Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: INTRODUCTION TO THE LETTERS. December 15, 1877. In these letters I wish to explain, as simply, clearly, and shortly as I can, the facts of a great subject, which will henceforward until its settlement more and more draw to itself the attention of the public—I mean the subject of the Land Laws. It is surrounded by so many technicalities, and by so many statutes and decisions of the courts—the law is so difficult even for lawyers to understand ; such a vast literature of rubbish has grown up around it; so many thousands of cases have been argued and reported upon its meaning; and lawyers are so unwilling to put their own hands to the work of reform—that it is not wonderful that the most singular mistakes should be made by many public speakers in dealing with this question, and that the real reforms which are needed, should still be wrapped in so much obscurity. And yet I believe that this subject is capable of a simple and intelligible statement, and that the facts in which the unprofessional public are interested are few and easy of comprehension. I am, however, almost astonished at myself for venturing on the above statement, when I reflect that I have known the deed of settlement of one estate to require many months for its preparation ; to cover nearly a barrow-load of paper when written out preparatory to being engrossed on parchment ; and to cost over 400 for the conveyancer's chargesalone, without reckoning either the solicitor's charges or the cost of the necessary stamps. And yet, with all this cumbrous, costly, and scarcely intelligible verbosity, the title of such an estate is scarcely ever free from some doubt or question. I propose to try to explain :— 1. The actual condition of things which the present Land Laws have produced. 2. What the act...