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Sale and Transfer of Land. X. This policy accordingly long since suggested the project of establishing a general register of all deeds affecting the title to the landed property of the kingdom, or, as it has been of late years termed, a Register of Assurances. It was moreover considered that such a measure would furnish a remedy for many admitted evils in out real property system, or was the necessary precursor or accompaniment of any attempt to remedy those evils. XI. By the law of England the possession of land does not conclusively prove the possessor to be entitled to it, or to have the right of disposing of it. The ownership of land is not a simple right, or quantity, or a right which exists only in a simple or single form—like that of a chair or a sum of stock—but is susceptible of modification by deeds, into a number of independent quantities and degrees of ownership. These lesser ownerships in the land, if called into existence, must all re-unite or coalesce in order to confer the complete title to the land; or, in other words, the subsequent derivation of title must be traced through, and must include them. A possession or transfer inconsistent with them does not put an end to them; they remain integral parts of the title so long as the terms of their own creation admit of their taking effect, and the Statute of Limitations has not barred them. There is no record in law of the derivation of the title except the title deeds, and there is no security in law that such title deeds may not be suppressed or improperly withheld. A retrospective investigstion of the title (or, in other words, the former dealings with the land) must therefore take place on the occasion of a sale, in order to ascertain that the possessor is also the owner, and that no qualifying rights exist. Though by such means the title he ascertained to be valid, the law provides no permanent or binding record of that fact, or of the fact of ownership, to serve as a rest in the title, or form the foundation of its future deduction. It becomes necessary, therefore, on the occasion of subsequent dealings with new purchases, that such purchasers should, in their own interest and for their own protection, repeat the investigation which took place before, and examine the title retrospectively from the date of their own contract, without relying on the previous transfer, or the possession enjoyed under it, and treating these as possibly illucery merely. Lastly, according (a) to the law of England, the right to the possession, and to recover the rents and profits of real property in a court of law, may be vested in one person, while another is the beneficial owner. The person who is entitled at law is technically said to have the legal estate, and the beneficial owner is technically said to have the equitable estate. All actions and proceedings in courts of law must be brought and defended in the name of the person who has the legal estate: the person who has the equitable estate can only enforce his rights through the medium of a Court of Equity. XII. Such being the general outline of the nature of landed titles in this country, persons intending to become buyers of land find the practical working and consequences of the system to be something like the following:— 1. There being no registry of deeds or of ownership, fraudulent titles may be made by the suppression or destruction of title-deeds. 2. There is consequently a general insecurity of title and apprehension of risk, even when, to all external appearances, there is an absence of any ground for suspicion. 3. The evidence of title, for want of a register, is at best inferential and negative. The title can never be affirmatively and positively shown to be good. The possibility of its being impeachable cannot be excluded. Notwithstanding the dangers, however, thus to be encountered, a person who has entered into a contract of purchase in the usual way, without any information as to the title, is compellable

Extension of that policy.

Present state of the taw as to landed titles.

Evils of the present st.Ue of the law.

The registration of bills of sale is required upon the ground that "frauds are frequently committed upon creditors by secret bills of sale of personal chattels, whereby persons are enabled to keep up the appearance of being in good circumstances and possessed of property, and the grantees or holders of such bills of sale have the power of taking possession of the property of such persons, to the exclusion of the rest of their creditors." The Irish Registry Act is grounded on the principle of " securing purchasers, preventing forgeries, and fraudulent gifts and conveyances of lands," &c. The West Hiding Registiy Act states, that " most of the traders in the West Riding are freeholders, and have frequent occasions to borrow money upon their estates for managing their trade, but lor want of a register find it difficult to give security to the satisfaction of the money lenders, although the security they offer be really good, by means whereof the said trade is very much obstructed, and many families ruined." The North and East Riding and the Middlesex Registry Acts contain preambles, one of which states that, -'by the different and secret, ways of conveying lands, such as are ill disposed have it in their power to commit frauds, and frequently do so, by means whereof several persons have been undone in their purchases and mortgages by prior and secret conveyances and fraudulent incumbrances, and not only themselves but their whole families thereby utterly ruined-" 0) 2 Re. Pr. Com Rep. p. 7.