366 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



younger son's fortune in families which have a " place," and 

 especially in those which have a title, to be kept up. As for 

 the daughters, their rank is apt to be reckoned as a substantive 

 part of their fortunes, and not only are their marriage portions 

 infinitely smaller than would be considered proper in families 

 of equal affluence in the mercantile class, but it is not unfre- 

 quently provided that, ijnless they have children, their property 

 shall ultimately revert to their eldest brother. 



To say that primogeniture, thus organised, has a direct ten- 

 dency to prevent the dispersion of land, is only to say that 

 it fulfils the purpose for which it was instituted. It is hardly 

 less evident that it must have the further effect of promoting 

 the aggregation of land in a small and constantly decreasing 

 number of hands. The periodical renewal of entails is in- 

 tended to secure, and does secure, ancestral properties against 

 the risk of being broken up ; and, practically, they very seldom 

 come into the market, except as a consequence of scandalous 

 waste or gambling on the part of successive life-owners. The 

 typical English family estate is that which, like Sir Roger de 

 Coverley's, neither waxes nor wanes in the course of generations, 

 and there are still many such estates in counties remote from 

 London. But there is nothing to check the cumulative aug- 

 mentation of ancestral properties by new purchases of land, 

 which is the darling passion of so many proprietors. There is 

 always some angtdus iste to be annexed and brought within the 

 park palings or the ring-fence on the first good opportunity ; 

 and scarcely a day passes without some yeoman of ancient 

 lineage being erased from the roll of landowners by the com- 

 petition of his more powerful neighbour. Not that any tyranny 

 or unfair dealing is involved in this process of aggrandisement, 

 which is the consequence of economical laws quite as simple as 

 that of natural selection in the animal creation. The yeoman 

 sells his patrimony either because he has ruined himself by 

 drinking or improvidence, or because he finds that by turning 

 it into money he can largely improve his income and the future 

 expectations of his family. The nobleman or squire buys it 

 at a price which is not commercially remunerative, either to 



