I am endeavouring to explain in a German journal how our law (or equity) of trusts enabled us to keep alive "unincorporate bodies" which elsewhere must have perished. Of course I must not speak of America. Still I should like to know in a general way whether the development of the "unincorporated company" which we repressed in 1862 was similarly repressed in the States, and a word or two from you about this matter would be most thankfully received.
By the way--and here I enter your own particular close--I observed that those New York deeds were careful to confine the trust within the limits of the perpetuity rule. Is it settled American law that this is necessary? We explain our _clubs_ by saying that as the whole equitable ownership is vested in the original members there can be no talk of perpetuity--and I believe that there are some extremely important unincorporated companies with transferable shares (formed before 1862--in particular the London Stock Exchange) which are built up on this theory: the theory is that the original shareholders were in equity absolute masters of the land, buildings, etc. Does that commend itself to you?
There! you see what comes of writing to me! A whole catechism! Please think no more of it unless a very few words would set my feet in the straight road.
Most of my time is being given to the Year Books. The first volume is with the binder.
I often look back with great pleasure to the few hours that you and Mrs Gray spent with us in Gloucestershire. Would that I could see you again, but all my journeys have to be to the Canaries.
DOWNING COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. _15 Nov. 1903._
Your very kind letter of the 4th is exactly what I wanted. But surely there is nothing "odd" in my asking you questions which you of living men can answer best. It would be odd if I went elsewhere.
The brief in Howe _v._ Morse is extremely interesting. I think that an English Court would take your view in such a case, but when it comes to questions about legacies our judges sometimes _say_ things which stray from the path of rectitude as drawn by Prof. Gray.
I have been trying all this summer to finish an essay designed to explain to Germans the nature of a trust, and especially the manner in which the trust enabled us to keep alive all sorts of "bodies" which were not technically corporate. I am obliged now to flee to the Canaries leaving this unfinished, for a particularly fraudulent summer has made me very useless. Some one ought to explain our trust to the world at large, for I am inclined to think that the construction thereof is the greatest feat that men of our race have performed in the field of jurisprudence. Whether I shall be able to do this remains to be seen--but it ought to be done.