to the abstract clerk, who abstracted | had been more than £30,000 above the everything from it of importance, and the expenses. The Treasury had given them abstract was given to clerk in the office, an additional supply of thirty clerks, so who copied it into the abstract book, and that the work in arrear might be comthose who came to search seldom looked pleted; and the dictionary from 1850 to at the memorial. This abstract was the 1859 contained 200,000 entries requiring basis of the land index, as the day book, to be consolidated and examined. That containing the names of the persons con- work had been done completely and perveying land, was the basis of the book of fectly. Indeed, the operations of the office names. In a few days the deed was were performed with mathematical accuhanded back, and he could assure the racy, in his opinion, never equalled; and House that at present about a million of he was at a loss to conceive-having rememorials were arranged in the fire-proof gard to the period of time, and the sales safe with such precision that a stranger of such immense amount during the last could find any one of them in a space of twenty years-how it could be possible to time that would astonish his right hon. construct an office upon any scale, conFriend. If time permitted, the memorial trivance, or speculation, that would do the was sent into the transcribing office, and work more safely, securely, and perfectly, transcribed to be bound in a book. This than these two books proved it to have transcribing the memorials was in arrear been done. And if that practical result and he asked what the right hon. Gentle- had been obtained, he required to be man was instructed to say was the extent informed, in a practical assembly, why that of that arrear. He was told the whole of office was to be change, to be revoluit would be cleared off in three weeks, and tionized, and what practical object was that was ten days ago. The comparison to be gained? One of the schemes of the abstract book was complete up to propounded was printing on parchment. the latest possible period-that was to say, If several hundred copies were required it that the material for the land index was might be desirable to have the records complete to within three weeks, and the printed instead of transcribed; but where day book and the nanies index depending only one or two copies were wanted it thereon was made up to within three days. would be very costly to call in the aid of the He believed he need not state what was compositor. He had seen a specimen of the requisition for a search, or how it printing on parchment by Thom, of Dubwas made, but he might say it was made lin, one of the best printers in the Kingby a man perfectly competent; when dom, but the impression was pale and they had fished out the names, and ana- illegible compared with the manuscript of lyzed the requisition, they made the the engrossing clerks. He did not say that search with comparative speed. As to the they could not have matter printed on books in the office, he had seen them. parchment as dark and as large as they The books to 1785 were in dictionary pleased; but he contended that they ought order. Of these books there was a per- to have a specimen of engrossing and fect transcript, which had not been com- printing laid before them, and an estipared for want of hands, from 1708 to mate of the expense of both, before they 1785. There was a complete corrected cast aside the old practice and adopted the register from 1785 to 1832; the books novelty. Another obstacle to printing were in dictionary order, and all that was was the probibition against carrying any required there was to copy them into the of the records out of the sight of the offiparchment books to provide against ac- cers in charge of them. This order was cident by fire. From that time began essential, in consequence of the abstraction the books under 2 Will. IV., commencing of a page of a will, and the substitution perversely with the two letters, and which of a forged leaf, on the occasion of an imhe should recommend to be discontinued. portant law suit. Although the fraud They were kept to make the quinquennial book. That brought him to the great land sales from 1841 to the present day; and this brought them to the main question. These gentlemen had done their work successfully and well, and without any mistake, and the books were now in dictionary order. The fees of the office

was, in the first instance successful, suspicions were aroused, and on inquiry it was detected. If, then, the documents were to be printed, were the records to be sent to the printing offices? He apprehended that no Parliament would assent to that project. Then were they to build a printing office in connection with the establish

