dge of the
general principles connected with jurisprudence.

This latter feature is quite peculiar to America. Nothing has struck me
more in Europe than the ignorance which everywhere exists on such
subjects, even among educated people. No one appears to have any
distinct notions of legal principles, or even of general law, beyond a
few prominent facts, but the professional men. Chance threw me, not long
since into the company of three or four exceedingly clever young
Englishmen. They were all elder sons, and two were the heirs of
peers.[7] Something was said on the subject of a claim of a gentleman
with whom I am connected to a large Irish estate. The grandfather of
this gentleman was the next brother to the incumbent, who died
intestate. The grandson, however, was defeated in his claim, in
consequence of its being proved, that the ancestor through whom he
derived his claim was of the half-blood. My English companions did not
understand the principle, and when, I explained by adding, that the
grandfather of the claimant was born of a different mother from the
last holder in fee, and that he could never inherit at law (unless by
devise), the estate going to a hundredth cousin of the whole blood in
preference, or even escheating to the king, they one and all protested
England had no such law! They were evidently struck with the injustice
of transferring property that had been acquired by the common ancestor
of two brothers to a remote cousin, merely because the affinity between
the sons was only on the father's side although that very father may
have accumulated the estate; and they could not believe that what struck
them as so grievous a wrong, could be the law of descents under which
they lived. Luckily for me, one learned in the profession happened to be
present, and corroborated the fact. Now all these gentlemen were members
of parliament; but they were accustomed to leave legal questions of this
nature to the management of professional men.

[Footnote 7: This absurd and unaccountable provision of the common law
has since been superseded by a statute regulating descents on a more
intelligible and just provision. England has made greater advances in
common sense and in the right, in all such matters, within the last five
years, than during the previous hundred.]

I mentioned this conversation to another Englishman, who thought the
difficulty well disposed of by saying, that if property ever escheated
in this manner