Punch (7.1844)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

51

THE COMIC BLACKSTONE.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.—OF FREEHOLD ESTATES OF INHERITANCE.

Before we go any further we mean to consider an estate—but we shall
he very brief, though an estate is just the sort of thing we should like to
dwell upon.

A freehold estate of inheritance is either a fee simple or a fee tail, and

estates are probably called fees, because the lawyers generally contrived to

pay themselves pretty well out of them.

The true meaning of the word fee is the same as feud—a feud signify- .

, 5.. ,. , . j. , ° „u intercepted the Eton portion oi the correspondence, he might have saved

ing a row, because fees, which arise from law proceedings, are the result, J, * - * „,mmQ,

think as I do. I hope you will tell me you did not write your last letter,
because, then, if you do, I shall be able to understand it better than if
you did, which I must say I do not, nor do I see very well how you could
have thought how that I ever could. At present

" Believe me, dear Sir, yours very truly,

" Eton.

To the above communication Westminster pithily replied that he
retracted nothing, and would publish every thing. Considering that Eton
gives so many members to the Senate, can we be surprised at the
wretched manner in which those who speak in Parliament are often found
to express themselves 1 It is to be regretted that Sih James Graham did
not on this occasion practise his letter-opening propensities, for if he had

CROCODILE TEARS

the credit of the college. We should suggest that every Eton grammar
ol a squabble. _ i should have stitched on to the end of it a copv of the Complete Letter

A fee simple is an estate that a man may leave to whom he pleases; Writer
and it is, perhaps, called fee simple because it is sometimes very simply
or foolishly disposed of. "Hence the tenant," says Braeton, "makes
good his own title to be called a simpleton."

It used to be thought that a fee or freehold might remain in abeyance—

that is to say, without an owner-but modern lawyers cannot tolerate Lord Brougham having, for the session, defeated Lord Cot-

*e idea of a fee with nobody to take it, and the doctrine is therefore tentham's Bill for the Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt, has

6 P,? e ' ., , , , • , . , , , suddenly become very anxious—very anxious indeed—for the

We must now consider a limited fee, which we must take care not to 1 „ T J . f . . .,

confound with a half-guinea motion, which is a very limited fee indeed- Pass,ng of a new Insolvent Bill, that just tinkers the evil There

but is not an estate of inheritance, because one's heirs are not likely to arei 11 appears by a recent return, 3,352 imprisoned debtors;

see much of it. These limited fees are divided into fees base or qualified, of these, 810 are for debts under one pound ; under five, 794 ; and so

and fees conditional. forth. One man has worn out 32 years in the Queen's Bench !

Base fees are fees with a qualification subjoined, though, by-the-by, Well, his Lordship hears of this report, and then declares that the

a barrister who takes a base fee, or, in other words, receives less than is account of suffering "makes his hair stand on end ! " He, however,

marked on his brief, has seldom any qualification at all, either as an advo- presses on the Bill, as " at this period of the session, the delay of every
cate or a gentleman. ! day increased the risk of entire failure." Why, the man knows
It is a base or qualified fee, if an estate were granted to A and his | that, but for his meddlesome interference with Lord Cottevham's

heirs beadles of the Burlington Arcade ; for if any of the heirs of A BiU thftt Bm • M , thig t|me have beeQ an Act But

should cease to be beadles of that Arcade, the grant is entirely defeated. ■, _„„ , „ , ^__r „„„ ia„~,a,t „ i „

. . ,. . , , . ' . .. j. it was too much for Lord Brougham, that any large measure

A conditional tee is perhaps the lowest of all fees m its ordinary sense i-n.ii.- t,, ,• , ,

i , , . . r • j- j-*- n w should be passea without him. therefore, he threw it over, and

for when a barrister agrees to receive a fee conditionally on winning bis . * ' . > .

cause, it is a conditional fee that he bargains for. A person seised in then Simpers about the existence of an evil, which, but for him,

such a fee. or caught at such a trick, would deserve to suffer in tail by a would have been remedied. For ourselves, we have no faith in

general endorsement, without limitation or restriction of any kind. An these crocodile whinings. If the Bill do not pass this session, then

estate held by a conditional fee is when it is granted to B and his heirs may there be inscribed on the gateway of every debtor'sgaol—" Here

male : so that if he has only daughters, they cannot have the estate. are imprisoned the victims of the vanity of Brougham !"

