Excerpt from Reports From Committees, Vol. 4 of 7: Land Titles and Transfer, Libel, Law of Lighting by Electricity, Session, 5 December 1878-15 August 1879, Vol. XIYour Committee believe that no one who carefully reads the evidence taken before them, or who is practically conversant with the present mode of conveying land in England would deny that, as regards the first of these two objects, the present system of land transfer might be very greatly improved, while the security of a purchaser, and, still more, of a mortgagee is generally due to the guarantee derived from his knowledge of the party with whom he is dealing or from the character of the solicitor employed to negociate the sale or mortgage, rather than to the protection afforded by the law. To this circumstance may perhaps be attributed the remarkable discrepancy in the evi dence given on this part of the subject by different witnesses, some of whom profess never to have come across a single case of fraud arising out of dealings with land, .while others (whose experience is of a more varied or less'fortunate kind), Speak of such frauds as of frequent occurrence. In any case it is unquestionably the fact that if the number of these frauds actually perpetrated or discovered is comparatively small, the care and vigilance which are con sidered necessary to prevent their perpetration, throws both a serious respon sibility upon solicitors and a heavy charge upon the public.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.