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many of a mere technical character would disappear by abolition of the three systems I have just rejected. Among the remainder, the estate tail is the most objectionable, both in its existence and the mode of destroying it; for, unlike every other interest, it is scarcely ever suffered to die a natural death. Any mere regulation upon it (as by substituting some less costly bar than a fine or recovery) would only impose the ne cessity of keeping alive so uncouth an institution. Nothing short of abolition will serve.

'Proceeding to alienation and charge by deed, or other act inter vivos, great havoc will be made by the abolition of tenures, uses, and passive trusts, in the technical regiment I have exhibited of the different assurances depending on these systems-one simple form, but necessarily new, will suffice for each alienation and for each charge.

'Testamentary disposition will admit of nearly equal improvement both in its attendant formalities and its substance; and it is singular that the provision which will the most enlarge its operation, namely, the extending it from real property, to which the testator is entitled at the making of his will, to all that he may be entitled to at his death, will at the same time, and in a correspondent degree, abridge the law on this subject. So important and so radical indeed are the improvements, and of a character so variant from the existing laws, that what little might be preserved of the latter would operate but as a foil.

The doctrine of powers, like other existing institutions, will be influenced and simplified by the abolition of tenures. Other peculiar improvements have been hinted at, which cannot be effected by a reference to the present system, but will assume the shape of new and fixed laws and require the entire system to be recast.

The rights of creditors require at the same time both enlargement and simplification. Any reference to a statute of Edw. I. or Car. II., (however excellent each in its day) would not meet the exigency, while it would perplex the remedy.

If any laws are incorrigible, they are those for the administration of the assets of the deceased. It is sufficient to refer to my exposition of the actual system on this subject.

The like, I think, may be safely said of the laws of limitation of time. A few simple and direct enactments on the subject would surely be far preferable to the inextricable labyrinth of real actions, and to the bar, so circuitously and obscurely deduced, in our chief practicable remedy of ejectment, from the period to which a right of entry is restricted.

The peculiar laws of copyhold, forming a code of themselves, surpassing all the necessary distinctions in an entire system of laws of real property, would be swept away with those of tenure.

The laws of registration and of equitable notice present, instead of a system, an uncouth mass of conflicting institutions. The former demand uniformity and method-the latter utter abrogation.

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But an advantage nearly equal to the aggregate of those already enumerated, would result both to the public and to the professors of the law, from sweeping away the ponderous pile of volumes in different ages, various languages, Norman, French, low Latin, and modern' English, in which the laws of real property are to be sought. Viewed as to their

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mere number, (a total of upwards of 600 volumes,) and the expense and time necessary to collect and digest them, they are a sealed book to the public, and even to the bulk of the practitioners. Already have the latter found it necessary to confine their attention to the modern reporters, and occasionally to rely even on the second-hand authority of digests; while the more ancient collections still retain their authority, when explored by those whose narrow but keen views confound laws with justice to entrap or perplex the unwary claimant.'-p. 171–176.

After this vindication of his preference of a new code, the validity or sufficiency of which it is for others than ourselves to determine, Mr. Humphreys proceeds to exemplify its formation, which he proposes to effect by a succession of legislative enactments, thus assuming the decemviral Esto rather than the imperial Videtur.

By a preliminary enactment he at once sweeps away the rubbish of tenures, and their various perplexing incidents, excepting only copyhold tenure, rents service, reliefs in respect of them and heriots. The existence of these also, however, is to be of short duration, his Majesty being authorized to issue commissions for the extinction of them, and also of fee farm and other perpetual rents, forests, chases, and free warrens, and for making compensation to the owners.

This, perhaps, is the boldest of all the author's projected innovations; and one, the execution of which cannot but be attended with difficulties, even in his own conception of it. He defends it however by the various partial acts which the legislature has already passed for effecting one or other of these several objects; and would not (we may ask) the proposed measures, if the diffi culties, real or supposed, were once effectually surmounted, prove in a very high degree beneficial both to the public and to individuals? Must not both desire that the discordant tenures of ancient demesne, copyhold, borough English, and gavelkind, with their separate privileges, separate customs, separate modes of descent, and, in some cases, separate courts, should be abolished throughout the land? Would not the abolition of them add to the comforts which attend the enjoyment of real property, simplify its settlements, facilitate its commerce, and, above all things, tend to set it free from the heavy, uncertain and unprofitable tax of litigation, which now hangs over and oppresses it in every stage of its transmission?

The next step is to the abolition of all uses, trusts and charges, legal or equitable, upon land, for the benefit of third persons: retaining, however, those trusts for the owner of the land, which require that the trustee should be actively employed in the execution of them. Thus a trust, whereby an annuity for the benefit

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of B. should be charged on the estate of A. would be void; a trust by which A.'s estate should be vested in B. in trust for A. himself would also be void; but a trust vesting A.'s estate in B. in trust to manage it, and to lease it, and to pay the rents and produce to A., would be good. Neither is the proposed abolition to extend to trusts arising by implication of law.

Having thus divested land of its feudal incidents, and simplified its legal qualities, the author commences his first title with a definition of real property according to his own system. He considers it to be land, with all that (following the old definitions) is above it and all that is under it; together also with such servitudes of light, way, water, &c. as are essential for its enjoyment. Then follow the various modes, by which he would direct that title should be acquired.

