148 REPORT—1850. 
be of the most direct and essential use in Ireland, or in any other country, in bringing 
the waste lands “and idle hands” together, and aiding the general establishment of 
this kind of husbandry :—1. Because numbers of the able-bodied paupers in every 
union may be employed immediately in reclaiming and then cultivating such lands, 
taken possession of in default of payment of rates, or purchased or rented for this pur- 
pose, as has been done at Sheffield and at Chorlton. 2. Because such operations, car- 
ried on in every union in Ireland, under the direction and control of such experienced 
agriculturists as Government may easily obtain for the purpose, may become a normal 
school for instructing owners end occupiers of land in a system of cultivation which 
requires little expenditure of capital even from the first, but some knowledge of the 
subject, and especially constant attention and industry, such as the examples of 
Gairloch as well as of the English unions show, may gradually be enforced among 
the people by the owners of the land or their agents, when themselves duly sensible 
of its advantages. 
Some Statistics respecting the Sale of Encumbered Estates in Ireland. 
By Prof. Hancock. 
The questions the author proposed to illustrate by his statistics were,—I1st. Did it 
appear that anynecessity existed for establishing the cheap, simple, and expeditious forms 
of procedure of the Encumbered Estates Court in lieu of the proceedings previously re- 
quired in the Courts of Chancery and Exchequer? 2nd, Was there any evidence of 
the parties most interested having confidence in the proceedings of the Court? 
3rd. At what rate of purchase had the estates been really sold? 4th. To what causes 
were the differences of prices of the different classes of estates to be ascribed? As to 
the first question, it appeared, that of cases transferred from the courts of equity to 
the Encumbered Estates Court, no less than 89 cases had been pending in Chancery 
or Exchequer for 10 years; 40 cases for 20 years; 26 cases for 30 years; 13 cases 
for 40 years; 8 cases for 50 years; 5 cases for 60 years ; and 1 case for 70 years. The 
result of this delay was to make the bulk of these estates bankrupt. It appeared that 
the estates owed the following sums :— 
Encumbrances. Possible price, 
5 cases, pending 60 years, £202,602 £176,760 
t eee 78 50 years, 339,051 258,480 
Ls ayy at 40 years, 476,124 341,480 
426 ων ἘΞ 30 years, 635,699 444,250 
In only two of the 26 estates would the proprietors receive any part of the purchase- 
money, and they would get only £18,000, leaving £422,000 to pay encumbrancers 
having charges to the amount of £635,699 ; so that the encumbrancers must lose up- 
wards of £200,000. The effect of the rapid sales of the encumbered estates was not 
to ruin puisne encumbrancers, but to make manifest the ruin that the dilatory pro- 
ceedings in equity had produced. Ass to the second question, it appeared that out of 
1003 petitions presented up to June last, 155 had been presented by the owners 
themselves, relating to a rental of £180,000, subject to encumbrances amounting to 
£2,892,000. As to the third question, it appeared that 25 sales of fee simple had 
produced £125,176, or a nominal rental of £7872; or, making an abatement of 20 
per cent. on a real rental of £5658, being 22 years’ purchase. ‘That 13 sales of leases 
for lives renewable for ever had produced £22,930 on a gross nominal rental of £2285, 
subject to a head rent of £278; making an abatement of 20 per cent. to get the real 
rental of £1814; and taking 30 years’ purchase of the head rent as added to the pur- 
chase-money, this gave an average of 17 years’ purchase. That 14 sales of long terms 
of years produced £33,155 on a nominal rental of £4195, subject to a head rent of 
£768, which gave an average of 163 years’ purchase. That 6 sales of estates subject 
to annuities produced £57,285, on a nominal rental of £1014. In these cases, as 
the ages of the annuitants were not given, it was impossible to ascertain the rate of 
purchase. ΑΒ to the fourth question, the difference of price of the land in fee and the 
leaseholds arose partly from renewal fines and the reservations and covenants in the 
leases, but was chiefly caused by the circumstance that in the case of leaseholds the 
Commissioners gave parliamentary titie not to the land, but to the lease only; and 
consequently, parties buying leaseholds ran a risk of losing their purchase if it should 
turn out that the original lessor had no right to grant the lease, or if there was any 
