NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.

In my last December’s letter, I promised, for January, some statement of real beginning of operations by our Company; but, as usual, was hindered from fulfilling my promise at the time I intended. And the hindrance lay, as in all useful business it is pretty sure in some measure to lie, in the state of British law. An acre of ground, with some cottages on it, has been given me for our Company; but it is not easy to find out how the Company is to lay hold of it. I suppose the conveyancing will cost us, in the end, half a dozen times the value of the land; and in the meantime I don’t care to announce our possession of it, or say what I mean to do with it. I content myself for the present with reprinting, and very heartily, as far as my experience holds, ratifying, the subjoined portions of a letter, sent me the other day out of a country paper. The writer is speaking, at the point where my quotation begins, of the difficulty of getting a good bankruptcy act passed:—

“The reason alleged is that almost any lawyer is ready to help any lying and false-trading person to drive his coach and four through any Act, however good in intention it may be. This is a sad state of things, and is wasteful of more things than money or good temper. It is, however, on the matter of conveyancing that we wish to say a few words.…

“We are accustomed to look at the matter as a very simple one. We have before us the deeds of our dwelling-house. [48]The real point is, why can we not sell these papers to, say John Smith, for £1,000, if John is satisfied that our little cottage, with all its admirable rooms so well arranged, is worth that amount? Why can’t we sell him this matter in a simple and clear way? Or, for a case the least bit complicated, take our six shops in the chief street. Why can’t we sell one each to Brown, Jones, Robinson, Thompson, Atkinson, or Williams, their respective and respectable tenants, in an equally simple way? The English law steps in and says that we must have a cumbrous deed prepared for each case, and the total cost to all of us, without stamps, would be about one hundred pounds, at a reasonable computation. What do we get for this large sum? Absolutely nothing but jargon on parchment, instead of plain and simple English, which all the Smiths and Browns might understand, and get for a tenth of the cost. This is all the more irritating, because sensible people are agreed that our present plan is a cumbrous farce, and, moreover, nobody laughs at it but the lawyers who get the picking. Any six honest, clear-headed, educated men could devise a system in a month which would put an end to the needless and costly worry entailed by the existing legal paraphernalia. We have never yet seen any tangible objections to the simple system, nor any salient and satisfactory reasons for retaining the present circumlocutory, wasteful, and foolish one.

“Another monstrous anomaly is that we might sell each of our before-mentioned shops in our chief street, and yet retain the original deed untouched; so that after drawing cash from each of our present tenants, we could mortgage the whole block again, and clear off with the double cash.3 [49]

“But even the present system might be made endurable, and herein lies its greatest blame, namely—that you never know what you are going to pay for the foolish and needless work you are having done. You are entirely at the mercy of the lawyer. When we consider that this so-called difficult and skilful work is always managed in the best offices by a mere clerk, and seldom, if ever, by the principal, we have a reasonable ground of complaint against the enormous and unfair charges usually made for work so done by wholesale.

“We will conclude with a practical suggestion or two. Building clubs have been a great boon to the saving element in our community. It is the wish of most people to have a house of their own, and these clubs find, for hundreds, the readiest means to that end. They have made easy the borrowing and the paying back of money, and they have been the means of simplifying mortgage deeds which, for clubs, are only £2 ,, 5s., and if got up simpler, and printed, instead of being written, might easily and profitably be done for a guinea. Could not they confer a still greater boon on the community by combining, and compelling by a strong voice, the lawyers to systematize and cheapen the present mode of conveyancing? This would be a great work, and might be done. Still better would it be to combine to send up suggestions to Parliament for a simpler and better plan, such as would lead to the passing of an Act for the embodiment of this great and much-needed reform.” [51]