702 ISLE OF MAN. 



vested with all but kingly power), lieutenant-governor, and a House 

 of Keys, formed of twenty-four representatives of the people, and a 

 council of ten principal officers. The House of Keys is supposed to 

 derive its name from the members being formerly the interpreters of 

 the common law. There are also two judges (deemsters). The 

 Manx designate their laws " breast laws/'' as being confined to the 

 knowledge of their rulers. In all trials for capital offences, a jury of 

 twelve is summoned, as in England. When the case is stated against 

 the prisoner, the deemster demands of the foreman le Vod fir charree 

 sole? " (May he that administers at the altar continue to sit?) If 

 the answer is " He may," the prisoner is instantly discharged ; if 

 " He may not," the bishop and clergy, who are always in the court, 

 retire, and sentence of death is pronounced ; but execution is delayed 

 until the King's pleasure is known. Capital offences, however, but 

 very rarely occur. 



Many of their laws are singular. Lands may be alienated by deed, 

 but not by will ; no lease can be of a longer term than twenty-five 

 years ; and all such lands as have an unredeemed mortgage of eight 

 years' standing, pass over to the mortgagee. Two witnesses, but 

 neither seal nor stamp, are necessary to a conveyance of freehold pro- 

 perty ; and there are no such things as entailed estates beyond the 

 heir of the owner. If a man marries an heiress, and survives her, he 

 claims, so long as he remain a widower, one moiety of her estate ; 

 she, during her life, has no control over her property without the 

 consent of her husband : neither can he sell nor leave his own estate 

 without his wife's consent, so as to prejudice her right of survivorship. 

 No landed proprietor is liable to arrest in a civil suit, unless it can 

 be clearly proved he has it in contemplation to quit the island. For 

 bigamy or polygamy no punishment falls on the parents, but upon 

 the children, who are declared bastards, and rendered incapable of 

 inheriting property. If two sticks are placed across a door, even if 

 the door be open, it is felony to enter burglariously. Forgery is 

 only regarded in the light of a civil debt. Theft, above the value of 

 sixpence-halfpenny, is capital. 



In circumference the island is about eighty miles ; in breadth from 

 nine to twelve ; and in length near upon thirty. It is divided in two, 

 by no means equal, parts, by a chain of mountains commencing at 

 North, and terminating at South Barrule, including Snawfel, Mount 

 Greeba, Pen-y-pol, and various others. Snawfel is the highest 

 throughout the island, being 1740 feet above the level of the sea; 

 and on a clear day, when standing on its summit, the view is very 

 grand. The whole island lies beneath you every hamlet the nu- 

 merous streams which intersect it the waterfalls the rocks all are 

 exposed to view and then, turn which w r ay you will, the ocean girts 

 it round. You also see or ought to see, if the natives may be cre- 

 dited the mountains of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. 



The greatest drawback to the beauty of the island is the total 

 absence of any thing approaching to forest scenery. Brushwood and 

 furze abound in the hollows and on the mountains, but not a tree 

 grows that is not artificially planted. This does not, however, appear 

 to have been always the case,, for at the northern extremity of the 



