The Press.
London, England, 1854-02-18 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

years ; and they generally deal with a different
class of insurers, among whom child-murder
does not prevail. But this is not the only
difference of their position. They refuse, in-
variably and most wisely, to insure any life in
which the insurer has not a personal pecuniary
interest. This rule is necessary to prevent
insurance from degenerating into a mere gam-
bling on lives; and it completely separates
their status from that of the burial clubs.
We have said our say, and leave the case
contentedly in the hands of Lord PALMERSTON
and the House of Commons.

THE LAW OF SUCCESSION TO REAL

PROPERTY.
ON Tuesday last Mr. LOCKE Km moved for leave
to bring in a Bill " to amend the Law of Suc-
cession to Real Property in Cases of Intestacy.'
At present, with local exceptions, if the pos-
sessor of land dies intestate, his property
descends to the heir. This Mr LOCKE KING
proposes to alter, and to assimilate the laws
affecting the inheritance of land to those
which regulate personalty ; in short, to bring
real estate under the operation of the Statute
of Distributions. The motion was supported
by Mr. HADFIELD, vehemently applauded by
Mr. BRIGHT, and only met by Lord JOHN
RUSSELL with the faint declaration, that there
were some things in it of which he could not
quite approve. Even Lord JOHN RUSSELL has
not yet made up his mind to immolate
his order on the shrine of democracy, other-
wise he would have incorporated this mea-
sure with his Reform Bill. Mr. Locxis KING,
although he introduced it plausibly enough
as a change of very little moment, was yet so
conscious that it contained the germ of a
power which would destroy the peerage, that
he actually proposed to exempt the estates
of peers from its operation ; and yet the
chief argument he urged in favour of the mea-
sure was its abstract justice—as if abstract
justice, and an exception so enormous, were
not a contradiction in terms.

There are in England estates which have
descended in the same families for many cen-
turies, the owners of which would not. accept
the honours of the peerage ; and where is the
" justice" of the measure that would doom
these ancient estates to infinitesimal division
and subdivision, and exempt from the same
fate the land which the recently-created baron
has purchased with the profits of his banking
business ? For Mr. LOCKE KING is in error
when he assumes that " good sense " would
prevent the division of property to an un-
limited
extent. It is a question susceptible of
arithmetical calculation, and, should the mea-
sure ever become law, the data furnished by
its operation for a few years would enable an
actuary to calculate with precision how long it
would take to assimilate the territorial condi-
tion of England to that of France—how long
it would be before the " stately homes of Eng-
" land * * amid their tall ancestral trees" were
in ruin and decay, like those deserted châteaux
of the old noblesse that look so melancholy
along the Loire. Mr. LOCKE KING says he
only proposes to divide land amongst the
children when the parent dies intestate, and
that in England the desire of leaving a name
and an estate behind is so strong that there
would be no danger of the omission of so sim-
ple a form as a will. But, granting the strength
of the desire, it is certain that the day will
come when some one owner of an ancient in-
heritance will die intestate, and then it will
be divided amongst his heirs, never to be
reunited. Peerages will become extinct, and,
when the proposed new law has operated for
a sufficient time upon the landed gentry,
where will be the class from which the peer-
age will be recruited?
These consequenees were doubtless foreseen
by Mr. BRIGHT when, with heat and vehemence
unusual even in the " leader of the town tumults
" of Rochdale," he boisterously supported and
applauded the measure. Mr. LOCKE KING said
" it seemed to him that it was now the clear
" duty of every class to give up promptly and
" with a good grace every indefensible privi-
" lege--every anomaly everything that
" could in any way be construed into an act of
" injustice." There was a day when similar

