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SANCTUARY OF HOLYROODHOUSE.

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days, and it is seldom there are more than eight or Occasionally the sanctuary is resorted to by debtors from England, as it gives protection to persons from all nations. In a few cases such have been known to live for years, and at last die, in the precincts. Recently it happened that there were three baronets resident in the sanctuary at one time; and it is sometimes the case that the sons of noblemen are to be found enjoying the privilege. These personages, in most instances, procure lodgings in the palace by the favour of the keeper; a fact of the most degrading nature, which would hardly be credited, were it not placed beyond all possibility of dispute. It is not long since one of these scions of a Scottish peer induced a respectable upholsterer in the city to furnish his apartments, and afterwards refused either to pay for the articles or render them up. The case came to be litigated; but the King, then Prince Regent, and the Lord Advocate, having sustained the transaction, on pretence that the seizure would trench upon the royal prerogative, the courts found themselves impotent, and the pursuer was nonsuited. There could not be instanced a more infamous, and injudiciously supported, case of kingly prerogative, since the reign of James VII. than this. Why it was not brought before parliament, we are unable to explain. It excited neither comment from the people nor observation from the diurnal press; after which exposure of indifference to the prerogative of the subject, the Scotch, we think, should be for ever silent respecting the arbitrary measures of the Stuarts.*

• This very remarkable case which, we are sorry we have not room to introduce, will be found at length in the Scots Law Chronicle, No. 4. an exceedingly useful, and very spirited periodical, issuing quarterly from the Edinburgh press. The result of the plea decides, that goods in the palace cannot be seized for debt, and therefore traders should be cautious of permitting their property to be carried thither.

PROMINENT AND PECULIAR LAWS AND USAGES
CONTINUED.

LANDLORD AND TENANT-HOUSE-LETTING MASTER AND SERVANT.

It was once a generous pleasure in a landlord to love to see all his tenants look fat, sleek, and contented. CLARISSA.

THE laws regulating the connexion between landlord and tenant in Scotland do not vary in principle from those in England, though there are some local usages, a knowledge of which may possibly be of use to a stranger.

While, in the adjacent country, houses and lands are for the greater part taken in leases for a lengthened period, or specified number of years, the rents of which are ordinarily payable quarterly at Lady-day, Midsummer, Michaelmas, and Christmas; in Scotland, it is mostly lands which are let for protracted periods. These are almost always formed on contracts of seven, elven, thirteen, and nineteen years; an odd term being usual, from nothing else than an old notion regarding the luck of odd numbers. In very many cases, a lease of one, two, or three nineteen years' is instituted; such of these limits of time, according to old ideas, forming a round of all kinds of weathers. The progress of the vicious custom of entailing lands, by which long leases are sometimes prohibited, or otherwise impeded, is lessening the duration of such contracts, and in many instances, farms are only let from year to year, and consequently are exhausted.

LETTING OF HOUSES.

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By the law of Scotland, no verbal contract is binding, if for more than one year; and the oath of either party would not be received as evidence of a lease for a longer date. All leases, or tacks, as they are here called, for two or more years, must be written on stamped paper, agreeable to a legal form; and this being registered, legal diligence may be thereafter instituted. A lease written in an informal manner on plain paper is equally binding, if followed by possession. In the taking of lands, the former custom prevails; but with regard to house property, leases, if not for more than five or seven years, are written in the shape of an offering and accepting letter. It is now usual to make a provision in the contract, whereby the tenant has a power of breaking it at the end of a specified number of years; which the landlord considers to be better than a right of subletting, and the tenant prefers it on his part, as he can abandon the premises should he feel inclined. As the benefit is supposed to be on the side of the latter, he usually pays a premium for the indulgence.

The entry to lands depends on agreement; though commonly it is at Martinmas. Houses are let very generally in Scotland at one distinct period of the year, namely, Candlemas, or from that day until the ensuing Whitsunday; three months being thus allowed for the exhibition of tickets. Strangers desirous of residences, should make enquiries about this time.

