A BILL FOR REST OF TITLES

A committee of the Union League Club, consisting of Messrs. A. M. Pence, John P. Wilson, Harvey B. Hurd, W. D. Kerfoot, George C. Walker, and John L. Thompson, all of whom are recognized as good real estate lawyers, or as hav-. ing large experience in real estate transfers, has made a report embodying a bill, the title of which is, "A Bill for Rest of Titles."

No more important measure to the interests of Cook county will be presented to the present General Assembly for its consideration, as it involves the title to every homestead, every piece of property in the county, and the people and the General Assembly cannot too carefully consider the proposed measure. In the main it is good. The great fire destroyed all the records of title, and all that was left was: 1. Such deeds as private individuals had. 2. Such copies of records as could be found in the archives at Washington and Springfield. 3. Possession. 4. Such memoranda of title as appeared by abstracts; but this latter is not official, and can be made so only by legislation, and as to this the law attempted to make legal what the abstract men had. 5. Tax titles, which were disregarded.

I appreciate the difficulty, for at the time of the fire there was nothing but baskets full of old abstracts, memoranda, etc. Since the fire, lawyers have taken what is presented, but they are careful in giving opinions to say what the opinion is founded upon, and no lawyer can give to-day an opinion of title founded upon what he regards a certain rule of evidence.

That something ought to be done every lawyer will agree. The bill of the Union League is that any one claiming title may appear before a master in chancery, make his claim, and if it is not questioned in three years it shall stand.

Of course it is competent for the Legislature to fix rules of evidence, to fix limitations, but is it not better that a court should in advance have something to say about it? Is it not a dangerous precedent to take ex parte statements? Won't it open a wide door? Would not the better way be about as follows:

1. Let the claimant make and prove his statement before a master in chancery, showing his title the best he can.

2. That after the master shall have done all he can the claimant shall give notice to "whom it may concern," as in cases of condemnation, that at a certain term of court he will apply for an order of confirmance. At the stated time, if no one appears, he takes his order, and his claim is entered of record. If any one appears let it be contested, but if no one appears let the order be entered of record, and after three years it shall be deemed settled; but if any one comes in let him fight it out. I am opposed to ex parte proceedings to settle titles. The English of it is that any one claiming title shall summon the world; if after three years no one comes let his title stand.

Since the great Chicago fire, several firms have engaged in the business of making abstracts, and the Recorder also, but these firms have had no special facilities for examining titles prior to the fire. The proposed bill establishes no particular rules of evidence, nor would it make any particular difference, for the proceeding is in no sense judicial. It proposes to establish evidence and perpetuate it without the sanction of a court. A proceeding under the statute to perpetuate testimony does not make that testimony absolute: it can be used only in some judicial proceeding. A law which will authorize the perpetuation of testimony in cases of title cannot be objectionable, but that evidence would not constitute a title. A court must first pass upon it. It seems to me a bill might be framed so that the owner of land and in possession may file

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A Bill for Rest of Titles.

a petition in court, and publish a notice as in case of unknown owners in condemnation proceedings, and then if no one appears, the order of the court, as in cases of default, may. be recorded, and from the recording the same he may have the benefit of a short statute of limitations. But is it quite safe

to record an ex parte statement?

James P. Root.

A PRESCRIPTION FOR POVERTY.

This is an age of specifics. They are applied with an unsparing hand to suffering humanity in every phase of its being. Not confined to the body alone, they reach out towards curing the diseases of the mind and the innumerable social and industrial ills which the complications of society have engendered. Probably more ingenuity is exercised, at the present day, in trying to furnish a specific for the industrial evils than for those of any other class, not because these evils have not cried aloud for reform ever since Cataline hatched his conspiracy to suppress them, but because the sons and daughters of toil, gaining in intelligence every day, and seeing themselves outstripped "in the fierce race for wealth" by people not a whit better than they, have come to conclude they have not a fair chance in the race.

But whatever the nature of the nostrum in modern therapeutics proposed for the workingman, the best of all, if he did but know it, is good, old-fashioned, honest industry. This has been seen to work well in almost every instance where it has been honestly and persistently tried; and while, I believe, no other remedy can be found to supersede this, I make bold to offer one, not as a panacea, but as a sort of help meet for the manly virtues of well-applied industry. If the methods of the past are to be taken as the only preventives of poverty, we may well conclude the evil is incurable, and the case of the poor man is indeed a hopeless one.

Let us look at one or two of these, the most promising and prominent in the list of prescriptions. And first of all, our

public charities. Far from wishing to underrate or undervalue them, I give them the full benefit of all they have achieved, and even of all their founders have designed to achieve by them. And yet it is obvious, they are incapable, in the nature of things, of reaching more than an infinitesimal portion of the suffering classes. The great bulk of these classes are beyond their reach or relief. All who are able to toil for a daily subsistence, however urgent their needs, must appeal in vain to such charities, because they are intended for those only whose mental or physical infirmities are such as to preclude the possibility of their earning a livelihood by their own industry. Beyond the category of proper subjects for relief by eleemosynary institutions, therefore must be placed almost the whole body of the poorer classes, such as artisans in our workshops, operatives in our mills and manufactories, and every one else who is compelled and qualified to earn a living by manual labor.

Next, let us examine for a moment, what has always been considered a wholesale remedy for the evils of poverty not only by many philanthropists and publicists, but by a large number of the sufferers themselves. I mean a forced and more' equal distribution of property among all classes of citizens. In ancient times such a remedy was sought through the instrumentality of laws having this object directly in view. But how far short these laws fell of accomplishing it, the most superficial knowledge of history will acquaint us. The resulting advantages were more than outweighed by the resulting calamities.

In more recent things, while a few persons are found advocating the passage of agrarian and sumptuary laws, most of those who base similar reforms upon similar means, look for them through the intervention of "labor strikes," "tradesunions," commercial conventions and other organized efforts, having for their end concessions and forced contributions from the wealthier to the poorer classes. It is needless to say that in the public advocacy of these measures on the rostrum and in the party organs, much foolish condemnation of the more prosperous portion of the community and much crude com