equitable, but it descends to and vests in the heirs at once upon the death of the ancestor. The administrator has neither control over nor concern with the real estate, but becomes invested by the statute only with a mere naked power to apply to a court for and obtain leave to sell the same in case the personal estate is insufficient to pay debts. The heirs hold title in their own right, subject only to the payment of the debts of their an cestor in the particular mode prescribed by law and for the purpose prescribed and may sell and convey their title without hindrance. Hall v. Irwin, 2 Gilman, 176; Smith v. McConnell, 17 Ill. 135, 63 Am. Dec. 340; Walbridge v. Day, 31 Ill. 379. 83 Am. Dec. 227; Phelps v. Funkhouser, 39 Ill. 401; Le Moyne v. Quimby, 70 Ill. 399; Beebee v. Saulter, 87 Ill. 518; Ryan v. Duncan, 88 Ill. 144; Gammon v. Gammon, 153 Ill. 41, 38 N. E. 890; Noe v. Moutray, 170 Ill. 169. 48 NE. E. 709; Burr v. Bloemer, 174 Ill. 638, 51 N. E. 821. Section 7 attempts to authorize executors and administrators, although they have no title to or control over real estate of the decedent, to apply for registering the title of the heirs and to make any heir who does not choose to join in the application a defendant and compel the registration of his title against his will. While an administrator has the title to the personal estate, he has only a right to apply it to the payment of debt and expenses of administration, and the residue belongs to the heirs at law; but the act permits an administrator or executor to expend personal estate belonging to the heirs for the employment of an attorney and payment of the costs of the proceeding, which are to be paid by the applicant. The proceeding is in equity, and there may be a void tax, claims, or other invalid charges against the land, and against them an owner may rest in security because they cannot be enforced against his property; but upon an application to register title the applicant must offer to, and the court will compel him to, reimburse the claimant. Gage v. Consumers' Electric Light Co., 194 Ill. 30, 64 N. E. 653; Harts v. Glos, 279 Ill. 485, 117 N. E. 68. The act would permit an administrator or executor to compel the heir at law to pay claims against which he would have a perfect legal defense. By the act money belonging to an heir at law may be taken from him and he made a defendant and subjected to trouble and expense for registering his title against his will.

It is not essential to the title of an heir at law that there should be any administration of the estate of the ancestor, and the act discriminates, without any reason, between heirs at law where there is administration and where there is not administration. Such a classification has no rational or reasonable relation to any conceivable purpose of the act. If the registration of the title of heirs at law is required in the public interest, the requirement applies equally to all heirs, and not to those alone, where there is administration of the estate of the ancestor.

The act requires trustees holding title or power of sale under wills to apply for registration adversely to the beneficial owner, while trustees holding title or power of sale under conveyances, settlements, or any other instrument by which a trust may be created are exempt from the obligation, and there is no reason why an act should apply to one and not to the other.

The act provides that the probate court may excuse registration if it shall appear to be a hardship, and, whether such authority can be given to a probate court by which a law is to be enforced as to one person and not as to another, the act furnishes no standard for determining what shall be a hardship. There can be no hardship There can be no hardship, in a financial sense, to an administrator, executor, or trustee if he has money belonging to the heirs above the payment of debts and expenses of administration of the estate or the trust; and, if the act contemplates an excuse where a hardship is on the owner of the land, the applicant to the probate court does not represent him, and he has no hearing, but is condemned without any opportunity to be heard.

It was said in People v. Simon, 176 Ill. 165, 52 N. E, 910, 44 L. R. A.

801, 68 Am. St. Rep. 175, which did not involve the question in any way, that the court saw no reason why the law might not make it compulsory to transfer real estate in the way contemplated by the act which was amended; but, if that is true, the General Assembly has made no provision that the title to real estate cannot be transferred except where it is first registered and then transferred in accordance with the act, but by this act an attempt is made to compel registration as to some owners and not as to others and without any regard whatever to allienation by the owner. The right or privilege of acquiring property by descent or devise is conferred by the statute, and inheritance taxes are sustained on the ground that the General Assembly may either deny the privilege entirely or prescribe the terms of its exercise. But this act does not prescribe the terms upon which property may be acquired by descent or devise, and, if it did, the act would still be invalid because it discriminates between different persons acquiring title by descent or devise and imposes the burden only in cases where there is administration.

