We hold no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.
Try explaining that to a client.
Don
> Try explaining that to a client.
Hard to explain to a rationalist
Rationalists, wearing square hats,
Think, in square rooms,
Looking at the floor,
Looking at the ceiling.
They confine themselves
To right-angled triangles.
If they tried rhomboids,
Cones, waving lines, ellipses --
As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon --
Rationalists would wear sombreros.
Words are hard.
Mortmain...French, literally "dead hand" The condition of lands or tenements held in perpetuity by an ecclesiastical or other corporation. (Black's Law Dictionary, Eighth Edition).
In old England permission of the King was required to hold land in perpetuity by a corporation.
