The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1873-05-28
Land Registry i'm E,ngIaud.

There are not many people in America
(thc members of the legal profession OK
cepted) who will not be surprised when in
formed that there is practically no land
registry in England The transfer of title
to real estate in the United States is so
easy and so simple that it is difficult for us
to comprehend the cumbrous and expen-
sive process by which it is accomplished in
the mother country. Here the State is the
fountain head from which all titles are de-
rived. The first purchaser obtains deed
Commonly called a PATENT from the State,
which is recorded in the Land Office, and
becomes the source from which all GOOD
titles are traced Every deed by which
real estate is conveyed to another. whether
in fee or in trust, is recorded in the county
in which the land is situate, and when it is
devised by will or inherited by descent, the
title becomes a matter of record in the
Probate Courts. and in due time is recited
in the deeds of transfer. When a convey
ancc is made by Il sheriff who sells land to
satisfy a judgment, or when the same is
sold under decree passed by Court of
Chancery, the deed appears of record and
affords key TO the examination of the
whole proceedings through which the last
purchaser derived his title. Any person OF
average intelligence can 20 to the records
and make for himself an abstract of title to
the property which he has purchased or is
about to purchase, and thousands of con-
veyances are made every day without the
assistance or advice Of lawyer.
The transfer of title to land in England
is very different manner. Every owner
of real estate keeps his muniments of title
in strong box, to which no one has access
except himself, unless he is compelled to
produce his papers by process issuing
from court, and it is related of Lord
Kenyon that he once told "A witness who
had boon compelled to bring his title deeds
into court to sit down on inc box ana to let
no one to look into it, The reason for this
care and secrecy is apparent Publicity
gives permahence and safety to land titles
in this country, but concealment and i'm
munity from search are largely relied upon
by the English landowner, for the defects
in his title are covered up until long and
uninterrupted possession has cured them.
The complicated system of land tenure in
England, the right of primogeniture. and
the creation of numerous artificial estates
in Courts of Chancery in the attempt to
adapt ancient presidents to the necessities
OF modern civilization have so encountered
land titles that if the deeds were kept
locked up in a strong box. smart lawyers
would be continually finding defects, and
scarcely landowner in the kingdom would
escape summons from some fraudulent
TichbOrne to answer demand for pos
session.
The effect of this concealment, while it
enhances the safety of the owner of lands
and gives him peaceful enjoyment of his
possessions makes the transfer of title. as
Lord Selborne declared in Parliament a
few nights since, "a cumbrous. dilatory
and dangerous process If person wants
TO sell his land he must first make his con
tract, and if he has not his wits about him
he. will be exposed to the peril of undertake
ing to do more than he can perform, in
which case he will subject himself to much
trouble and pecuniary loss. He will next
have to prepare his abstract of title which.
whatever else it may be, will certainly not
be brief document. He must go back for
sixty years, and set out every mortgage.
lease, settlement, charge and dealing with
the property, and show that every claim
upon it has been satisfied. After this he
will have to expose his title to every obec-
ton that legal ingenuity can devise, the re-
suit being, perhaps, the raising of dormant
questions, stirring up litigation, and; in any
case, mourning heavy bill of costs. New
ertheless, the sale of lands being CONNER
cial necessity, this ''cumbrous dilatory and
dangerous process has to be gone through
with very frequently to the great enrich
ment of lawyers and the enlargement of
the dockets of the Chancery courts.
To facilitate the sale OF lands and the
transfer of title Lord Seborne has intro
duced bill in Parliament which provides
for the registering of all b0Rd tide titles,
whether in fee or for term of years. An
act was passed in 1862 which allowed ali
solute, indefeasible titles to he registered
but it has not been of much practical value.
England contains 30 600, 900 acres of land,
and in the course of ten years only sixty
thousand or seventy thousand acres have
come under the operation of the registry
act. There is not much prospect of Lord
Selborne's bill being passed at the present
session of Parliament, and if il does it will
not go into operation till 1876, The Eng
fish landowners must have three years no.
tice to get their muniments of title into
proper shape before they exhibit them to
all mankind.
The London TINES commenting on Lord
Selborne's bill and the reasons which he
gave in his speech in Parliament for the
failure of the Act of 1862 to accomplish
the intended purpose, says that the princi-
pal cause was not stated, namely " The
helpless and hopeless bewilderment of the
popular mind about real property, which
has been engendered by the old forms of
conveyancing, and encouraged, to say the
least, by the legal profession, So profound
are the mysteries of land transfer in the
eyes of an ordinary purchaser that he
scarcely believes in the power of the legis-
lature itself to make it simple affair.
Whether Lord Selborne will succeed in dis
pelling this impression by his proposed
scheme has not yet been seen but we
greatly fear that unless he does succeed in
dispelling it that scheme will meet with
little popular support"
A SPLENDID LOT OF NEW BRAID
IA ING DESIGNS, also ALPHABETS, lust re-