he finds that … his power … is limited and fettered in all directions, and that he is without any power of selling, leasing, devising, or charging it, except in such manner as was provided under the settlement." (p. 85). As an instance of the effect of such a settlement, Mr Shaw-Lefevre gives the following as a case which "recently" came before the Bankruptcy Court.[1] "A property of 16,000 acres, with a rental of as many pounds, was settled upon Lord A for life, with remainder to his son Lord B as tenant in-tail. Upon the coming of age of Lord B, the estate was re-settled. In consideration of an annuity of: £1500 per annum, the son agreed to join in the settlement, and to assent to charges which brought up the total encumbrance to £11,500 per annum, leaving a margin of £4500, out of which the son was to receive £1500 per annum, during the father's lifetime. The son gave up his reversion in-tail, and took a life-interest in succession to his father, with remainder in-tail to his own issue. Within a year from the settlement, the son, having run into debt for a few thousands, was made bankrupt; the whole of his reversionary life-interest was then assigned to the creditors; and the result is, that during the lives of the father and son, and perhaps for many years after, this great estate will be in the ostensible possession of men absolutely without means, and without any motive, or perhaps power, to sell" (pp. 87, 88).
We shall probably not feel much pity for the straits to which the noble family in question must have been reduced—a situation as ridiculous as painful. We may be pretty sure that, to put it mildly, their indebtedness did not remain stationary while their estate was thus "sequestrated." Supposing them actuated by the best intentions, living on the produce of the home farm, in the most economical manner possible, they could not have gone on without ready money for the rest of their natural lives—their financial state must have been constantly growing worse and worse, the estate more and more encumbered, and we may be certain that (unless he succeeded in marrying some great heiress) Lord B would leave his heir even a heavier load of debt than
- ↑ Written in 1881.
