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PROMINENT AND PECULIAR LAWS AND USAGES
CONTINUED.

SCOTTISH SYSTEM OF REGISTRATIONUSES OF THE GENERAL REGISTER HOUSE OF SCOTLAND-NATIONAL ARCHIVES-PARISH REGISTERS.

The Roman emperors registered their most remarkable buildings, as well as actions.

ADDISON.

IN no country in the world are the rights of real property so well defined, or so judiciously confirmed, as in Scotland. In this the provisions in our law stand prominently superior to those in England, and of no municipal custom have the people so much reason to be justly proud as that we are about to explain.

In England, two counties excepted, the rights of heritable property are in a precarious and confused condition. The title to a landed or house property is established only by the exhibition of the deed of conveyance, which is subject to many dangers in the course of its existence. In some instances, the change of owners is recorded in court books, but on no systematic plan. When mortgages are effected on property, the transaction is only known to the immediate parties concerned. A legal deed is generally the only voucher of the lien. No publication takes place declaratory of the process; and the owner of the property may borrow money over it, if he choose, to ten times its value. Lenders are thus in a perpetual dread of losing their money, for they can only obtain very imperfect information regarding previous mortgages; and conse

REGISTERS IN ENGLAND.

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quently, they often take heavy premiums besides the legal interest of their vested capital. The nation at large has so long dragged on under this imperfect system, that the circumstance has ceased to be an object of inquiry.

Judge Blackstone saw and suggested a remedy for this loose mode of preserving the rights of real property. While writing on the subject of conveyances, he remarks, that "there is certainly one palpable de fect, the want of sufficient notoriety; so that purchasers or creditors cannot know with any absolute certainty, what the estate and title to it in reality are, upon which they are to lay out or lend their money. In the ancient feudal method of conveyance, (by giving corporal seizin of the land,) this notoriety was in some measure answered; but all the advantages resulting from thence are now totally defeated by death-bed devises, and secret conveyances: and there has never been yet any sufficient guard provided against fraudulent charges and incumbrances, since the disuse of the old Saxon custom of transacting all conveyances at the county court, and entering a memorial of them in the chartulary or leger-book of some adjacent monastery; and the failure of the General Register established by King Richard the First, for the starrs or mortgages made by the Jews, in the capitula de Judæis, of which Hoveden preserved a copy.* How far the establishment of a like general register for deeds, and wills, and other acts affecting real property, would remedy the inconvenience, deserves to be well considered. In Scotland, every act and event, regarding the transmission of property, is regularly entered on record. And some of our own provincial divisions, particularly the extended county of York, and the populous county of Middlesex, have prevailed with the legislature to erect such registers in their several districts."

The foregoing passing notice of a general register

*Hence the origin of the Star Chamber, which was the place anciently appropriated to transactions of the above nature.

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in Scotland, corroborative of our observations, scarcely elucidates the extensive arrangements instituted in this country for the preservation of the rights of property. By express enactments, every alteration, however minute, which occurs in the proprietory of lands and houses, must be made sufficiently obvious to the community by insertion of the transaction in particular books set apart for the purpose by the state. Heritable acquisitions, purchases, mortifications-alienations by gift for pious uses, mortgages, or incumbrances, attachments by adjudications, entailments, exchanges, and escheats, if security be consulted, are all properly recorded according to set form in national registers.

It is very pleasing to describe the nicety of the method adopted to render this branch of legal institutions perfect in its details. The state places the process under the control of the Lord Clerk Register; but the active duties of this officer are performed by a deputy, who closely superintends the proceedings of the subordinate registrars. He sends forth annually to the sheriff of every county, blank paper ledgers of certain dimensions and internal divisions. Each book is formed of paper manufactured and moulded for the express purpose, with particular water marks, and of a regular strength and appearance. Every page is ruled with a specified number of lines, and it is ordered that every line shall contain a certain number of words only. At the foot of every page, the initials of the Deputy register are signed, and every tenth page exhibits his name at full length. Last of all, mention is made at the end of the volume of the number of leaves it contains, along with general directions for engrossing the various records. This docquet is likewise signed by the Deputy register, and also by the Lord register's legal substitute. By these means every attempt to cancel or interpolate leaves is rendered absolutely impossible. In order to compel a regular return of these books, no new volume is issued until the former has been sent back. The business of recording is mostly the duty of the sheriff.

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clerk; and to prevent any attempt at improper conduct on the part of this official, or any other person so engaged, a supervising officer is constantly employed in travelling from town to town, who corrects any abuses into which the system would be liable to fall.

The royal burghs have also registers of a similar na. ture, applicable to property within their precincts. They are in the superintendence of town clerks; but being managed on no regularly organized plan, and under no proper control, they do not merit that approbation bestowed on others. We believe it is in agitation to extend the influence of the county registers over such places; because not being transmitted to the great repository of such books at Edinburgh, much trouble and expense is often incurred in having them explored. In the case of this amendment being made, it is recommendatory that duplicates remain with the burghs.

Under deduction of these local registers, the whole of the records of property are periodically collected, and being arranged in chronological order, stand ready to be consulted by all who feel interested in exploring them. The benefits of such a course of procedure require no eulogium. The registration of the acquisi tion of heritages gives the utmost security to the owners, who, although the deeds of conveyance be lost, still point to this place, where their imperishable charter perpetually lies. If they wish to borrow money over their possessions, they refer to these "dooms-day books" for the state of their rights. Creditors here can discover the situation of their debtors' affairs. Money lenders, on examination, feel safe in making mortgages. The capacity of every pretended landowner is exposed. The share-holders in banks have their qualifications as men of heritable property, made plain to the receivers of their paper. And the registers serve as a fountain-head of knowledge from whence innumerable facts in suits at law for the recovery of property may at all times be drawn. In most countries laying claim to enlightened usages, this mode of

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registration is less or more acted upon; but no where is the system so properly, or so extensively organized as in this small and sometimes despised kingdom.*

The notice of this pre-eminently useful custom introduces, in an appropriate manner, a slight delineation of the establishment where the registers rest, and which has been occasionally named in the preceding pages.

The General Register House of Scotland is situated in the metropolis, where it occupies one of the most advantageous sites at the centre of the city. It was designed and partly built fifty years since, and was only completed a few years ago. The expense of its erection has been defrayed by the private munificence of George III. and by grants of money from parliament. It combines very great architectural beauty, of a simple order, with the utmost internal usefulness. It consists of a hollow square building, enclosing a cir cular structure, fifty feet in diameter, which joins the interior quadrangle on the four sides, just leaving suf. ficient room at the angles for the admission of light into the inner side of the outer edifice. Outwardly from the street, it presents to the eye of the passenger a compact building two hundred feet in length, by one hundred and fifty in breadth, possessing an elegant front of smooth ashler work, with pilasters above the main entrance. Each of the corners is surmounted by a small circular turret, with a clock and vane. From the centre rises the dome of the inner structure. The building is two visible stories in height, with a sunk area flat level with the street, and screened by an enclosing parapet, broken in the middle by a double flight of steps.

The chastened architectural beauty of this unpre

The Greeks appreciated the system of publishing the changes in the right of property. Land-owners mortgaging part of their properties were compelled by law to put up a board on the estate, describing the nature of the transaction, by which means lenders and buyers were protected. This practice, though rude, was very bene. ficial.

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