The Sun.
London, England, 1859-02-14 00:00:00

REGISTRATION OF REAL ESTATE.

Besides the luminous arrangement, and the clear
and accurate statement which adorned it, the speech
of the Solicitor-General on Friday night was dis-
tinguished from most of those usually heard within
the walls of Parliament by the abstract and philo-
sophical nature of the principles on which it was
based. We have passed the time when the reforms
and improvements which the age requires can be
met by obvious and popular remedies. The mere
abolition of restrictions and prohibition of abuses
no longer satisfy the spirit of the times in which
we live. Whatever may be thought of the Parlia-
mentary eloquence of our time, we exact from our
statesmen tasks never dreamt of before, and require
them to become the inventors, or at least the expo-
nents, of doctrines much fitter for the closet, ac-
cording to ordinary conception, than for the atmos-
phere of a popular assembly. Look, for instance,
at the chain of abstraction by which the exact truth
with regard to. the exercise by the State of the
power of conferring a Parliamentary title is, step
by step, elicited and demonstrated. A great emer-
gency arises, which startles our Government out of
the narrow limits of its mediocrity. A vast mass
of the property of Ireland is discovered to lie in the
hands of persons whose interest in it is merely
nominal, and whose right really resolves itself into
the barren privilege of representing an imaginary
surplus over existing encumbrances, which the
estate, when sold, was never destined to yield. It
was felt to be absolutely necessary that these pro-
perties should be sold and the power of the law
was called in to facilitate this salutary transac-
tion. For the first time the purchaser was relieved
from the necessity of inquiring into the title and
negotiating with the encumbrancers. The State
undertook all this herself, and gave to the pur-
chaser an absolute assurance that he should receive
his estate as free from all charges and questions
as if he had taken it from the hands of the great
purifier of Irish titles, Strongbow himself.
Nothing could appear at first sight more local and
temporary than such a measure ; but in this mass
of temporary and fleeting elements there was dis-
covered something which was not temporary and
fleeting—a permanent truth. It was soon ob-
served that the principle of relieving the purchaser
from the investigation of title, and giving him an
indefeasible right, was not necessarily connected
with the encumbrance of the estate or the division
of the purchase-money among the different claim-
ants ; and then it came to be seen that such a pro-
cess could be carried on and such a title given lust
as well where no sale was in contemplation as other-
wise. The result was the proposition to establish a
Court with power to inquire into titles, and when
those titles are found good, to accredit them by a
certificate which protects the purchaser for ever
against all claims prior to the date of his convey-
ance. In all this there is nothing peculiar to the
law either of England or of Ireland. The principles
giro afa capable o oppliggtiwi tv the law Qthe land

of one country as to that of another. They are, in
fact, universal truths, and may be considered as the
axioms lying at the base of a new science, the pro-
blem of which is, without interfering with the sub-
stantive law, to establish a perfectly clear, simple,
and indefeasible title to land.

The truths thus established have proved, as is
the nature of new truth, eminently fertile and
prolific. It could not fail to be observed that this
process of purifying the title, however complete and
perfect for the moment, contained initself no power
of self-perpetuation. The stream issued from the
fountain, but it was liable to be rendered turbid by
the muddy rivulets which emptied themselves into
it as it rolled along. The glees is soon worn off a
Parliamentary title • the purchaser mortgages,
grants annuities, makes a marriage settlement, has
judgments entered against him, becomes a Crown
' debtor makes an ambiguous will, or dies leaving a
son of doubtful legitimacy. The stone of Sisyphus
has rolled down the hill, and the labour has to be
gone through again. Immediately there arise the
further questions—Cannot the purity which it has
cost so much trouble to attain be retained un-
soiled ? Cannot the rivulet be guarded from its
muddy affluents ? Cannot the title be kept clear
from the causes which contaminate it ? One happy
thought leads to another. The operation of the
Encumbered Estates Court showed the possibility
of separating the beneficial ownership of land from
the power of disposing of it, and the application of
the same principle will secure to us the advantage
' thus gained. Let people continue as before to
exercise the unbounded licence at present possessed
of dealing with land in any manner their conve-
nience or caprice may dictate, but let the land be
represented for all future purposes of transfer by
persons who appear as the owners of the fee simple,
and who claim by direct transfer from the previous
owner. Let notice of all dealings with the bene-
ficial interest of the land be carefully excluded from
the register, and the land in the hands of the fiftieth
transferee from the man who acquired the Parlia-
mentary title will be just as easy of sale as in the
hands of the first. Thus has the principle of recog-
nising two species of ownership in land, the one
public and notorious and undivided for the pur-
poses of transfer, the other private and susceptible
of every kind of modification for the purposes of
beneficial ownership, been established. The Bank
of England had already hit upon a somewhat similar
device in dealing with the proprietors of stock.
The operation really consisted in issuing annuities
of a certain amount and of perpetual duration in
exchange for ready money, and the contract which
the bank made with its annuitants was, that it
should not be obliged to pay the annuities to any
but themselves and their transferees entitled to the
whole interest in the annuity. In the same way
the lord of the copyhold, when he admits one
tenant instead of another, refuses to take any
notice of the interests which the ownership of that
tenant may represent or protect, and the same prin-
ciple has been applied with great success to the
registration of ships.
It remains to show what protection can be de-
vised for those whose names and interests do not
appear on the register. In the case of stock there
is no protection at all, but the measure of the
Solicitor-General is more careful of the interests of
those beneficially entitled to land. It distin-
guishes between the disclosure and the protection
of an interest, and avoids the first, while it attains
the second, by the simple device of entering a
caveat or inhibition from transferring on the regis-
ter, which must be removed before the land can be
transferred. To procure this removal will be the
business of the seller, and the purchaser will have
nothing to do but to suspend the completion of his
transfer till no caveats are left. Another equally
simple and ingenious protection is founded on the
observation that in almost every instance in which
stock has been fraudulently sold out by a trustee
it has been by a single survivor, and that instances
of a joint fraud of this description are almost un-
known. The protection will therefore consist in
negativing the doctrine of survivorship, and requir-
ing that before the power of transfer is executed
the place of the trustee who is dead shall be sup-
plied.
Thus, by a machinery at once simple and effec-
tive, has been solved the mighty problem how to
render the immense property which is locked up in
the lands of England available and negotiable for
the purposes of commerce, to increase its value by
removing all doubt as to the title of the vendor,
and to enable its owner to enjoy nearly the same
facilities for pledging and selling as are possessed
by the proprietor of stock or shares, and all this
without diminishing the security or invading the
privacy of settlements, mortgages, or other similar
transactions. Such a measure will, if passed, be
equivalent to a gift of many millions in the shape
of increased value of land to the proprietors of the
soil of England, and will give an impulse to all
improvements that depend on the acquisition of
land, which it is hardly possible to over-estimate.
We have a good right to feel gratified at the intro-
duction is a practical shape of this great improve-

