The Sun.
London, England, 1846-03-13 00:00:00

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''7I7IE'LA.W-OF ENTAIL IN
SCOTLAND.
TO THE', EDITOR OE THE " EDINBURGH ADVERTISER."
The question of the justice and propriety of the
present law of entail in this country, is one which is at
the present time occupying a very considerable share of
attention among those more immediately intereiled is
the satisfactory adjustment of the question at issue. A
meeting of landed proprietors, and others, is to be held
on Thursday in:thefflopetoun Room', "for the purpose of
considering the great national evils connected with the
law as it now stands, and the propriety of an immediate
application to the Legislature thereupon." For the pur-
poses of bringing the subject more fully before our
Teaders, we give the followings extracts from a docu-
ment with which we have been favoured, entitled, " Me-
moir pn Entails," and which ably discusses the subject in
its _ _

" All land:, entailed and uuentailed, require a capital
fur management, contingencies, and improvement. En-
tails hurtfully withdraw this capital, and prevent even a
credit on the lands for the most important benefits to
the heir in possession, as well as to the public. The
attempts to remedy this by Acts of Parliament have
only been sufficient to shciw the admitted evil, not to
care it. Entails arc a constant tutory, never advanc-
ing the possessor of the estate above the character of
an heir, and keeping him in perpetual restraint ; where-
by it is necessary, for his interest, to strain every
means in his power to the utmost, and to do the least
possible good to others. No person can deal with pre-
fect safety with an entailed proprietor ; because he can-
not know how he is restrained, what security he can
give for sums advanced, or engagements made. As
little encuuaagement as possible is given for improve-
ments, and aids admitted or given, are often loetin the
constant recurring conflict of necessities of heirs and
executors on the death of each heir of entail.

" As to the heir of entail himself, he is called to the
succession burdened with every debt and obligation that ,
can be charged against him, and with many debts which
he has contracted, or been forced to contract, before his et
succession—not knowing, certainly, what right he has
to the estates—and loaded with provisious to wives and
children of his predecessor, which often exclude all
power to benefit his --own family. He is likewise made--
to feel his riearest blood as a spy and complainer ; and
his son, freed from the salutary restraint of any risk '
from displeasing his parent by recklessness and folly,
often becomes disregardful of his own interest and the in-
terests of his family, and looks to the other members of
it as little more than incumbrances on him, which much
diminishes the natural affection due to them, and makes
them far more dependent than they ought to be. The
parent may feel all this, and see his younger children
destitute of the position which they should be maintained
in, but with no power to prevent it ; and further, see that
an increase of the same evils will be transmitted by
each succeeding heir, destroying every feeling of com-
fort and independence, and rendering his title of en-
tail as if it had been made only to delude himself, and
his heirs, and all around him ; reducing the considera-
tion and the usefulness of the family in every way, and
in many instances forcing the family to leave the coua-
try, and take all their income from it to support them
in the retirement of the Continent, completely estranged
from their own estate and neighbourhood, and from all
attachment to their country. The whole of Scotland is
thus deeply poisoned, embarrassed, and injured by en-
tails. The evil is rapidly increasing, and threatening to
stagnate the fairest parts of the land, and to alienate the
