We should not like to imitate it; while on the other hand, a part of our town-houses are almost always let, the proprietors inhabiting only the ‘bel étage.’ This again appears very strange to the English, and certainly is extremely inconvenient, for the presence of several families in one house is not favourable either to order or cleanliness.
The house-door at Short Grove was covered on the outside with looking-glass,—a very pretty idea: as you enter the house you have a beautiful picture of the country.
The great wealth of the landholders of England must always strike people from the Continent, where the landed proprietors are the poorest class, and the least protected by laws and institutions. Here everything conspires for their advantage. It is very difficult for the fundholder to acquire the free and full possession of land. Almost the whole soil is the property of the aristocracy, who generally let it only on lease; so that when a great man calls a village his, this does not mean, as with us, merely that he has the lordship (Oberherrschafft) over it, but that every house is his absolute property; and only granted to the actual inhabitants for a certain time. You may conceive what enormous and ever increasing revenues this must bring them, in a country where trade and population are continually on the increase; and may admire with me the concert and address with which this aristocracy has contrived for centuries to turn all the institutions of the country to its own advantage.
The free sale of a portion of land is attended by many difficult conditions, and at so high a price that it is out of the reach of small capitalists, who find it more advantageous to hire it on lease. Leases here are, however, of a very different nature from ours. The piece of land is let to the tenant for ninety-nine years on payment of a certain yearly rent, which varies from a few shillings to five and ten pounds yearly per foot of the frontage, if it be for building on; in large portions, it is so much per acre. The tenant now does with it what he likes, builds where he pleases, lays out gardens, pleasure-grounds, and so on: but after the lapse of the ninety-nine years, the whole reverts just as it stands, sound and tight, to the family of the original lord of the soil: nay more; the tenant must keep the house in perfect repair, and paint it every seven years. During his allotted term he may sell or let it to others, but of course only up to that period when it reverts to the original proprietor. Almost all the country-houses, villas, &c., that one sees, thus belong to great land-owners; and although the tenants at the expiration of their term generally re-establish this sort of precarious property in them, yet they must double or treble their rent, according to the increased value of land, or the improvements they themselves have made upon it. Even the greater part of London belongs, on such terms, to certain noblemen, of whom Lord Grosvenor, for instance, is said to derive above 100,000l. a year from his ground-rents. Scarcely a single inhabitant of London, therefore, except a few members of the high aristocracy, is the real owner of his house. Even Rothschild’s is not his own: and when a man buys one, as it is called, people ask him for how long. The price varies according as the house is taken at first hand, commonly then for a rent; or at second or third, and then more usually for a sum of money. The greater part of the profits of industry thus inevitably falls into the hands of the aristocracy, and necessarily increases the enormous influence which they already exercise over the government of the country.[18]
London, October 21st.
This afternoon I got home safe and well through the incessant rain, refreshed myself with a good dinner at the Club, and in the evening, let me tell you, won just six times my travelling expenses. I am well and in good spirits, and find that I want nothing but you.
Let me finish my letter at so favourable a conjuncture. It is already swelled to a packet.
Ever your faithfully devoted L——.