chase. Thus the complication of settlements and charges embraces and corrupts even the sound parts, like the hideous roots of a cancer." In respect to one's worldly prospects, the greatest misfortune which can happen to a man in Great Britain is, to be born heir to a large and heavily burdened estate.

A strict system of perpetual entail opposes an almost insurmountable barrier to making improvements upon the land, since each holder of a life-interest in the estate is unwilling to expend any portion of the income upon it, because the beneficial consequences of such expenditure will be reaped chiefly by his successors. Leaseholders for short terms, also, cannot be expected to make permanent improvements, the advantages of which will be chiefly experienced by the owners of the property, and by those who may come after them under subsequent leases, with whom they have no tie of a common interest, affection, or kindred. These evils of the Scotch system being great and notorious, Parliament applied a partial remedy, first in 1770, and again in 1824. The former act authorized the life-holder, in spite of any prohibition in the deed of entail, to grant leases for ninety-nine years of small patches of ground, not exceeding five acres, for the purpose of building; it also empowered him to burden the estate to the amount of six years' rent, for agricultural improvements and the erection of a mansion-house, provided that he contributed out of his own income towards these objects one fourth as much as was charged upon the estate. The act of 1824 made a still greater innovation; it allowed the possessor, notwithstanding any prohibition in the deed, to make provision out of the estate for his widow and younger children; and the limit of the encumbrances thus authorized, under both acts, was fixed at two thirds of the net annual income. Thus, as McCulloch remarks, "the income of the heir in possession of an entailed estate may be reduced to a third part of its net rental; and out of this portion, he has to keep up the mansion-house, and to defray the whole expense

❤ Few readers can have forgotten the saddest story in all literary biography, — that of Sir Walter Scott virtually killing himself by over-exertion, and reducing the finest genius since Shakespeare's day to idiocy, in the vain attempt to pay off vast encumbrances on the large landed estate which he had imprudently collected, in the hope of "founding a family" that could hold its place for all time among the landed gentry of Scotland. And that family, though he left four children, two of whom were sons, - where is it?

of managing the estate, including the losses incurred by the failure of tenants, and such like contingencies. Hence it follows, that the free disposable income of an heir of entail in possession of an estate of £12,000 a year may not, and sometimes does not, exceed £1,500 or £2,000 a year." No wonder, then, that Parliament came at last to believe, that a system of perpetual entail leading to such consequences was not worth keeping up, and abrogated it by the law of 1848, which permitted all perpetuities to be broken, and assimilated the Scotch to the English system of entail.

Two peculiar circumstances tended to increase the burdens upon real estate in Ireland. Far the larger portion of the island had been confiscated since the reign of Henry VIII., and the crown had granted immense estates out of the forfeited lands to courtiers, military officers, and noblemen, who preferred to live in England, and to let their property on long leases to others, who assumed all the care of management. In Great Britain, property can be leased only for a limited period of years; but in Ireland, it has been the custom to grant a lease for a certain number of lives, with a covenant for perpetual renewal, on the payment of a moderate fine on the fall of each life. Thus the lands are virtually leased in perpetuity, and the amount so leased, says Mr. Pim, "is very great, perhaps as much as one half of Ireland." This is not all; the first leaseholder on a perpetuity again lets out the land to others, who in their turn underlet it in smaller portions, an increased rent being charged at each remove. These intermediate landlords, or "middlemen" as they are termed, and perpetual leases, are two peculiar encumbrances upon Irish estates, in addition to the marriage settlements, mortgages, heavy annuities, and family charges, with which they are as heavily burdened as English or Scotch property.

The impoverishment of the land, the decline in value of real estate, the distress of the landlord, and the misery of the tenantry, are the inevitable results of this condition of things. The present landlord has no interest in its improvement, except so far as he may wish to benefit the heir at law who is to succeed him. If, as is generally the case, he has daughters and younger sons to provide for, whatever savings he can make from income he will not expend upon the land, but will invest

in other forms, where they will be subject to his control by will. Thus the fences and buildings are allowed to decay, drainage is neglected, the ground is scourged with exhausting crops, and the tenants in possession are oppressed with the heaviest possible rents, the object being to obtain the utmost present gain from the estate, at whatever injury to the future value. Mr. Pim describes a "by no means uncommon case," in which the heir comes into possession of a deeply encumbered estate, when already "burdened with debts of his own, contracted on the faith of his inheritance, and borrowed on terms of usurious interest proportionate to the risk incurred. In what difficulties is he at once involved, this owner for life of a large tract of country, with a long rent-roll, but in fact a small property! He cannot maintain his position in society without spending more than his income; debts accumulate; he borrows on the credit of his life-interest, and insures his life for the security of the lender. He lets to the highest bidder, without regard to character or means of payment. His object is immediate income, not the future value of the property. If the tenants are without leases, he raises their rents. If leases fall in, he cannot afford to give the preference to the last occupier." He cannot sell a part of the property, though the proceeds of such sale might greatly improve the value of the remainder. "Perhaps, with all his exertion, he is unable to pay the interest, or put off his creditors. Proceedings are commenced against him, and the estate passes, during his lifetime, under the care of the worst possible landlord, — a receiver under the Court of Chancery." "In very many cases," says a respectable witness, "where encumbered estates have fallen under the management of law courts, the district has usually rather resembled one which has been plundered by an enemy, than one under an enlightened government, in a country long exempt from the calamities of war."

