Opinion of the Court.

convey the property of a corporation, or any part of it, to one of their members, he being one of the trustees negotiating the contract with himself." Perry on Trusts, sec. 207, and cases cited in notes supporting the text.

And inasmuch as three members of the village.council were also trustees of the academy, and participated in negotiating the contract for the lease from the former to the latter, it is difficult to perceive any reason why that transaction does not also fall within the principle of the authorities holding void a contract made by trustees with a board of trustees or directors of which they are members. However that may be, the contract should, under the circumstances stated in the bill, be held void, on the ground of its being a fraudulent perversion of the private property of the village, held in trust for corporate uses, from such uses, to those of a mere private enterprise.

It follows, from the views expressed, holding the sale of the bonds by the council to its own members to be void, that such bonds could not be enforced in the hands of such holders, for either principal or interest, and this, upon the ground that, the sale being void, there was nothing due to such supposed holders. If no interest was due upon the bonds in such hands, then it also follows that the levy of the tax by the council to pay it, was illegal, unjust and oppressive, as to the tax payers.

It is insisted, on behalf of appellees, that the demurrer to the bill was properly sustained, on the ground of multifariousness. No such cause is assigned by the demurrer, and we shall not stop to investigate the question of practice, whether the specification of this ground was indispensable; for we are of opinion that the bill is not obnoxious to demurrer for that cause, even if it had been specified.

It is an established rule, that where chancery takes jurisdiction for one purpose, it will retain it for all purposes necessary to complete justice between all parties interested in the subject matter. The policy of the rule is, the prevention of

Opinion of the Court.

a multiplicity of suits, and from it has sprung the other rule, which requires all persons interested to be made parties; so, that to do adequate and complete justice between all parties interested, may be said to be a prevailing motive of equity. This motive, together with a conceded absence of technical rules in respect to the statements of the bill, has ever afforded a fruitful source of perplexing questions as to the proper unity of the matters set forth, their relations to persons and to each other. As civilization advances, and the subtlety of the human intellect increases, the transactions of mankind become more complicated; but, from a variety of causes, attention to the principles of correct pleading seems to become more lax. From these causes, the difficulty of the questions mentioned seems to continually increase.

It was said by Lord COTTENHAM, that it was utterly impossible, upon the authorities, to lay down any rule or abstract proposition, as to what constitutes multifariousness, which can be universally applicable. 1 Dan. Ch. Pr. 384. So our own great equity judge: "The conclusion," says Story, "to which a close survey of all the authorities will conduct us, seems to be that there is not any positive, inflexible rule, as to what, in the sense of courts of equity, constitutes multifariousness, which is fatal to a suit, on demurrer." Story Eq. Pl. sec. 539. Still, in the same work, sec. 271, he gives the following definition: "By multifariousness in a bill, is meant the improperly joining in one bill, distinct and independent matters, thereby confounding them; as, for example, the writing in one bill of several matters perfectly distinct and unconnected, against one defendant, or the demand of several matters of a distinct and independent nature against several defendants in the same bill."

The charge of multifariousness is based, in this case, principally upon the fact of making the collector a party, and the matters alleged as ground for restraining the enforcement of the tax warrant in his hands.

26-59TH ILL.

Opinion of the Court.

This was not a distinct, independent matter. The tax warrant was the very instrument by which the wrong was to be consummated. The illegal sale of the bonds, by the council to its own members, to raise money to pay for property which they were appropriating to private use, and levying a tax to pay themselves interest upon such bonds, were the matters set forth, showing the wrong and oppression of the tax payers. Making the collector, who had the warrant for the collection of this tax, a party, was upon the same principle that a defendant to a judgment, who should file a bill to set it aside for fraud, would be compelled to make the sheriff a party, if an execution was in his hands, upon the judgment, although the latter in no manner participated in the original fraud.