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The very

ment? Where was the ground for it? with a drunken constable, enabling a The idea of printing the documents in daily Judge of the Landed Estates Court to use was altogether visionary. Having, stop their salary and dismiss them with then, explained the condition of the office, out appeal. That was a clause he would he would call attention to the clauses of the never agree to. Clause 32, which was Bill. Ile objected to the provision in the an important part of the Bill, implied Bill that the direction, management, and that registration might be effected either superintendence of all the departments by memorial, or by copy, or by counterof the Registry Office should devolve on part. Now, the first plan was the present the Judges of the Landed Estates Court. practice in Ireland, and was short and There was no similarity or connection cheap; but he believed that the gentlemen between the duties which those gentlemen of the Landed Estates Court had come to had discharged and those which would be the conclusion that the whole of the past imposed on them by the Bill. It might law was wrong, and that the entire deeds be very well to grant an appeal to them of every gentlemen in Ireland should be on points of law, or in regard to miscon- put on the register. If the Bill passed, duct, but it would not do to burden them there would, no doubt, be a black list of with the entire management of the office. every gentleman who had a mortgage on The next clause, 11, revolutionized the his estate placarded to the world, and entire establishment of the office. It en- those gentlemen would deserve it for allowacted that the Register Office should con- ing such a law to be put on the statute sist of a registrar, two assistant regis- book. Then again there was an alteration trars, and so many clerks and officers of the existing rule, according to which, as the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with where a deed was executed by one of the the sanction of the Commissioners of Her grantors or grantees, it can be registered as Majesty's Treasury, should, from time to against all parties. But this existing state time, think fit. He had already shown of the law was to be abolished. that the appointment to all these offices form of making the affidavits by the witwas fixed in the Treasury according to ness who were to attest the execution of the Civil Service regulations; and were it the deed and of the memorial was altered, not that the Bill emanated from his right unnecessarily and with considerable risk. hon. Friend opposite, he should have said Then he came to the question of making that a ranker job could not have been the Ordnance survey the basis of the regis suggested than to transfer the appoint- tration. On this point one would have ment to the Castle at Dublin. Another expected that the Bill would have been part of the Bill to which he objected, had in accordance with the recommendations reference to certain temporary officers. of the gentleman whom the Government He had already stated that the Treasury had appointed to inquire and report on had at present under their control some the subject, but it was not. They had thirty or forty clerks, who were appoint-appointed a gentleman of eminence at the ed merely for temporary purposes, and who, at the present moment, were on the point of dismissal. That branch of the service was to be given over to the Landed Estates Court, and to that proposition he objected. He did not object to see Judges appoint their sons and relations to places in the courts over which they presided, because he thought that the parties then worked harmoniously together; but he objected to those particular appointments being taken from the Treasury and given to Judges to whose court the appointments did not belong. It might be recollected that an Irish registrar general was once a Member of that House, and yet he maintained that the 80th clause dealt with officers of the highest class-such as the registrar and assistant registrars as a police magistrate might deal

-

Bar to make a report, and after a full
consideration of the matter he abandoned
the town land basis as impracticable, there
being no less than 63,000 town lands in
Ireland, it was said, of an average of 300
acres each, but some not containing ten
acres. More than that, Mr. Lane, the
gentleman to whom he referred,
had pre-
pared a sketch of a Bill; but the Go-
vernment had never asked him for it, and
he felt that in honour he could not com-
municate it to any one else in the present
state of the question. That was Mr.
Lane's reply when he asked him what his
plan was. But if there were more town
lands than one in the same barony bearing
the same name, how was the consulter
of the Ordnance survey to decide as to
which of them the registration was against?
In Westmeath there were two town lands