These evils having become intolerable, Parliament at last applied a remedy, in 1848, by creating by statute the commission for the sale of encumbered estates in Ireland. Under this act, an encumbered estate, by consent of the owner, or on application of the mortgagees or other creditors, might be at once released from all burdens by the high authority of Parliament, and sold to the highest bidder, with an indefeasible title good

against all the world. The proceeds of the sale are paid into the Court of Chancery, to be distributed by that court, as equity may require, between the owner, his creditors, the various encumbrancers, the heirs at law, and all other interested parties. Thus the process was an easy and simple one; the legal burdens were all taken off the land, and applied only to the money which was received from the sale of it, the estate itself being sold to the greatest possible advantage, because free from all encumbrance, resting upon the best of all titles, a parliamentary one, and being divided into such portions as would best suit the convenience of the purchasers. Before this act was passed, the mortgages and other burdens covering the whole property equally, and even rendering, through their complication, the title to it very doubtful, it was impossible to sell a portion of the property; it could only be disposed of as a whole, and with a title so uncertain, and law expenses so heavy, that it would bring but a small part of its real value.

The proceedings under this statute afford curious evidence of the extent to which real property in Ireland had become encumbered. Up to October, 1854, upwards of two millions of acres had changed hands under the authority of this commission; it had sold 1,152 estates to 5,613 purchasers, for £ 13,509,303. Of these estates, 364 had been in Chancery over five years, 167 over ten years, 17 over thirty-five years, and 9 over fifty years. In about five years, more than one tenth of all the landed property in the island had passed through the hands of this commission. How much more is to undergo the same process, it is impossible to tell; but the proceedings have been delayed, in order to avoid crowding so much land upon the market at once as to depress the price. One of the most significant facts that appear from these returns is, that the land sold has been divided into about five times as many distinct estates as before. The amount of the encumbrances was such, that only a small portion of the proceeds of the sale of the property remained for the benefit of its former nominal owners.

I have entered into this detailed account of the state of landed property in Great Britain and Ireland, as affected by the tenure of land and by the laws regulating the succession to the estates of persons deceased, because it seems to me to

afford almost a complete explanation of those striking peculi arities in the social and economical condition of the people of that country, by which they are distinguished from all other nations, and which have suggested those theories in political economy that affect the whole aspect of the science as it is taught by the English authorities upon the subject. Such theories as those of Malthus upon population, Ricardo upon rent and profits, Adam Smith upon free trade, and McCulloch upon this very matter of the succession to property, must have originated from experience in an anomalous state of society, from observation of the laws of wealth as exemplified in their operation under very peculiar circumstances. Any refutation of them would be insufficient which did not point out the phenomena by which they were suggested, and offer some explanation of these phenomena which should be consistent with general principles and facts of universal experience.

The avowed objects of the English laws which regulate the descent of property are, the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, and the support of an hereditary territorial aristocracy. These ends have been obtained. The inequality in the distribution of wealth in England is greater than in any other civilized nation; and her nobility and gentry are wealthier, more intelligent, more highly cultivated, more influential, and more secure in the possession of their power and property, than the corresponding classes now existing, or that ever have existed, in any country in the world. Five noblemen, the Marquis of Breadalbane, the Dukes of Argyle, Athol, Sutherland, and Buccleuch, own perhaps one fourth of all Scotland." I have already quoted the assertion of M. de Lavergne, that 2,000 proprietors possess among them one third of the land

The estate of the Duke of Sutherland comprises about 700,000 acres, or considerably more than 1,000 square miles. The domains of the Marquis of Breadalbane, says M. de Lavergne, "extend one hundred English miles, or forty leagues, in length, and reach nearly from sea to sea." Both of these immense estates have been cleared of their ancient inhabitants, and the Highland clans by which they were not only occupied, but owned, have ceased, properly speaking, to exist; they have been driven into exile, or have been exterminated by privation and hardships. A few remnants of them inhabit some miserable fishing hamlets on the sea-shore, and swell the bulk of the destitute classes in the great cities. "By far the wealthiest proprietor in the Lowlands is the Duke of Buccleuch," whose estates extend over several counties, and whose palace at Dalkeith is an establishment of regal magnificence.