So, also, the allegations of the bill that the council were proceeding to erect a boarding house for the use of the academy, and for that purpose had passed an ordinance to issue bonds of the village to the amount of $8000, which would be a charge upon the property of tax payers. To build such a boarding house, would, under the facts stated, be an act in furtherance of the fraudulent scheme of appropriating the private property of the corporation, held in trust for corporate uses, to private uses, and is so connected with the substantive matter of the bill, that, as a branch, it must perish with the trunk.

We are of opinion, however, that the facts stated in regard to the alleged diminution of valuation by the assessor, of property assessed, are not sufficient to defeat the whole tax. There is no allegation that the property in respect to which the council directed the clerk to make the diminution, was subject to taxation by the village authorities, or that Goss, as a member of the council, participated in having the change made as to his property.

Nor is there a case shown for rescinding the purchase of block 50 from Wilson. Improvements have been made upon the land at great expense. Authority was given by the village charter to purchase the land and erect the building for

Opinion of the Court.

corporate uses; so that the purchase was not made without authority. Even if the members of the council designed, from the beginning, to pervert the land and building to private uses, for their own private benefit, and there was fraud in the purchase, the contract with Wilson should not be rescinded, because the parties can not be placed in statu quo. He can not be compelled to take the building and pay for it, and it would be inequitable for him to have it, as he would if he took his land back, without paying for it. If the village corporation have title to the land, neither Wilson nor the individual members of the council can ask to have it divested. As to the equities between the corporation and the individual members of the council who illegally assumed to purchase the bonds, we express no opinion, but simply hold, that as the facts appear in this record, such sale was void, and no title acquired by it; that the tax levied to pay the interest on the bonds was illegal, and to that extent the collector should be restrained in the execution of the tax warrant; that the appropriation of the private property of the corporation, held in trust for corporate uses, to the mere private uses disclosed by the bill, was a fraud and breach of trust which calls for the interference of a court of equity; that the bill is not bad for multifariousness, and as it contains matters showing fraud and breach of trust, it can properly be met only by answer.

For these reasons, the decree and order of the court below sustaining the demurrer, dismissing the bill and awarding damages, will be reversed and the cause remanded, with directions to that court to overrule the demurrer and permit the defendants to answer.

Decree reversed.

1. SHERIFF'S SALE—voidable-adjourned. A sheriff, after giving the requisite notice of time and place of the sale of land, under an execution, and on the day named in the notice, at the request of plaintiff's attorney, adjourned the sale for one day, when the property was offered and bid in by the plaintiff in execution, and after receiving a deed, the land was sold to third persons, and by mesne conveyances came to defendant: Held, that such an adjournment did not render the sale void, but voidable by appropriate proceedings commenced in apt time.

2. SAME ratification-waiver of irregularities.

The acquiescence in

such a sale, by the defendant in execution, for about seven years, must be regarded as a ratification of the irregularity in the sale, and the heirs of the defendant in execution can not take advantage of the non-compliance with the statute in making the sale. Nor can such an irregularity be urged in a collateral proceeding.

3. This irregularity, like the failure to sell in smaller tracts when land is susceptible of division, or selling the land on which the debtor resides before his other lands have been sold, may be waived by the execution debtor.

4. SAME-return of sale not essential. It is not necessary to the validity of the sale of real estate, that the officer should make a return of the sale on the execution. The law does not require it. The purchaser may rely upon the judgment, the execution and the sheriff's deed. His title will not be affected by an imperfect return, or the want of a return. The deed is evidence that the law has been complied with, until the contrary is shown. The cases of Thornton v. Boyden, 31 Ill. 200, and Botsford v. O'Conner, 57 Ill. 72, considered and limited.

5. CERTIFICATE of register of land office-title subject to levy and sale. The certificate of the register of the United States land office, of the entry of land, confers such a title on the purchaser as may be levied upon and sold under attachment or execution. Although he may not technically own the fee, he has such a title as is liable to such a sale.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Cook county; the Hon. JOHN G. ROGERS, Judge, presiding.

This was an action of ejectment, brought by Thomas A. Jackson, Jonathan Jackson, Oliver Jackson and Mary Jackson Griener, in the circuit court of Cook county, against