as "a flesh and blood lottery." Yet it is said that four-fifths of the house property in West Cornwall is held on life leases. The most extraordinary feature of the business is, that raining is the chief industry of West Cornwall, and it inevitably happens that miners are selected for "lives." A miner will put in his own life. A very cruel change in law has transferred the burden of proof of survival from the landowner to the leaseholder; and Mr Broadhurst was informed some years ago that there was then an old lady in Devonport Workhouse, who would have had enough to keep her in comfort, if she could have traced the last "life" on the property, but the person had emigrated, the old lady could not produce evidence of his existence, and under the change of law, the landlord was able to resume possession without proving the death.
At the Royal Commission of 1886, Mr John Vivian, a tradesman of Camborne, was examined. After testifying to overcrowding, caused by pulling down houses, he was asked concerning leases for lives. The usual term is for 3 lives, or for 50, 60, or 80 years. Mr Jesse Collings said: "I was born upon an estate where the life tenure was the custom, and I found that in many cases men put their children's lives on a house, and some day or other they found themselves deprived of both children and property. In other cases the lives of sailors were on, and after a time there was great doubt whether the lives were in existence or not, and generally a great deal of misery was the result of this life tenure. Is that the state of things in Cornwall?" Mr Vivian replied: "There are several instances given in this little pamphlet ('The Bitter Cry of Cornish Leaseholders'), all of which I think I can vouch for." Asked how long 3 lives would give, witness replied: "I should say from 30 to 40 years would be the average; just over 30 years, perhaps, because the lives that are put up are frequently miners, and they are proverbially a short-lived class." "Would you say that the 3 lives system is not popular in that part of England?" Answer: "It has been popular because they have no chance of getting other terms."
Leases for terms of years can contain the most unjust provisions. In a certain village of Carmarthenshire all the land belonged to one or other of two proprietors, and all the houses had therefore necessarily been built by the
