rents, of law contingencies, of architectural dilapidations, of insurance policies, and of the many incidents that happen, unforeseen, to property secured on leasehold houses. His 'estate,' instead of heing a relief from care, is quite a business; he must then entrust it to a lawyer's keeping, and with equanimity receive and pay the annual bill.
All this is new to many lessors and lessees. To make the matter plain, suppose a freeholder has two adjoining plots of land, equal in size and value. One plot is his own in fee, at his complete disposal; but the other is in trust, and can be only let on building leases. On this second plot ten houses, worth six thousand pounds, are built, the ground rent being ninety pounds a year for ninety years. The former plot, worth also ninety pounds a year, is sold, at twenty-five years' purchase, a fair customary valuation, for two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds (£2,250). The interest, at five per cent., on this amount is one hundred and twelve pounds ten shillings (£6112 10s.), which is one quarter, twenty-two pounds ten shillings (£22 10s.), more than the ground rent of the corresponding leasehold plot. This latter sum gives therefore the decrease of value that the lease has caused. Allowing that from wear and tear and change of fashion the ten houses will in ninety years depreciate so little as one -sixth, the freeholder's reversion at that distant date will possibly be worth five thousand pounds. Putting then aside the equal ninety pounds per annum in each case, the two transactions are represented to the freeholder in one plot by the twenty-two pounds ten per annum increased income, and in the other b}' the long deferred reversion, which the compound interest tables say is worth, in theory, some twenty-two weeks' rent, but which, in fact, for sixty years to come has no commercial value. It is 'dormant,' but the annual twenty-two pounds ten are 'active,' and of present and continual value; and if this excess of income and its interest be constantly invested in good five per