When an estate is granted to a man and his heirs, he has what is

called a fee tail, from the French word tailler, to cut, because his heirs —————=———=-—
must eventually cut him out, or because he may in some cases cut off

his own tail, by cutting away the rights of those who come after him. THE RAILWA Y TELEGRAPH

Tail general is where an estate is given to a man and all his heirs _

whoever they may he, which is a sort of tag-rag and bob-tail; but ___ __,. , ... .,, , , .

x, .1 . '. , A , . . . . , ,., the papers, the other day, the public will nave observed an

where the gift is restrained to certain heirs, the estate is tied up—like ' , f •' r.. ,. -p, . ■»« _

, , p ,., . ,r , . • i •, Cx\V account of the application of the Electro-Magnetic

the head of a Chinese Mandarin—in a snecia tail. >A'/ rr i i * a n , n? t> i u „t.:_i

, i • • , , ,• • '•, r- ,i ■ i . r ,i telegraph to the Great Western Railway, bv which

Among the incidents of a tenancy in tai, are—first, the right of the Tl or _ i- „ „,:.u

. . s. ., . .. . . . ;,. . ', . ,'. . &, , Ik messages are sent up and down the line with

tenant in tail to commit waste bv fe ing timber, breaking windows, and Mp\ j- -v. tu j _ n j,

... ...... /. , .,.b .' ., 6 , ' extraordinary rapidity, the readere of Punch

other similar acts of mischief, winch . tenant in tail were a troublesome llM wil] be delighted to hear that the telegraph has

young scamp, he would most probably like to be guilty of. The Marquis fif <f§ j been attached to the « Wormwood Scrubbs Ken.
who rode bis horse into the drawing-room of a furnished house he had

. , n ., „ b a , , , . t.' M1, wk\ sington, Warwick Square, raddmgton CanaL
taken for the season was guiltv of waste, because he was not seised in i«r\ B%L \f Ci 1 j> x> u t • .1 wi * a v t, „„
. ., , , . . -i,", II B^kt, If Shepherd s Bush, Little Western, and JNo June-
tail, though his horse might have been. t\ m f r> 1 » i-i ■ .1 . 1 v,nu
j? . , p, ., ,, . ° . ,. . *? » 9 // tion Railway, which connects the two-and-a-halt
Estates tail could not at one time be aliened at all, but it is now quite J 1 f I -i « -lu e u '■ *i w * . „a„,u
„,.,,,,. . ~ , . ' , x k. , J \t ^kf milestone with a held in the Western suburbs,
settled that a man may cut off his own tail under a recent statute which A JL _j , , , , , . ., . e „,„_

, r , , c , • , , , , . , . .. , A , *"*m ->* The telegraph has been constantly in full play—

abolished fines and recoveries : for, although the law always delighted „ 6, r , , ■ , AnS i;l+i0

:*■:__* 1 - r ^ ^ j_ / •, 5 it is all play and no work on this secluded little

in fines, it never favoured recoveries—for an estate in the hands of the ,. . m, , . r J . „

law is generally considered to be past recovery. hne-smce Thursday. We give a specimen of the messages .-

Kensington. 7. 20. a. m. Has the policeman finished his breakfast

No answer.
Kensington, 11. a. m. How are you ?
Wormwood Scrubbs, 11.5. a. m Tol lollish.

Kensington, 11. 15. a. m. No passengers by any of the trains.

Is it worth while to send one down empty 1
Wormwood Scrubbs, 11. 20. a. m. You must send something, for
here 'a a man wants to go, and there's nothing here to take him.
Kensington 11. 30 a. m. The train has just started with nine

boys, who have volunteered to go as passengers.
Wormwood Scrubbs, 1.30. p.m. The train has arrived, but you

must send a scuttle of coals to keep the engine-fire in.
Kensington 1. 35. p m. The coals have started, and a kitchen

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN ETON AND
W ESTMINSTER.

These two great nurseries for British statesmen have been corre-
sponding, through two of their senior pupils, on the glorious subject of a
rowing match. Westminster writes a tolerably business-like note, but
Eton soars far, very far, above the trammels of Lindlet Murray. It is
true that public schools teach only Latin and Greek, which may account
for the fact that Eton cannot write English.

We give, from recollection, a specimen of the style of Eton, and we 1 ''"poker,
beg the public to bear in mind that a lot of Eton boys are the chief cha- j Wormwood Scrubbs, 2. p.m. The coals have come to hand, but the

meters in Mr D'Israeli's Young England Novel of Coningsby. West-1 poker fell off the engine just after it started.

minster having written to enquire whether Eton will enter into a rowing Kensington. 2. 30. p. m. The train has come in, but not the passen-

match, Eton, in the name of one of its scholars, thus replies to West- „er who was expected.

minster :

"Dear Sir.—I don't know what you mean to say. when I read your
letter, which I think very absurd. 1 don't suppose you wrote what \ou
have said in ymr note, because the match, in the way you propose, is a
very str-iuge manner of doing things, which all who have seen it say the}

Wormwood Scrubbs, 2. 35. p. m. He changed his mind.
Kensington, 3. p. m. This is dull work-—I'm off for the day.

The clerk at Wormwood Scrubbs having been already " off for the
day," there was no answer to the last message