And this state of things is the consequence of the law of primogeniture, says the ignorant reformer. It is not so. Our laws of settlement are to be blamed as unfair and unjust. The main causes of agricultural depression, and of continued wrongdoing on the part of landed proprietors, are the laws which allow the owners to make deeds and wills which for many years, and often long after the owners’ deaths, prevent the land from being sold, or the estate from being divided, no matter how expedient it may be that it should he sold, or no matter how foolish or extravagant the owner may be. Mr. Kay illustrates this in a case in which he had acted as trustee. This estate, about fifty or sixty years ago, came into the hands of a young nobleman, whom he calls Lord A., when he was twenty-one. He married when he was twenty-two, and the marriage-deed gave him only a life interest in the estate, and settled the property on his children. He had one child, and as soon as that child was twenty-one another deed was made, giving that child only a life interest in the estate, and settling it after his death on the children he might leave in succession. Lord A. was an extravagant and reckless man. He hunted the county; he kept open house; he lived as if his estate were ten times as great as it really was. He gambled and lost heavily. He raised money on his life interest. He finally fled from England deeply in debt, and lived abroad. The remainder of the life interest was sold to a Jew, who knew that he would lose all when Lord A. died, and found his only profit in thinning the woods. That state of things lasted forty years. The farmers had no leases or any security for expenditure. The Jew would not spend a penny, nor would the gentleman who took the mansion, because he could not tell when he might be turned out; and the tenantry were prevented from doing fairly to the land or to themselves. There was no one to support the schools or the church, or to look after the labourers on the estate. The farm-buildings fell into decay; the land was not properly drained or cultivated; the plantations were injured, and the mansion was dilapidated. And all this vast extent of mischief was the result of the deeds which the law had allowed the lord and his heir to execute. Nor are such cases isolated. Nor is it possible to over-estimate the wretchedness and poverty they create in rural England. Perhaps, in time, Englishmen will demand the abolition of laws which entail such bitter wrong on the community at large. CHAPTER XXIV THE HONEYMOON.