THE LA W OF SETTLEMENT OF LAND. 275 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE EFFECTS OF THE LAW OF SETTLEMENT OF LAND. 

 JUNE 1872. 



IT is of the very first importance that the bearings 

 and effects of the law of settlement should be clearly 

 understood. The law on this subject now is undoubted. 

 No settlement is valid beyond the life of a person or per- 

 sons living when it is made and twenty-one years after- 

 wards, i.e. till an unborn child attains its majority. But 

 in much the larger number of cases men live till their 

 children reach twenty-one years of age, and if settle- 

 ments on unborn children were wholly forbidden 

 leaving owners of land to do as they like about settle- 

 ments for their own lives, or others living when the 

 settlement is made a small minority of cases would 

 alone be affected, viz. those of men who are so unfortu- 

 nate as to die whilst their children are still minors. 

 Practically, very few even of such cases would suffer, 

 because, as the right of an owner whose children are 

 minors to dispose of his property to his children by 

 will could not well be interfered with, it is certain 

 most of these men, when dying or failing in health, 



