[33] We are glad to observe, in the recently published Report of the Royal Commission presided over by Lord Langdale, some indication of progress towards supplying the want of a system of Registry in England,--a want which, as the Commissioners truly affirm, operates as a heavy burden on land property, and a material diminution of its value. [34] Evidence of Lords' Committee on the Burdens affecting Land, p. 423. [35] _Observations_, p. 154. [36] _Notes_, p. 287. [37] _Observations_, p. 153. [38] The estimate for this country is clearly too small. Out of one hundred acres in England, seventy-eight are under cultivation, or in meadow. For the British Islands, the proportion is about sixty-four to one hundred. As to the extent of uncultivated but available land in Prussia, see the Evidence of Mr Banfield before the Committee of the House of Lords on Burdens affecting Land. [39] _Modern State Trials_: Revised and Illustrated, with Essays and Notes. By WILLIAM C. TOWNSEND, Esq., M.A., Q.C., Recorder of Macclesfield. In 2 vols. 8vo. Longman & Co. 1850. [40] In one of Dr Johnson's various conversations with Boswell and others, on the subject of duelling, he said, "A man is sufficiently punished [for an injury] by being called out, and subjected to the risk that is in a duel. But," continues Boswell, "on my suggesting that _the injured person_ is equally subjected to risk, he fairly owned he could not explain the rationality of duelling." It will be remembered that, in previous conversations, the Doctor had endeavoured to do so, by various unsatisfactory and sophistical reasons; and one of his arguments, recorded by Boswell, was quoted by the counsel of Mr Stuart, when tried for having shot in a duel Sir Alexander Boswell, the eldest son of Boswell! [41] Townsend, vol. i. p. 170-171. [42] _Ibid._, p. 154-5. [43] Townsend, vol. i. p. 152. [44] _Ibid._, p. 162. [45] _Ibid._, p. 163. [46] Regina _v._ Young. 8 Carr and Payne, 644. [47] In opening the case against Lord Cardigan, at the bar of the House of Lords, the Attorney-General, (now Lord Campbell,) of course speaking from erroneous instructions, imputed to Lord Cardigan the utterance of a most unbecoming and offensive expression,--"Do you think I would _condescend_ to fight with one of my own officers?" We are satisfied that no such language could have fallen from a British officer; and the evidence shows that it did not in point of fact. [48] Vol. i. p. 210. [49] It was called "the Waltham Black Act," as occasioned by the devastations committed near Waltham, in Hampshire, by persons disguised, and with _blackened_ faces--"who seem" says Blackstone, "to have resembled the followers of Robert Hood, who in the reign of Richard I. committed such great outrages on the borders of England and Scotland."--4 Black. Com. 245. [50] Mr Chitty. Townsend, i. p. 209. [51] 4 Black. Com. p. 199. [52] 1 Townsend, p. 215, 216. [53] Ibid. p. 210.