respect due to the`proprietors of the country.
" These miserable-effects are said to be necessary to
preserve the aristocracy of the land. Men who love their
country, and wish to live on their estates, end to im-
prove and benefit all around them ; men naturally dis-
tinguished for vigour and soundness of mind ; men who
naturally despise the idea of being kept from harm by
leading- strings, and who would feel the honourable re-
sponsibility of preserving their station by the generous
regard to what was due to their own high sense of duty
to their ancestors, to their families, and their country,
far beyond all the chains and shelter that could be ap-
plied by the capricious restraints and evil securities of a
deceitful entail, made under a bad law, devised for the
selfish vanity of a Dives, to perpetuate slavery in his fa-
mily, by counteracting the laws of Providence, which
attach the wise penalty of loss of consideration to reck-
lessness and disorder, and do not protect the bad by
continually paralysing the good, a course which, in time,
would reduce the landed proprietors of Scotland to the
state of the most expatriated paupers, instead of being
a blessing to their country, and encouragers of vigour
and improvement, and comfort to all around them.
These are no vain and theoretical forebodings. The
country is already labouring under the influence of them
to an excessive degree ; and it is not too much to as-
sert that more than one-half of the entailed proprietors
in Scotland have not half their income to live upon, and
their families are more burdened and kept down than
any other class in the country.
" One great source of the revenue of the country is
the stamp-duty on the conveyance of property; but the
entailed estates are freed from this; and they do not
pay a single farthing of legacy duty, which alone, if
charged to each heir on his succession to an entailed
estate, in the same way as it is drawn from the children
of his poor tenant, and from the children of the poorest
merchant of the country, at the very time when they
have lost the income obtained by the labour of their pa-
rent, would afford above 1,000,0001. sterling every year
to Government. Should it still be thought that an in-
come must be preserved through a succession of profuse
heirs, for the chance that they might become the
honoured parents of good heirs, the best entail
would be an Act of Parliament that all lands should
be excluded from diligence. This would do equal
justice to all parties, and only the sooner show the
excessive evil of the stagnation of any kind of pro-
perty. Or if it be necessary to secure a large income
from capital, free from all change, in favour of any
class, it might be safely done by requiring the parties
to purchase the Government funds, to the extent re-
quired, and never to allow more to be so tied up than
what the State required. This would make the funds
valuable, and give these parties the greatest interest in
the prosperity of the country.
"It would require no management, and never pre-
vent the improvement of the country ; and all taxes
would as easily be taken from that capital as from any
other, and without any serious damage to those who
held such special entails.. The aristocracy holding this
fixed income, and left free to purchase, and to keep
and leave to their heirs as large estates as they could
acquire and improve, would hold them as free men
—a far more commanding and respectable character
than a half-ruined heir of entail. The tenantry and
the country would deal safely with them, and respect
them as men freely maintaining the high station which
the good conduct of their noble ancestors raised them
to, and preserved, them in, and the country would feel
that integrity was fixed as the basis of right, dignity,
and title to every property in the kingdom.