By a local statute, the term of Whitsunday and Martinmas are fixed to be the 15th day of May, and the 11th day of November, (or, if on a Sunday, the Monday following.) Of these, the first is that on which all removals should take place, when the agreement is in allusion to such dates; but so powerful is still the influence of old usages, that Whitsunday, old style,

* In taking houses, it used to be a custom, which is not yet abrogated, to give the landlord, hirels, erels, or earnest of rent, by means of a copper, or other small, coin. This clenches the unwritten bar. gain, and will found a plea in law to oblige implement of contract.

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REMOVALS FROM HOUSES.

or the 25th day of May, is scrupulously adhered to.* In some towns the 25th, and in others, the 27th day, are the accredited periods of removing.† On these days all, or nearly all, Whitsunday removals take place; and as it is only at other periods of the year that entry is made to houses which have been left untaken, on this occasion, some towns exhibit a general moving of household furniture; and were a stranger to visit such places while the people were in a confusion of this description, he would be inclined to suppose that the approach of an enemy was anticipated.

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Though the auld term is thus the grand flitting occasion, the payment of rent, which is uniformly taken half-yearly in Scotland for both lands and houses,‡ is ordinarily demanded on the legal term day, the 15th, but except there appear serious grounds to suspect elopement of the tenant, it is not pressed till the 25th, when it is expected a removal is to take place. considerable degree of courtesy is mostly exercised by the landlord, and the interval of ten days at the one term, and eleven at the other, forms a debateable ground on which there is room to employ finesse and skirmishing. The cases are very rare of landlords attaching furniture for rent on the first day, as the law allows them to do, unless among poor persons, and for this purpose the interval assists the legal usages, which are more tardy than those in England. Forty years since it was customary to give at least three months credit on house rents, when the tenants were "sitting." The period has since that time been

* Old style is still used to mark festivals by many persons in Scotland. It is staunchly adhered to by coal-miners and other working persons in the country; and proximity to cities seems to have no power to introduce newer customs. Many societies and clubs have also their annual meetings and convivial parties on their patron saints' days, old style; the fashion being supposed useful in keeping up associations of ideas with the manners of a former age.

+ Edinburgh keeps the 25th day-Glasgow the 27th.

All government taxes, local assessments, and poor leys, are pay.

able in Scotland only once a-year.

SEIZING FOR RENT.

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gradually decreasing, and from appearances, it is probable that at length payment on the legal term-day will be deemed proper, as it is commonly in England. Rents of houses in Edinburgh and other places were at an unnatural and high rate, some years since. They are at present rapidly declining into a proper remunerative price.

Seizures for rent in England are made by means of the writ fieri facias, formerly noticed, which, on these occasions, receives the name of "a distress," (or distringas,) and answers the purpose of carrying the goods to pound, after the usual process has been expeded, from whence they can be recovered by a replevin, and payment of the rent, within a few days. In having recourse to such harsh measures in Scotland, the landlord applies for, and receives, a summary warrant from the judge ordinary of the district, after a short warning has been given, which sequestrates the goods, and they may either remain on the premises, or be carried to some place of safety. Parish pounds are quite unknown in this country. In practice, the Scotch law is administered cautiously, and even when the articles are brought out for sale, a species of respite for an hour or two takes place, to give every opportunity of negociating a settlement. As in the common law for securing payment of debt in Scotland, both goods and person can be taken for rent, which is the reverse of the English practice, by which a choice must be made, or where, if the goods be preferred, but the person be afterwards supposed more advantageous, the former may be abandoned, and the latter taken, by a writ of cessi corpus, (giving up the body.) The English law is here evidently favourable

to the tenant.

The right of landlords' hypothec is strong in this country. It is a power which he at all times possesses over the crop or moveables of his tenant, in security for the rent of the current year. He has no hypothec over these articles for byegone years, though the claim subsists three months after removal to a new residence,

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