The Moral of this Narrative. 515 



dature for the County Bench. These rights were encroached 

 upon b}' the late Local Government Act, and now his judicial 

 powers over the causes between master and servant, poaching 

 cases, disputes about footpaths, licensing, and the appoint- 

 ment of overseers of the poor, all survivals of the mediaeval 

 labour and poor laws, are menaced with extinction, by an 

 attempt to divest the lords-lieutenant of their prerogative of 

 selection. Are we soon then to witness his final extinction — 

 an inevitable occurrence, if only our legislators proceed much 

 further with their present policy ? Whenever an institution 

 or a class ceases to fulfil the duties and obligations which 

 called it into existence, by all means let it be abolished. But 

 when have our English country gentlemen been thus weighed 

 in the balances and found wanting ? Have they, like the 

 monastic landlords, drained their estates of public riches for 

 the sake of aggrandising a foreign despot, or, like those of 

 Ireland, squandered their incomes on the pleasures and luxuries 

 of a town life over the seas ? It is but recently that a mag- 

 nanimous but hostile critic has favourably contrasted their 

 expenditure with that of the fundholder, describing the 

 charges with which custom, tradition, and the law have 

 saddled the former as at least twice, and often ten times as 

 great as those which press on the latter, enumerating the 

 many arduous duties which are the hereditary obligation of 

 every great landlord, and emphasizing the good nature which 

 not infrequently allows his mansion-house to be converted into 

 a county museum, and his park into a public pleasure ground.^ 

 Considerably lessened as the landlord's income has become, 

 the retention of his present status is not so much a pecuniar}'' as 

 a social consideration. Were his rents to drop ever so low his 

 position would not be nearly so much damaged as if his remain- 

 ing privileges were to be withdrawn. Mill said truly, that 

 landed property was different from all other kinds of property, 

 but it is not so in the sense that he intended. Take away from 

 the land all the glamour that surrounded its original owners, 

 and you place it on all-fours with personal property. What 



*• Revieiv of Reviews ; " The Wasted Wealth of King Demos." W. T. 

 Stead, Aug. 1893. 