FIRST SIGHT OF A HORSE —The sensation produced
by the presence of the strangers had not in the least subsided
at the period of our arrival at the islands. The natives still
flocked in numbers about the encampment, and watched
with the liveliest curiosity every thing that was going for-
ward. A blacksmith's forge, which had been set up in the
shelter of a grove near the beach, attracted so great a crowd
that it required the utmost efforts of the sentries posted
around, to keep the inquisitive multitude at a sufficient dis-
tance to allow the workmen to ply their vocation. But
nothing gained so large a share of admiration as a horse,
which had been brought from Valparaiso by the Achille, one
of the vessels of the squadron. The animal, a remarkably
fine one, had been taken ashore, and stabled in a hut of
cocoa-nut boughs within the fortified enclosure. Occasion-
ally it was brought out, and, being gaily caparisoned, was
ridden by one of the officers at full speed over the hard
sand beach. This performance was sure to be hailed
with loud plaudits, and the "parakee nuec"
was unanimously pronounced by the islanders to be the
most extraordinary specinen of zoology that had ever come
under their observation.—Four Months' Residence in the Mar-
quesas Islands. (big hog)
NEW CLUB, NO. 12, GEORGE-STREET, HANOVER-
, SQUARE.—A new club is in course cf formation at the man-
sion now occupied as the British and Foreign Hotel, to be
conducted on the same principles and
.management as the
large clubs of London. The number of _ members to be
limited, and the admission to be by ballot. The list of mem-
bers already enrolled may be seen, and further particulars
known, by personal application at the address given above,
between the hours of twelve and four.
MANURE COMPANY.—It is intended to form a com-
pany in Newcastle, for the purpose of turning the contents of
the common sewers to profitable account. It is proposed to
intercept and convey them underground, without the slightest
nuisance to the public, to a considerable distance from the
town, where reservoirs will be formed, and buildings erected,
and there subject them to a chemical process, by which all
objections on the score of offensiveness will be destroyed, and
the substance, as a manure, improved in its fertilising proper-
ties. It is proposed then to dry it by artificial means, and
thus render it fit and convenient for carriage. Upon a mo-
derate calculation, not fewer than 10,000 tons of valuable
manure are wasted, which, at 31. per ton, amount to an
annual loss of 30,0001.—Newcastle Journal.
SUICIDE OF AN EX-COURIER OF THE DUKE OF CAM-
BRIDGE.—On Tuesday, 31r. Wakley, .M.P., held an inquest at the
Marquis of Granby Tavern, Great Marylebonc-street, on view of
the body of Thomas Webb, aged 50 years, who committed suicide.
The deceased lived at No. 3, Little Marylebone-street, and was formerly
a courier in the family of the Duke of Cambridge, from whom he re-
ceived a pension for his services. Subsequently he became butler to
Colonel Thoyts, but had left about a twelvemonth since. Mr.
Reading, the parish beadle, deposed that, from information he
received on Sunday evening, between six mid seven o'clock, he pro-
ceeded to deceased's room (an attic), and found him suspended to the
bed-post by a cord tied tightly round his neek. Tiltuess, with the as-
sistance of the landlord, immediately cut him down, but the body was
quite cold, and life must have been extinct for several hours. John
Cuerton (deceased's landlord) deposed to having last seen
him alive on the previous day ; he was a married man, and
his wife lived at service; he had lodged in witness's house ever
since he left Colonel- Thoyis. Deceased was never heard to utter
any expressions that might lead one to conjecture that he contcm-
pleyed suicide, and he enjoyed tolerable health up to the period of his
destruction. The Coroner summed up at considerable length, re-
marking on the fiequeney of suicides amongst butlers; and as the
testimony was not altogether satisfactory as to state of deceased's
mind, he recommeaded them to return an open verdict.
,After
shirt consultation, the jury unanimously recorded the fellow.eg 1
diet, " That deceased was found dead, haying hanged himsolt
in a
state of mind unknown to the jury."
PRICE OF POTATeiES AT PORTSMOUTH QUAY. —t
Lids necessary article br food is still kept up ; but we
Aldernae-, 4/. per ton ; 6d. per cwt. We perceive the price o
those who have .stoet~.; in hand not to keep them too long, or t
' We remember, some years ago, that potatoes
would caution
may
av
lose them altogethe.e.
market, in the 700pc of :getting higherr k kept
e thema mildb ae kw
winter
rose to an enorurous price„m.:d,maaTt-i
succeeded, wt.ich caused them to germinate very early, and the
tesne
on t
scarcity season
in
itghl
this
consequence was, they
as to requk..o prongs to remove them into carts in order to throw
became so soft, and were so matted together,
Produce' similar effects. We are eerep
them onishe dungheap. The luild:,-ilets.issnoet('lttlli,
part the country, as potatoes arc freely selling in the upper part of
the cesinity at ss. per sack !—Portsnioutli Telegraph.
IIe:ULM:ABLE AND DISTRESSING CASs.--The follow-
ing very distressing case has caused considerable excitement and
:drain its the neighbourlieol of 3iillbanki Westminster. It appears
that a shoemaker, named James Silk, together with his wife and four
young children, have been residing for some time past in an old,
dirty, and dilapidated house in Vine-street, Westminster, in the
grea test misery and distress. A. few days ago one of the children
yft: seized with typhus fever, the father and mother also caught it ;
thpoor woman, from want of nourishment. and attention, got so
had that some person having heard of it had her conveyed on Mon-
(JAY to the Westrninsterliospital, but she died a few hours after her
admission into the institution. About three hours after her death
her husband was eenveyed in a sedan chair to the hospital, wrapped
IT in blankets, but the poor fellow can only survive for a few hours.
Such a painfu'l case of misery and distress would be hardly supposed
to ex,ist in c% country like this.

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