147 •

sentiments were entertained in France ;
it is known in history, if we mistake not,
by the name of " The Night of Sacrifices,"
and it has been popularly termed " The
Day of Dupes." Royalty, aristocracy, and
episcopacy were thought " indefensible pri-
vileges," and those classes gave them up
" promptly and with a good grace." The ex-
ample was set by Philippe Egalite, and peer
and bishop laid down coronet and mitre on the
altar of democracy on which that liberal Prince
of the blood had offered up his royalty as a.
sacrifice. Philippe Egalite on the scaffold,
and the nobles and bishops of France in ruin,
exile, and proscription, expiated the crimes of
that suicidal night. We are willing to believe
that Mr. LOCKE KING did not foresee the full
effect of his measure when he proposed it, for
he has since written a letter endeavouring to
diminish its magnitude. Himself the son of a
peer, he should beware of the applause of Mr.
BRIGHT when tampering with the laws that ef-
fect the territorial element in the constitution
of England. He should remember what class
secured to us our laws, liberties, and religion
in that revolution in which the honourable
member's own ancestor bore a part so distin-
guished.
Even Mr. MACAULAY gives the credit of the
Revolution of 1688 to the aristocracy and.
landed gentry of England. Some broadly-
marked and distinctive diftrence must exist
between England and the nations of the Con-
tinent when she alone withstood unmoved
the revolutionary whirlwind which in 1848
swept over Europe; and what can constitute
this difference but that ancient and powerful
aristocracy based on land which we alone
possess? Mm'. LOCKE KING seems to think an
alteration of the laws of succession a light
matter; but, in conclusion, on this point M.
de TOCQUEVILLE, quoted by Mr. THEMENHEERE
in his recent work, shall speak :
M. de Tocqueville expresses " astonishment that public
writers, ancient and modern, have not attributed to the
laws respecting succession a greater influence over the
march of human affairs." lie says that the legislator,
after having disposed of that law, may, in reference to the
basis of power, repose for ages ; for after once giving the
impulse to the movement the machine acts of its own
accord. And, with no disguised reference to the wide of
things in his own country, he represents the action of that
principle " as dividing, distributing, scattering, property
and power;" " pounding to pieces, or bursting into trig-
ments, everything that resists its passage ; now raising
itself up, now prostrate on the soil, until the only sub-
stance it presents to sight is that of a moving and im-
palpable dust, on which sits democracy."

PUBLIC PROSECUTORS.
ON Tuesday last Mr. PHILLIMOILE moved for leave to
bring in a bill for the appointment of public prose-
cutors in criminal cases, and after a short discus-
tion left the subject in the hands of the Attorney-
General, on the assurance of the Hon. and
Learned Gentleman that it was under the considera-
tion of the Government. Until a measure is brought
forward it would, be premature to discuss the ques-
firm at length, but one point seems to have been
overlooked in the debate ; and that is, the grand-
jury system. If public itose. utors are appointed,
grand juries must be abolisl!al. The duties which
would be imposed on those functionaries would not
be magisterial, but would commence immediately
when a prirnd facie case for inquiry had been estab-
lished. Then the representative of public justice would
step in, and by taking the conduct of criminal prosecu-
tions out of the bands of private persons would prevent
those compromises and compositions by which wealthy
offenders are occasionally enabled to escape from the
penal consequences of crime. But criminal prosecu-
tions are often promoted for private ends, to opprets
the weak and timid, or to extort money from rich
offenders. For this the grand-jury system gives
ample facilities. Nothing is more easy than to pro-
cure the return of a " true bill " when there is not a
particle of evidence to support the case. Is the
public prosecutor t) proceed with every bill so found?
Then private malice may be gratified at the publio
expense. Is be to overrule the grand jury ? Then
he will exercise a power which the judges of the
land do not possess. At present one great check on
unjust prosecutions is, that the judges have a discre-
tionary power over the expenses, which are never
allowed when the conduct of the prosecutor is ques-
tionable ; but., if the public prosecutes, the public
must pay. Hence it must necessarily follow that
the proposed change must be accompanied by the
abolition of the grand-jury system. Before the
public can prosecute, there must be such a reason-
able probability of a conviction as is at present en-
sured only by an investigation conducted before a
stipendiary magistrate.

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