682 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 
assumed that the Treasurer will be able in the absence of the mortgagee 
to ascertain what is due, so as to afford him a sufficient protection. 
I am not aware that any case has arisen where a mortgagee has 
been defrauded by reason of this provision, but the danger would 
seem to be obvious. 
I do not propose to go into the details of the law as to mortgages 
under the Transfer of Land Act. I will only remark that, with the 
probable exception of the provision borrowed from the Merchant 
Shipping Act, which retains for the mortgagor a legal estate in the 
land, there does not appear to be any advantage in them sufficient to 
counterbalance the disadvantage of having two systems of law in force 
as to mortgages, but if such changes are considered desirable there 
does not appear any reason why they should not be made perfectly 
general so as to apply to all mortgages. The Transfer of Land Act, 
1890, contains a peculiar set of provisions as to executions. In order 
to bind land the writ has to be registered against the particular land, 
and will only bind it for three months. There is no doubt that under 
this system the purchaser of land at a sheriff’s sale is in a much better 
position than he is in under the Act 51* Geo. III., cap 15, or the 
various re-enactments of it. He is enabled to make an investigation 
into the title to laud he is buying, which, though not sufficient to 
exclude the possibility of bis being defeated by the holder of an 
unregistered interest, will enable him to form some probable estimate 
of what he is buying. 
The procedure under 51 Geo. III., cap. 15, appears highly 
unsatisfactory. No one is accustomed to buy land without a title, and 
consequently land so sold sells for little or nothing. Perhaps the 
judgment creditor may himself buy at the sheriff’s sale, and so obtain 
payment of his debt or some part of it, or perchance may obtain a 
great deal more than payment ; but, in any event, the interest of the 
debtor and his other creditors are sacrificed, the latter more certainly 
than the former. Por if the debtor is not insolvent he will probably 
raise money and pay out the execution. The procedure under the 
Transfer of Land Act is ouly better than that under 51 Geo. III., 
■cap. 15., as a matter of degree. The land is still sold without a title, 
though an intending purchaser, if he care to take the trouble to make 
inquiries, has some means of finding out what the title probably is. 
It would seem better to fall back on the English practice, under which 
a creditor has first to obtain possession of the lands of the debtor 
under a writ of elegit, and can then apply to the court for an order 
for sale, which is made after proper inquiries into the title, and so the 
land may be expected to fetch a reasonable price as in other sales 
under the order of the court. 
In case of insolvency under the old law the vesting of the land 
in an assignee or trustee takes place upon the granting of the rule 
nisi. That is a complete bar to any disposition by the insolvent. Land 
under the Transfer of Land Act, 1890, does not vest in an assignee or 
trustee in insolvency until he gets himself registered as proprietor, but 
until the passing of the Act No. 872 the assignee or trustee of an 
insolvent was entitled to notice from the Titles Office before any 
dealing by the insolvent was registered. This threw on the Titles Office 
the onus of inquiry whether any proprietor desiring to register a 
dealing had become insolvent, and proprietors were consequently often. 