The first of these is Descent, under which head he recommends a departure from our existing rules of succession, in order, in some instances, to meet the ends of natural justice, in others for the sake of consistency and simplification. Having rejected the feudal incident of escheat, he assigns the estate, on a general want of heirs, to the crown; and this, in conformity with the law of every nation, which considers the state to be entitled to all property, of which there is no other owner. He obviates one of our worst anomalies, by admitting the half blood to the succession; with a preference of the full blood, however, in the case of brothers and sisters and their issue; and with a preference also among the half blood itself, of the paternal, to the maternal line of inheritance. On failure of these near relations, the ascending line is admitted by him in preference to the collateral; and, under this last head, he introduces a novelty, borrowed from the Code Napoleon, by interposing a life interest to the father, on failure of lineal heirs, and a life interest to the mother on failure of brothers and sisters and their issue.

Whether the land come from the father or mother, he makes it descend, first in the paternal line; and failing this, in the materual. In this proposal, his great object is simplification; and his calculation is that, although the maternal line will thus be occasionally postponed, as to land strictly descended from a maternal ancestor, yet the maternal descendants will, in the greater number of cases, be gainers.

He allows of no right of representation beyond the issue of brothers and sisters; he proposes that more remote collaterals should take per capita; so that a junior uncle, surviving, would inherit in preference to the issue of his deceased elder brother. This he justifies on the ground, that, in descent, the leading principle of precedence is proximity of blood, which is deviated from,

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in the instances of the ancestor's own issue, and of the issue of his brothers and sisters, only because they proceed from members of his family, or that of his parents, who would be the natural objects of his bounty or affections. The proposed alteration, however, is by no means in unison with our present sentiments and habits on this subject..

To the title of descents, the author has appended a comparison between primogeniture and equal partibility; exemplifying the former by our own system, and the latter by the Code Napoleon. With so strong a disposition to resort to first principles, and so little fear of innovation, as he has exhibited in the preceding chapter, we were not prepared to find in Mr. Humphreys the champion of an institution bearing among ourselves such unequivocal marks of a feudal origin, and so much at variance with the spirit of what is called philosophical legislation. Though unprepared, however, we were rejoiced to find it so; and still more to discover, in the reasoning by which he supports his view of the question, so much of what we are apt to regard as true philosophy-a wise and temperate regard even to prejudices, (if they must needs be so termed,) consecrated by habitual usage, and which have taken their place de facto among the main-springs of national action.

Our English law of primogeniture,' he says, ' has often been represented as a harsh and impolitic rule, which, sacrificing natural affection to an ill-regulated passion for family aggrandizement, or to the vanity of supporting an empty name, beggars the younger branches of a family, to enrich the eldest; and prevents the free circulation of property. But, let us view a little in detail, first, the extent of property to which this law applies; next, (as influenced by the preceding topic,) its concurrence with natural affection; and finally its political effects.'

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Our author then points out, that the rule in question does not extend to females. They all,' he observes, 'take equally; and the public sentiment, generally guided by the law, adopts the same mode of disposition among them.' The widow's jointure, and younger children's portions are equally exempt from its operation. But, what is of far more importance, and in application so extensive, as actually to convert the rule itself into the exception, is, that it does not extend to personal property: that is to say, to a class of possessions infinite in its qualities and ramifications, and of which one single article, namely, the interest of the national debt alone, exceeds in amount the total of our national rental of land.

'It has been justly observed,' (says our author,) by Montesquieu,* that to educate children is a natural obligation on the parent; to give them his property, is one of civil or political institution. Conceding however

* Esprit des Loix, liv, xxvi. c. 6.

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somewhat of the strictness of this principle, in favour of natural feeling, it has still been shown,' (adds the author, in reference to the preceding part of his discussion,) that, in our own country, the proportion of landed property is not such as to deprive a father of his power, in conjunction with his testamentary right, to make ample provision for all his offspring.'

He exposes the fallacy of the objection, that primogeniture impedes alienation. The rule, as by him demonstrated, has no such necessary consequence.

The full power of alienation which, in our present laws, each generation in its turn possesses, aided, as it frequently is, by the necessity to discharge the portions of the younger branches, or other charges on the estate by the extravagance or enterprize of the owner-or by the division of the estate among the female line, break down and scatter, from time to time, the largest masses of landed property, with a rapidity which would surprize any but those long conversant with the changes of ownership. The annual extent of alienations of real property may be brought to an unerring test, by referring to the ad valorem duty paid on sales on land, in England and Wales, for the year 1825, being about £440,000, which, at the average rate of 1 per cent., would give for the aggregate purchase-money upwards of £35,000,000; for the aggregate yearly value of the property sold, taking lands and buildings, freeholds and copyholds, estates in possession and in reversion, at one high rate of thirty years' purchase, about £1,200,000 per annum.'

In another branch of his argument we follow him with still greater pleasure, dictated, as it seems to us to be, under the influence of some of the best, as they are among the most general sentiments of our nature.

'An attachment to the soil, and a reluctance to part with the seat of one's ancestors, have in all ages, and under every system of succession, attended the possession of land; and this feeling, added to the peculiar stability of land as property, has rendered it the means of preserving the names and dignities of families. We trace the original sentiment in the affecting story of Naboth's vineyard. The more complicated motive develops itself in the brilliant exposition by Montesquieu of the original laws of succession among the Romans. These, while they allowed the property to pass indifferently to all the children of the father, both male and female, under his dominion, kept it always in his family, by not permitting the daughters, who, on marrying, passed into the families of their husbands, to transmit it to their children; since this would have carried it into another house. Here we discover the principle of supporting the importance of families by means of their possessions; with this difference, that, in republican Rome, the dignity was attached to the entire family; while in modern times, it is centered, and along with it the estate, in the head of the family. Deprived of the means of perpetuating their names through their landed property, as the families of modern French at present are, by their rigid system of equal partibility, still, even here, we discern an effort towards it, and an attachment to

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