Execution of a will; 74, Warranty; 88, Trustee.*

His mode of exposition is,—in the case of all but Land, Execution of a Deed, Execution of a Will, and Trustee,—definition per genus et differentiam: in the case of Land, not found referable to any general head: the expression not quite so correct as could have been wished: ground-works and underground-works not found comprised in it. In the case of the remaining three, paraphrasis; of which, elsewhere.

But, with this, or any other incomplete assemblage, we shall not be satisfied: nothing less than an all-comprehensive one does the purpose require. Composed of the two first of these five sorts of matter is his Code, distinguished from the rest of the work by being printed in italics; of the ratiocinative, instructional, and exemplificational indistinguishably blended, the rest of the work; rest, residue, and remainder in the language of learned gentlemen.

At the head of each article, a notice,—affording, by means of one or more of these five denominations, intimation of the nature and design of the articles,—is a document, that has presented itself as having its use, with the exception of the exemplificational, which had not as yet occurred to me; they accordingly exhibit themselves throughout the whole texture of the so often mentioned Constitutional Code.* Unfortunately, so to order matters, as that under no one of the four first of the above-mentioned five heads, shall any matter be inserted, that can be referable to any or others of them,—has not been found practicable. On the contrary, all the changes, of which the number of heads prefixt to the same article is susceptible, will perhaps be found rung upon them.

Nomenclature, for a series, or chain, of any length, of the results of successive divisional operations, performed upon the same integral subject-matter. Principle of denomination, the numerical. Subject-matters, to which, in the character of integers, it is applicable. 1. Our globe, or any portion of it. 2. The three kingdoms metaphorically so called—the mineral, vegetable, and animal. 3. Weights and Measures. 4. A mass of discourse committed to writing—a literary work. In this last instance it is that the idea applies, on the present occasion, to our author’s case.

Denominations, section, bissection, trissection, quadrisection, and so on. Correspondent visible sign for the eye, the present mark employed for designating a section, a double long ff—; between its two lines the figure indicative of the number of divisional operations, to the result of which it is employed to give expression. By the little swelling produced by this pregnancy, no peremptory objection will, it is hoped, be found produced: or, to avoid it, instead of being imbedded between the two ff, the numeral may have a single f, in a fine stroke drawn through it. By these little arrangements, simple as they are, order might, for the first time, be substituted to the as yet universally existing chaos: and, to an inconveniently inadequate, an adequate stock of denominations substituted. Part, Book, Chapter, Section, Article, Title; scarcely beyond this does the list extend; and, as to the order in which they are made to follow one another, the changes are in a manner rung upon it.

Now as to our author and this his work. Denominations employed in the order in which they here follow, these: 1. Part. 2. Title. 3. Chapter. 4. Section. 5. No. At this last stage, his stock of denominations is exhausted: the consequence is,—that for the results of the division made of the aggregate to which he has given the name of No. are employed the words firstly, secondly, thirdly, fourthly, fifthly, all in a state of anarchy, without any common head for keeping them in a state of society.

Of all these denominations, section (from seco, to cut) is the only one completely characteristic. Reason for employing it—its having, as above, an appropriate sign belonging to it. Article followed by No. there may be a convenience in employing,—for the last, whatsoever may be the number of the intervening divisional operations: these being the two denominations most commonly so employed.

Alike applicable to whatever languages are in use in any nation—this mode of designation might form part and parcel of an universal language. In the above-mentioned proposed Constitutional Code, I regret to think it will not be found applied: it had not occurred time enough.

Two other little tasks, at parting, for our Hercules.

I. For the instruction of testators and their draughtsmen,—a paper, exhibiting a picture of the most commonly-exemplified diversifications, which the state of a person’s family connexions admits of, with a view to the provisions desirable, and likely to be desired to be made for them, in a last Will. For such provisions as require to be made by a Deed, this picture is already afforded by the Family Settlement Deed. But in this case the provision goes not beyond a future contingent family. Remain, for the objects of the hereproposed provision, all such families as are already in existence.

II. Provision, against the mischief, liable to be done by the retroactive effects of the proposed new system:—mischief, of the nature of that, by which the name of an ex-postfacto law in English-bred law language (of kin to which is that of privilegium, in Ciceronian and Rome-bred law-language) has with so much justice been rendered a name of reproach. Here, if I mistake not, he will feel the convenience of taking the disappointment-preventing principle for his guide;—and, doing so, will find in it an adequate defence against all objections. What the occasion seems to call for is—a detailed exposition of the arrangements proposed for the exclusion of mischief from this source. Self-regarding prudence presents itself as joining with benevolence in calling for a careful attention to this subject. On this part of the ground, I see the enemy lying in wait for him. His defences, I fear, are not, as yet, in quite so good a condition as the occasion requires.

One passage exhibits a spectacle I was not prepared for: where our author, taking a sudden spring, mounting Pegasus, and from civil, making an excursion—an uncalled-for excursion—into constitutional law. It is in page 206. Libellous the result: “feelings,” not the less acute by being democratic, “hurt” by it. Revenge is sweet: retaliation cheaper than prosecution.

Author.—“The many are a rope of sand.”

Reviewer.—Say, are they so in Yankeeland?

Answers, like Irish Echo, envious Muse.

Was it, to propitiate those on whom every thing depends for success, that this tirade was inserted? If yes, when Sterne’s Accusing Angel goes up with the passage, the Recording Angel shall have my consent for dropping his obliterating tear on it.

