in its ownership had been frequent, it would be held by
the last purchaser in virtue of a long series of documents. Now, if any
one wished to buy a piece of land, he was obliged for safety to examine
all the preceding deeds in order to be quite certain that they were
valid; even then, if he bought the land, and another person, for any
reason whatever, laid claim to it, the owner had to prove the validity
of each of a long series of documents, going back, perhaps, for
centuries. A flaw in any one of these would give rise to a contest which
could be settled only after a very tedious investigation; and thus arose
the long and ruinous Chancery suits which were the disgrace of English
law. When a man's title to his estate was disputed, it often happened
that he had to spend a fortune and waste half a lifetime in protracted
litigation before all the antecedent deeds could be proved correct.

Mr. R. Torrens had his attention drawn to this very unsatisfactory state
of things by the ruin of one of his relatives in a Chancery suit. He
thought long and carefully over a scheme to prevent the occurrence of
such injustice, and drafted a bill for a new method of transferring
property. He proposed to lay this before the South Australian
Parliament, but his friends discouraged him by declaring it was
impossible to make so sweeping a change; and the lawyers actively
opposed any innovation. But Torrens brought forward the bill; its
simplicity and justice commended themselves to the people and to the
House of Assembly, and it was carried by a large majority. According to
the new scheme, all transferences of land were to be registered in a
public office called the Lands Titles Office, the purchaser's name was
to be recorded, and a certificate of title given to him; after this
his right to the property was indisputable. If his possession was
challenged, he had simply to go to the Lands Titles Office and produce
his certificate to the officer in charge, who could turn to the register
and at once decide the question of ownership. After this, no dispute was
possible. If he sold his land, his name was cancelled in the public
register, and the buyer's name was inserted instead, when he became
the undisputed owner. Mr. Torrens was appointed to be registrar of the
office, and soon made the new system a great success; it was adopted
one after another in all the colonies of Australia, and must become
eventually the law of all progressive nations.