TACK is the technical term in Scot land for a lease, whether of lands or edi fices; the rent is called the tack-duty, and the tenant the tacksman. The Scot tish system of leases having lately at tracted some attention, and being intrinsi cally important, a separate sketch of its more prominent peculiarities seems to be requisite. The Scottish lease, however long its duration, is purely a contract, and does not partake—at least in questions between landlord and tenant—of the pe culiarities of the feudal system. In early times it is possible to trace something like an inferior system of vassalage in the nature of the agriculturist's tenure. He held not as party to a contract, but by a unilateral conveyance from the landlord, called assedation. In Scotland, however, there was no permanent inter ruption of the legitimate system of sub feuing ; and thus all descriptions of per manent estates could be constituted in the land by the pure adaptation of the feudal usages. There was no temptation to con vert the contract for the limited occupa tion and use of the land into a means of constituting a semi-proprietary right in it —of supplying with a lessee the place of a sub-vassal ; and the system of leases, as one of mere letting and hiring, took its prin ciples from the Roman contract of locatio conductio. The right of the lessee or tacks man was so purely personal that it was in effectual against a party acquiring the lands by purchase from the lessor; and so early as 1449 a statute was passed, pre serving the rights of " the purr people that labouris the ground" against new owners. Leasehold rights, however, in questions of succession, and in the form of attachment, employable by creditors, have by usage come into the position of real or heritable property. In the times of rapid agricultural improvement, when farms were frequently taken on leases of fifty-seven years at a low rent, a virtual estate was created, the succession to which might for the time be more impor tant than that of the ownership of the land. Unless there be any specification to the contrary in the lease, such succes sions follow the rules applicable to landed property. It has been matter of much regret, that the system by which feudal rights in land may be subjected to real burdens, has not been extended to this spe cies of property, so as to enable valuable leases to be burdened with a security for borrowed money, or a guarantee fund for provisions for children. The system of
granting and recording public feudal titles not being available for this species of pro perty, all attempts to accomplish this ob ject, by the tenant assigning the lease and retaining possession as the assignee's sub tenant, have been ineffectual against the rights of creditors. It has been frequently proposed to pass an act creating a system re*istration of leases, and of burdens affecting them.
It is unnecessary to state very mi nutely the title which a person must have to enable him to grant a lease, the parties who may hold leases, or the nature of the titles which constitute an ordinary lease, as these bear a generic resemblance to the corresponding features of English law. Long leases, however, being the prominent feature of the Scot tish system, those cases in which there is a restriction on granting them may be noticed. A person who has a life-rent interest is, in the general case, not en titled to grant a lease to last beyond his own life. Persons having the absolute ad ministration of property, as trustees, cor porations, &c., are entitled and bound to grant leases for such a period as is deemed necessary to good husbandry ; and this period has, by usage, in the ordinary case, been fixed at nineteen years. There have been many questions as to the ex tent to which persons holding under en tails may grant leases, because in many instances attempts have been made in this form to alienate a considerable estate in the property, which have been chal lenged by successors. In the celebrated Queensberry case, leases granted for ninety-seven years, on a grassum (that is, a sum of money paid by the tenant on entering, like a fine in England), were found to be struck at by the entail as an attempt to alienate part of the pro perty (2 Dow, 90). In later cases, leases of forty and thirty-one years have been found ineffectual. A lease of twenty-one years is the longest that has been sanc tioned by the courts where an heir of entail has shown that he has an interest to impugn the contract.