might not the principles which regulate transfer
of shipping property apply also to land?

Absurd!  cries the defender of Sheepskin.
Landed property differs essentially from movable
property.  Methods of procedure suitable for
one cannot apply to the other.  But is it so
certain that they cannot? The essential
differences are, firstly, that landed property is not,
like funded property, divisible without change
in the value of its parts; secondly, that landed
property is an individual thing, a house in question
is the house, not like a piece of money,
any one among millions of pieces having the same
value; and thirdly, that a full right to possession
of that individual thing has to be ascertained.
But a ship is yet more indivisible than an estate;
it is yet more distinctly individual; and the
particular ship which is the subject of any
transaction has to be perfectly distinguished
from among thousands of others by description
on the register.  Land is immovable and always
within ken of the registrar; ships wander away
to the uttermost ends of the world, yet the
transfer of ship property by means of registry
is simple, sure, and cheap.  And out of England
so it is with land in many countries.  Even
within England so it is with all land held under
our old copyhold tenures. There had come to
be two tenures, one called common socage and
the other copyhold.  One, freed from relics of
feudal servility and open to the arts of the
conveyancer; the other, cumbered with some
nominal remains of old enactions, in the form of
rights of the lord of the manor, but exempt from
pillage by the law.  A steward during thirty
years to many of the Cumberland copyhold and
customary manors told Lord Brougham that,
in a manor of five hundred estates he never
found an instance of disputed title. "They have
every one been repeatedly passed by sale,
mortgage, devise, or descent, and the cost of the
conveyance never exceeds a few shillings, or the
length of the deed a hundred words."

Nevertheless, when the two tenures came to be
revised, this was the one abolished.  Long ago it
happened, let us say, that men either having profit of
their own to make by diverting traffic out of the
straight road from Charing-cross to Temple-bar,
or else desiring to lead honest people along
byways more secure from thieves than other
thoroughfares, established this to be the only
lawful route: along a particularly crooked way
through the maze of Soho, to Marylebone-lane,
and by a particular track from Marylebone-lane
through Portland-market to Baker-street; thence
by a definite chain of alleys and lanes to the
Angel, Islington, and round by Saffron-hill to
Bow. Then taking the London Docks in the
course of a back way to Little Alie-street, to get
down from Whitechapel to the Thames bank,
cross to the Surrey side and go, keeping as near
the water's edge as possible, to Lambeth; then
travel to Brixton Church by way of Camberwell;
get, after a round through Tooting to the back
streets of the Borough, and then, having crossed
London-bridge, ascend the Monument and look
over the surrounding space in search of any
signs of danger. Having done this, proceed—
also by back ways—to St. Paul's, ascending that
edifice for the same purpose of careful search,
and having found all safe, descend and go to
Hackney, whence you are to be piloted blindfold
to Temple-bar.  But when at Temple-bar you
are to be left with the bandage on your eyes,
uncertain whether you have been brought to your
journey's end or not, and ready to the eye of a
new pilot who may have authority to take you
by the hand and guide you, after all, to Battersea.
In this route every street and lane is legally
appointed.  You have a great many conveyances
to pay for, several of the legal guides to fee.
The exquisite intricacy of the track baffles all
effort of yours to find it unassisted. There is,
in fact, just what the law furnishes in its roundabout
way to the transference of titles in land;
namely, complexity, costliness, delay, risk, and
after all no certainty that the end sought has
really been attained.  But what immense
industry, what nice perception of turnings is
required before anybody can be qualified to guide
a man by such a route!  What a glorious body
of experts are these guides!  Remove the
blockade of the Strand?  Enable any man without
all this help, to make for himself a straight
and sure ten minutes' walk to his destination?
Surely you don't wish to subvert one of the
most peculiar institutions of the country, to
destroy a profession at a blow, to turn suddenly
into dust and ashes all the golden knowledge
about turnings and crossings that has been
acquired with so much toil?  In South Australia
they have actually done this. They have thrown
open their Strand: leaving, for the present, full
liberty to any one to go by the old roundabout
track. But the change is only a year old, and
—wonderful to tell!—already the old track is
pretty well deserted.

The Real Property Act now in force among
the South Australians, creates by registration,
duly checked, a perfectly indisputable title. If
a juster claim arises after registry, it is upon the
holder of the land, not on the land, that claim is
made for restitution.  He restores the value
taken.  He does not, as he would under our
English law, give up the soil with all his worldly
wealth, perhaps spread over it in houses, mills,
or factories.  The claimant who has come too
late to prove his better rights, receives the value
of what be has lost, and, if the holder, against
whom the claim lies, withholds payment, whether
by fraud or misfortune, then the government
makes compensation from a fund provided for
that purpose by the act.

Again, risk of uncertainty in the wording of
a transfer or other deed concerning land, is
avoided by the use of short prescribed forms
which the law appoints.

Another merit of the South Australian way
of registering titles, lies in the fact that, while it
reduces necessary legal search to an act that can
be perfectly completed within one hour, it does
not throw open every man's  private affairs to the
observations of his neighbours.  It is not
possible for even the registrar himself and his clerk