To preserve myself from the consciousness, as well as the imputation, of injustice,—one last word more. Bringing to view supposed imperfections and deficiencies has all along been the chief occupation of this Review:—imperfections, for correction; deficiencies, for supply. Of the mass of useful information, for which we are indebted to our philanthropic reformist,—of the ability, as well as honest zeal, displayed in the exposure of the peccant matter of which the existing system is almost exclusively composed,—of the ingenuity, manifested in so large a proportion of the remedies suggested,—no mention has been made but in the most general terms. But, to have conveyed any thing like an adequate idea of the merits of the work, would have required what, in classical editor’s language, is called a perpetual comment on it, including a reprint of the greatest part of it.

As to myself, never, but for my learned master, should I have obtained any tolerable insight into this chaos. No probable further prolongation of my life would have sufficed for enabling me to look into it without the lantern with which he has furnished me—“lucerna pedibus meis:”—to look into it—I mean for the only purpose—the remedial—for which I could have brought myself to look into it.

—Hoping that such rare talent, coupled with such still more rare virtue, may not be lost to the world, or wait long, ere it be employed by those in whom alone is the power of giving effect to it,—I conclude.

[* ]Gift.]—To obviate ambiguity, the use made of this word in the technical sense, should, in the Code, be abolished.

[* ]“Manifold Writing.—1. Mode of Execution.“In the manifold way, the mode of writing is as follows:—“Instead of a pen, a style of the hardest and strongest metal, without ink, is employed. Under the style, as under a pen, are laid, one under another, in number the same as that of the exemplars required, sheets of appropriate thin paper, alternating with the correspondent number of thin sheets of silk, into each of which has been worked all over some of the black matter used in printing, and called printer’s ink. In this way, by one and the same course taken, at one and the same time by the style, may exemplars be produced, in any number not exceeding twelve, with not much more expense of time and labour, than is commonly employed in the production of a single exemplar by pen and ink. Eight exemplars at once, all of them perfectly legible, have thus been habitually produced. In London this mode of writing has for about twenty years been regularly applied to the purpose of conveying simultaneous information to a number of newspapers. To other purposes it has also been employed under the eye of the author of this work.“For the performance of the operation, the stronger the hand the better.“To perform in perfection requires some practice in addition to that which has been applied to the art of writing with pen and ink.“If there be a difference in the exemplars, that which is furthest from the style, not that which is the nearest, gives the most perfect and clearest impression.“Silk, when a good deal worn, answers much better than when new.“Supposing this mode of writing employed to any considerable extent, the silk would require to be smoothed by some appropriate means; for example, by being passed through rollers.“The thinner the silk the better. That which has been mostly employed is that which, in English, is called sarsenet.“As to the paper, that which is at present employed is called fine single crown tissue paper: price 19s. 6d. per bundle, containing two reams.“In strength, by reason of its thinness, it cannot be expected to be altogether equal to what is most commonly in use in England; nor in whiteness, nor thence in respect of beauty and legibility are all the exemplars, by reason of the oil, which is an indispensable ingredient. They are nevertheless perfectly apt for these its intended purposes. No more than half of the number wanted need be, or ought to be taken on the oiled paper; to wit, every other one; the paper of the others will remain in primitive whiteness, except a slight extravasation of the oil of the ink round the edges of the letters. The effect might even be produced by a single oiled paper; to wit, the one to which the style is immediately applied. But in this case the labour necessary to produce the effect will be greater.”

[* ]Counties in England (Wales included) 52; in each, sets of Commissioners two; one for enfranchisement of copyholds, the other for partition of lands, freehold and copyhold; all (it is presumed) circumambulatory; together, 104. Number in each set, at least three; total 312. Of each set, clerical suite and et cæteras included, annual expense, say in round numbers £6,000; (charge for expense of commission for inquiry into the state of instruction in Ireland, was £7,000; ditto for ditto into the revenue of Ireland, £5,675.) First commissioner, say £2,000; puisnes, £1,000 each, (Mr. Peel, if they knew how to eat and drink, would, upon proof from Lincoln’s Inn or the Temple, give them twice as much.) If, at a few years’ end, they had performed their business—all well, or all ill, or all well and ill at the same time, or some well and some ill,—he would, unless he has repented, add to their salaries, whatsoever they were, a third more. Nominees, of course, the persons most interested in maximizing abuses and indemnities: Lord Eldon, with or without the assistance of Lord Melville and Mr. Wallace, would take care of the abuses; Mr. Peel, unless he repents, of the indemnities.

[* ]A few words àpropos of this word trustee. In every trust there are three characters essentially and indispensably concerned—trustor, trustee, and intended benefitee: distinguishable characters on every occasion these three: though on some occasions, two of them, as if by Mr. Matthews, are played by the same person: on some occasions, trustor being at the same time intended benefitee, or one of a number of intended benefitees; so, on other occasions, trustee. But, be this as it may, without an intended benefitee, a trust can no more have existence than without a trustor or a trustee. In the Code, Art. 4, p. 184, mention is indeed made of “the beneficial owner” as a person for whom a nominee is supposed to be “in trust.” But, this same beneficial owner—no where is he mentioned, as being, like trustor, one of the company: and as often as, and in proportion as, a breach of trust has place, the intended benefitee fails of being beneficial owner. Add to this, that, under a trust, a benefit may be intended and received, where there is nothing that it would be easy to fix upon as being owned. Exposition, proposed in form of paraphrasis—(definition, in the ordinary sense of the word not being obtainable for want of a superior genus.)—Breach of trust has place, when, and so far as, through the fault of a trustee, a benefit, intended for the intended benefitee, fails of being received.

[* ]An extract from it is already in-print, composed of four sections, belonging to Chap. IX., intituled Ministers Collectively. With the addition of other tracts belonging to the same subject, it forms an 8vo volume, under the title of Official Aptitude Maximized, Expense Minimized. The volume will appear in the course of a few weeks.