of the same name; in Fermanagh three of | became a trustee for the family he had
the same name; in other counties there robbed, and the Bill, while enabling the
were ten and twelve of the same name. Judge to recall the probate, declared the
He wished to know how these were to be sale of the estate by the fraudulent heir
distinguished from one another by the good. He was willing to take for Ireland
registration proposed in the Bill? How any law that might be passed for this
was it possible to avoid confusion and error country, no matter what that law was;
under such circumstances? The principle but let not the House be so unwise or
of compulsory registration, founded on the so impolitie as to pass a law for Ireland
basis of the Ordnance survey, was opposed which they would not dare to pass for
to the report of Mr. Lane, and of the Irish England, a crotchet of somebody's, but
Courts. The Scotch Commissioners, also, which nobody understood. The 76th clause
after fully considering the subject, had re-enabled a single Judge to dispose of all pri-
ported against a similar change in the sys-orities, to set aside deeds, to register deeds
tem of registration. The Bill further con- at his will and discretion, and to do as he
tained a most offensive clause against the might think particular documents conform-
respectable body of the solicitors of the ed to the spirit, and not the letter, of the
country, for it provided that, instead of the Act of Parliament. That astounding section
pecuniary compensation from the registrar, rendered every other clause in the Bill
any solicitor who wrongfully registered a unnecessary. The Bill, in short, intro-
deed should be tried at the Old Bailey duced novelties of such a kind, and in-
for a misdemeanor. Why, how could such troduced such difficulties, that he did not
a provision be carried out, seeing that no believe it would ever become the law of the
means were provided for identifying with land. It was remarkable that a Bill so
the names in the Ordnance map the names vast, and that concerned the land, the law,
of the denominations in the title deeds, and the property of Ireland, should be re-
especially as the localities and boundaries presented on the Treasury bench by the
were changing every day? Then under right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tam-
the Bill, what remedy was there for a worth solus. If he should carry it, he would
man who might lose his land under a be the political Coriolanus of the age, for he
false or mistaken registry of a deed? would be able to say, "Alone I did it." A
Why, none whatever, because it would vacancy in the metropolitan county of Ire-
be no remedy to prosecute for misdemea- land had now occurred, and there was an
nor a fraudulent solicitor. A capitalist opportunity of enabling the right hon. Gen-
might lend £30,000 on an estate, but tleman's law advisers, if they thought fit,
his solicitor might not possess a penny. to give him the assistance he required.
Suppose that solicitor wilfully and im- The Irish Members did not desire to give
properly registered the deed against the the right hon. Gentleman more trouble
wrong townland; why, then, under the than they could help, during the existence
Bill, the capitalist must lose his £30,000. of his provisional administration; they did
He would further ask the Government to not wish to lay themselves open to the un-
strike out of the Bill all the clauses relating necessary censure of the Solicitor General,
to the registration of judgments. There and to be accused of giving a "blind and
was at present a Bill on the table to indiscriminate opposition" to this Bill.
abolish the existing law upon that sub-
ject; and the clause in the proposed mea-
sure would act as a positive embarrass-
ment in the way of the transfer of land.
Then it was highly objectionable that the
registrar should be changed from a Minis-
terial into a judicial officer, as was proposed
by the Bill, and that a man might be de-
clared to have died intestate as to his real
estate with such facility. If a man died
this week, and his son, being a scamp, per-
suaded the Judge of the Probate Court
that his father had died intestate, he
might, by help of a certificate of intestacy,
immediately sell the estate, and go to
another country with his plunder; he then

Question put.

The House divided :-Ayes 56; Noes 41: Majority 15.

Bill read 2°.

On Question that the Bill be committed for Monday,

SIR EDWARD GROGAN said, he wished to give notice of his intention to move that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee.

COLONEL DUNNE said, he wished to ask the House whether they had ever witnessed such a scene as that which had just taken place. Upon the second reading of

a Bill of the utmost importance to Ireland | The objections which he had just urged, so a right hon. and learned Gentleman had far from being points of detail, were refelt it necessary, in a most able and argu-garded by many of the heads of the promentative speech, occupying some hours, fession in Ireland as involving matters of to show how objectionable the measure the highest principle. It did not follow, would prove to the sister country, and because a Gentleman thoroughly uncou not one occupant of the Ministerial Bench nected with Ireland chose to say, Here had thought it becoming him to reply to is a Bill; take it, and do not argue it; or it. He considered such conduct upon the if you do, you shall not be answered," part of the Government as an insult to that such a system of carrying on the Ireland. The division list on the follow. business of the country could be toleing day would show, as usual in reference rated. to the Bills of the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for Ireland, that the vast majority of the Irish Members had voted in the minority; but they were swamped by the votes of the English Members, who knew nothing, and cared less, about the interests of Ireland.