is the cheapest course he can take, and so he
takes it. My lord has resolved, however, not
to be twice bitten. He will have the ownership
of his next purchases all very carefully
investigated, and trust that he shall not fall
into the hands of a " rectifier of wry law, who
will make three to cure one flaw." He has just
bought an estate for ten thousand pounds.
Buyers and sellers and lawyers frisk up and
down with the titles like two kittens with a ball.
My lord is now quite as intrusive a questioner
as the lawyer who vexed the squire. With
sixteen quarterings in his coat, he is taking
deep interest in a pedigree of barely one
century's length. He calls for the burial certificate
of John Swigg, who died of drink in St. Kitt's.
He is anxious to see the certificates of the
baptisms and marriages of people he don't
want to know, and, after searching parish books,
Somerset House records, Admiralty records from
the log-books of Noah's Ark downwards, and
calling for all sorts of identifications of all sorts
of people, lands, and things, gets documentary
evidence that the " satisfaction of his mind " has
added to the price of his purchase a per-centage
that will make the small profit of his investment
smaller still.

So my lord says with the squire, " Why can't
we treat land like money? or if not so, why not
like stock? There is none of this bother with
stock. The names of the owners are entered
in the government books; and, when we buy, we
get a printed paper, neatly filled up with the
names and amounts, instead of those greasy
incomprehensible parchments one can hardly open,
cannot hold in one's hand, and that begin on the
last sheet, like the Hebrew that they are."

Let the squire and my lord now shout
exceedingly and sing for joy, since my Lord Westbury
has come to their help, and established by
his new act, which came into operation in the
middle of this last October, a Register of Titles
to Landed Estates! The revolutionary
Chancellor has thrown himself with his whole weight
upon the entanglements in which land and the
transfer of it have been enmeshed by the scientific
theories of bygone generations of lawyers,
who have thriven on the difficulties of their
science.

"Why not treat land as stock?" says the
unscientific public. The, answer is old enough.
It was given by Lord Macclesfield one hundred
and forty years ago. " Some lands," he said,
"are more convenient than others; but there is
no difference in stock." One acre of Cheapside
is more convenient than one acre of Salisbury
Plain; but one £500 of Patagonia Loan
Preference shares is like any other £500 of that
fattening investment. But the difference
between land and stock, great as it is, is only
material for some purposes, of which the
Chancellor's purpose is not one.

The public makes, also, by its own natural
dealings with land, a fresh difficulty in the way
of easy transfer. We must needs establish
actual and possible dispositions of it among our
children, and grandchildren, and nephews, and
nieces, and brothers, and sisters, in a way that
makes the use of conveyances, short as the little
printed transfer of stock, almost beyond hope.
Then we add leasing powers, and charging
powers, and powers of giving portions to younger
children, and jointures to wives. All this is
done so elegantly and easily that no one thinks
of abandoning the practice. Only declare that
your estate shall be held to the use that you
shall have it for your life; then to the use that
your wife shall have her jointure; and to the
use that she shall have a right of distress, &c.
&c. &c. &c. &c., and the thing is done, and all
through that admirable old statute of Henry the
Eighth for turning uses into possession, or for
trying to find out who are the real owners of
any bit of ground. That statute has, with
admirable skill, been so treated by judges and
conveyancers as to be the chief means of defeating
its own end, and concealing the real ownership.
It was the Magna Charta of conveyancers;
and, when the learned Sandars, one of
the fathers of conveyancing whose life had been
spent in studying and testing the strength of
every line in the conveyancing web, was lying
on his death-bed, the equally learned Brodie
came sadly in: " Sandars! Sandars!" says he,
"they've repealed the Statute of Uses!" Mr.
Sandars fell back on his pillow and died. Has
the Chancellor sufficiently weighed the effect of
his legislation on the Sandarses of our own
day?

Before there were Sandarses, there was,
indeed, a time when land was dealt with as
easily as stock. The transfer took place then in
the Earl's or Sheriff's Court, and all that was
necessary was to hand the piece of turf or other
symbol of possession to the purchaser, and
record the fact in a feoffment or deed. There
was no register then, nor was there need of
one. Possession and ownership both went
together, and until the progress of cultivation
induced owners to grant leases of their lands,
the possession was the common proof of entire
ownership.

It is curious to compare our modern deeds
with those of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. In
all their principal requisites, as in the names of
donors and donees, the consideration, words of
gift, and description of lands, the family likeness
is most strong. In one particular they differ—
the old deeds do not bear any seals. The
Anglo-Saxons marked with a cross, or signed.
The unlettered Norman used a seal, which was
sometimes the hilt of his sword; and, since that
time, a seal has become one necessary part to a
deed. Bocland or Bookland (the modern
Buckland) was the name for land held under charters
or grants among our forefathers; but no general
collection of any such charters, or general
description of the lands of the kingdom and their
owners, is to be found until the Domesday
Book of the Conqueror.

The only class of lands that have been always
registered, and are still held by registry alone,
are copyhold lands. The lord's steward in old
Saxon times had, among other cattle, thralls or