The Sun.
London, England, 1833-09-25 00:00:00

;-.:..T.Arepz;. •
writer. We might be excused all commentary
on his tirade, and his last return to the hobgoblin
terror of " attacks on property ;" but our con-
temporary, as in all false reasoning and misre-
presentation of fact, has laid himself too open for
us to resist the temptation. We apologise for
the inadvertent mistake of citing his reply to the
Morning Herald, as a controversy with the
Spectator, which our quotation of the unan-
swerable remarks of the latter paper occasioned.
We deny in tote the proposition of the alleged
insecurity of the property titles of this country.
No real property lawyers could maintain such an
absurd fallacy. The mystery of convey-
ancing, and the conveniency of increasing
business, and exhibiting professional erudi-
tion, has certainly made " legal " or mar-
ketable titles to land an increasing diffi-
culty ; but this evil has no relation to an uncer-
tain tenure or doubtful possession. In no
country in Europe is there less litigation on
the title to real property than in this, though
the difficulty of its passage, from vender to
purchaser, by the technicalities of practice, has
been constantly growing more expensive and
dilatory. But this evil has originated in our
mystical " terms for years," in " legal estates,"
outstanding with persons who knew not of their
former titles ; in the fee-gathering mystification
of fines" and " recoveries ;" in the utter want
,of all civil registration of birthr, marriages, and
burials ; in primogeniture and contingent re-
mainders ; and lastly, in the stupid and inte-
rested prejudices against the registration of titles.
We do not hesitate to say, that Doctors' Com-
mons, and the Diocesan Record of Wills, have
alone preserved any practical system of title to
real property ; and if we could suppose that
las tamentary registration did not exist, and was
now to be first proposed, what a cloud of pre-
judice and invincible opposition would arise
against its introduction. Hobgoblin arguments,
and ghosts in profusion, would haunt the
affrighted imaginations of the " landed gentry,"
and armies of lawyers would rise up in hostile
array against the record of wills, gravely affecting
anxiety for their clients when their real appre-
hension was absurdly for their own pockets.
'The Bills, however, recommended by the Real
Property Commissioners, and introduced by the
Lord Chancellor and Sir John Campbell, will
speedily allay the amiable fears of the Standard
for the security of private property, and we apprise
our contemporary that the municipal question has
no possible relation to any question of private
property. It is an improved administration of
the public revenue of the Corporation, of which
the people are the cestui qui trust, which is the
constitutional and legitimate object of the mu-
nicipal commission ; and we can hardly believe
that the acuteness of our contemporary is igno-
rant of the fact. It is to confirm titles, not to
loosen them, that this important investigation
has been established. Nor will it serve any
purpose of successful prejudice to raise a hue
and cry of consequent danger to the sub-pur-
chasers and tenants of Corporation. This
" Inquisition," as the Standard with intentional
prejudice but literal justice terms the commis-
sion, is simply an inquiry—the taking an
inventory of the public property. Legislation
is an after-object, and no reformed House of
Commons will allow the tenure of private pro-
perty to be disturbed, because close and corrupt
corporators have abused their trust. The venders,
not the purchasers, must suffer where justice
demands retribution ; but the far more important
object of the commission is to investigate the
present and legislate for the future, rather than
to grope through centuries of past municipal
misrule. We pass over the lamentations of our
contemporary over the "brick-bat and bludgeon"
warfare which he alleges vanquished the ho-
roughinongers. If these political usurpers were
stoned it was their desert, and the gain of the
people ; and during the Catholic question,
and in the fall of 1830, no Journal wrote
more ably than the Standard, against the
" Borough System," of which the Corporations
were the body and soul. Our contemporary de-
sires the creation of " new Corporations where
they are wanted," and protests against the
" swamping of such as exist." He misunder-
stands or misrepresents the popular object ; it is
to swamp the usurpation of the Corporators,
not to overturn the institutions. In such
new Corporations, as the Standard admits may
be required, would he adopt the standard of the
existing system as a rule of construction ? and
if he would not, will he contend that the unin-
corporated communities are to have one muni-
cipal system, and the Corporate towns another
of the old antique fashion ? On this point, if
necessary, we will join issue with our contem-
porary. As for the means of legal redress o'
corporate malversation, through the Court of
Chancery, surely our contemporary roust be
?waggish. What sensible man will venture his
private property to redress public wrong, in the
cost, anxiety, and uncertainty of a snail suit in
Equity ? How did Lord Eldon and Lord
Lyndhurst, as Equity Judges, justify Corpo-
rators ? How has the Court of King's Bench
upheld the Magistracy and Corporators ? Give
us future prevention, and we will surrender such
an empirical cure. The Standard further con-
tends, that to extend Corporations would
be greatly to increase instead of diminish-
ing the misapplication of trust property. Ty
this bold proposition we answer—and one
assertion is as good as another when both
are unattended by reasons—that the misapplica-
tion cannot be worse than at present. But we
will close this long commentary, as the Standard
admits the Corporations will be reformed, because
the Whig Government possesses power as well
as will to accomplish the reformation. This
ava- also admit but the reason that the present
Gover,:snent enjoys that power is, that the people
desire alien led and improved municipal institu-
tions, and after a memorable and glorious na-
tional struggle have elected a Reformed House
of Commons, who unanimously voted an address
to the Crown to appoint the Commission.—
Xorning Chronicle.
It must have been highly gratifying to every
lover of good order and of the progress of civili-
zation, to have read that part of the Mansion-
house police report of yesterday relative to the
apprehension and committal of Paiish, the prize
fighter. The .Morning Herald is not charged,
we believe, with being apt to over-rate the exer-
tions of public men—indeed we are sometimes
thought to be rather sparing in our commelida-
lion. This may occasionally be true ; but in
the present instance wen
annot, wireatthoutsatisf injactionustice,,
refrain from expressing our g
not only at the manner wuhalso the Lord
Mayor examined the cidprit,but for ?the
ssed his indi nation
manner in which he expre,
against the degrading practices of the riot'.
We cannot refrain from repeating his Lordship's
words as they are found in the report.
Lordship said, " I think I see around you a
good many of what the humbug gentlemen who