ment, for the readers of the Times are well aware

that many years ago, and while the attention of
P Mne+
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register of deeds—a measure which, at a vast
expense, would only have aggravated and stereo-
typed the defects of the present system—we
earnestly advocated instead the assimilation of the
transfer of land to the transfer of stock, and ex-
pressed our belief that, with a few slight modifica-
tions which the difference of the subject matter
reqnired, the same principles were just as applicable
to the one as to the other.—Times.

DREADFUL FIRE AND LOSS OF LIFE.

On Saturday morning, between the hours of five
and six o'clock, a fearful fire broke out on the pre-
mises belonging to Mr. Walton, wholesale tea dealer,
No. 85, High-street ,Whitechapel, and was attended
with loss of life to two human beings, and a serious
destruction of valuable property. The fire was
discovered by police-officer No. 160 of the H divi-
sion. A fire escape, under the charge of Conductor
Wood, was soon on the spot, when three persons
were seen at the second floor window. The con-
ductor brought these down his escape, then raised
his upper ladders to the third floor, where three
other parties were getting upon the window sills,
for the purpose of jumping into the street. He
called to them to remain until he got to them. He
then brought them down the ladder to the canvass
bag and passed them doyen in safety. He inquired
whether any one else, was in the house, and was
told that the two female servants were in the back
room third floor. He repaired to the third floor
front again, entered the room, and reached the door
of the apartment ; but the handle of the door was
very hot, and whilst he was endeavouring, with
the aid of his coat, to turn the lock, the door fell
upon him, to some extent sheltering him from the
flames. He managed to crawl on his hands and
knees to the front window, where the flames had
preceded him, and had actually set fire to the top
of the machine; was obliged to get out head fore-
most, nearly stifled with smoke. He next un-
shipped the short ladder of his escape, by great
exertions succeeded in placing it on the roof of the
next house, and managed to get to the room
where• the unfortunate females were; but it was
then in one body of flame. In the course of a
few minutes the whole of the interior of the build-
ing fell with a loud crash. The engines went to work
lin an admirable manner, but the only good they
could do was to protect the adjoining houses, the
premises in which the misfortune commenced being
totally consumed. Search was afterwards made for
he missing persons. One was found lying across
the other in the cellar. They were placed in shells
and removed to the dead-house to await an inquest.
Their names were Charlotte Law, aged 33, and
Emily Williams, aged 15. The foreman, a person
named Watford, rushed through the fire, and made
his escape at the front door, but was so badly burnt
that he was obliged to be taken to the hospital.
The origin of the fire is unknown.

THE LAW OF MARRIAGE IN FRANCE.—Another
case respecting the validity of a foreign marriage was a few
clays ago submitted to the Imperial Court of Aix. In 1850
a Jew named Cohen, who was born at Geneva, but whose
parents are now domiciled at Marseilles. married at Calcutta
where he was established in business, a young Frenchwoman
named Muret, of the same city, who had sometime lived
with him as his mistress. Mademoiselle Muret being a
Roman Catholic, the marriage was celebrated in the Ca-
tholic church of the Sacre Coeur in that city. M. and
Madame Cohen had four children, whose births were duly
registered at the French Consulate. Cohen informed his
parents of his marriage, and in 1854 he brought his wife to
France to introduce her to them, but they refused to receive
her He returned to Calcutta, and on the 18th February,
1856, accidentally fell into a huge boiler filled with boiling
syrup, and was so dreadfully scalded that he expired. By
his will he left his wife a life interest in all he possessed,
and the Supreme Court of Calcutta awarded the property to
her. Notwithstanding all these circumstances, Cohen's.
father in Maylast called on the Civil Tribunal of Marseilles
to declare the marriage null and void—first, because it was
clandestine, inasmuch as ithad not been published in France;
and, second, because a Catholic priest cannot legally cele-
brate the marriage of a Jew and a Christian. The tribunal,
however, after hearing lengthened pleadings, decided that
by the Code Napoleon a marriage between French people
celebrated abroad need not necessarily be published in
France, when there was no reason to suppose that the par-
ties wished to elude the French law, when they had been
some time established abroad, and when they had mani-
festly acted in good faith—all which was the case to this
affair. As to the second objection, the Tribunal ruled that
even supposing a religious marriage between a Roman
Catholic and a Jew was void according to the canon law—a
point it was not called on to decide—yet, as by the English
law the marriage at Calcutta by the Roman Catholic priest
was admitted, it must be regarded as valid in a legal point
of view in France also. The Tribunal therefore rejected the
action, and declared the marriage valid. M. Cohen appealed
to the Imperial Court of Aix against that decision, but the
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