The act is in violation of rights secured to the citizen by section 2 of article 2 of the Constitution, which provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Under that section of the Bill of Rights, neither the person nor property of an individual can be subjected to any liability or burden except by a law which operates equally upon all other persons in the same situation. Every one has a right to demand that he be governed by general rules, and a special statute which without his consent singles him or his property out to be regulated by a different law that that which is applied in all similar cases is prohibited by the Constitution. Lippman v. People, 175 III. 101, 51 N. E. 872; Bailey v. People, 190 III. 28, 60 N. E. 98, 54 L. R. A. 838, 83 Am. St. Rep. 116; Mathews v. People 202 Ill. 389, 67 N. E. 28, 63 L. R. A. 73, 95 Am. St. Rep. 241; Starne v. People, 222 III. 189, 78 N. E. 61, 113 Am. St. Rep. 389; City of Chicago v. Wells, 236, Ill. 129, 86 N. E. 197, 23 L. R. A. (N. S.) 405, 127 Am. St. Rep. 282; People v. Schenck, 257 Ill. 384, 100 N. E. 994, 44 L. R.A. (N. S.) 46, Ann. Cas. 1914A,,1129.

By what process a court, on an application by an administrator, executor, or trustee to register title, can compel an objecting defendant to reimburse the holders of stale and void claims against which he has a perfect defense, is not apparent; but, if the applicant is to make such an offer to be required to reimburse the claimant, it must be for money belonging to the owner, and the Constitution does not permit such an invasion of private right. If the administrator seeks to be excused so that the law may not apply to him, the real party in interest has no hearing and is deprived of his property without process of law. For every reason specified above, the act is unconstitutional and void.

The decree in the case of Anderson v. Shepard is reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to grant the relief prayed for in the bill, and the decree in the case of Mason v. Loranger is reversed.

Decrees reversed.

A TORRENS TITLE LESSON

Hon. Walter R. Taylor of Kalamazoo, Michigan, one of the ablest and best known abstracters in this country, has prepared for distribution a "Torrens Primer" and also a little phamplet showing the after effects of the Torrens system on the question of Adverse Possession. These carefully compiled statements of fact and of law should be read by every property owner. Senator Taylor's answers to questions affecting property ownership constitute an authority which cannot be laughed or argued out of the great court of Common Sense. The two pamphlets are here reproduced.

What is a Registered Land Title or Torrens Title?

Answer. A title which has been "registered" by an official called a Registrar as being vested in a certain person or persons, subject to whatever encumbrance is thereon.

Question 2. On what authority does the Registrar register a title? A. In monarchial countries without constitutional limitations it may be registered on any proof satisfactory to the Registrar. In America, any legal registration must follow the decree of a court record, made after due notice to all interested persons.

Q. 3. Could not full power to determine the title be conferred on the Registrar in this country, by act of the legislature?

A. No. This was attempted in Ohio and Illinois, where it was held that judicial questions cannt be transferred from the courts elsewhere.

IQ. 4. Why is a registered title commonly called a "Torrens Title”? A. After Robert Torrens, who introduced the system into Australia in 1858 to remedy chaotic conditions caused by a lack of such records as we have under our American system.

Q. 5. Did he claim the Torrens system to be superior to the American land title system?

A. There is no such record that he ever made such a claim, or that the Torrens system was based upon any study of or comparison with the American system.

Q. 6. Did a registered title originate with Robert Torrens?

A. No. It was its first adaptation to an English speaking country, but it has been the prevailing system for a century or more in a few countries such as Germany and Austria-Hungary, where a personal sovereign and his agents have arbitrary, autocratic powers to give and take away.

Q. 7. Why is the system in common use here called the American system?

A. It has features distinct from those of any country, and is based on the simple but complete tenure of title under which lands are uniformly held in this country.

Q. 8.

Has the American recording system been successful?

A. In no other country is land transferred to easily and frequently

or with such sense of security, and under this system land values in the United States have increased more rapidly than has ever been known elsewhere.

Q. 9. What are the principal features of the American system?

A. Free public records, the doctrine of constructive notice, providing absolute protection not only to all owners but to those who propose to buy land or lend money on it, and the doctrine of adverse possession.

Q. 10. Is the doctrine of adverse possession of recognized value? A. Its benefits have been recognized and approved by every civiliza. tion for ages. In addition to being a bulwark in the common law adopted from England, it has been extended and fortified by statutes in every American state.

Q. 11. What are the benefits of possessory laws?

A. After a moderate term of years, fixed by statute in each state, open, adverse and continuous possession makes a title which cannot be overcome by claims based on records and surveys. Abandoned lands are thus made useful, millions of boundary disputes and errors in deeds are äisposed of without resort to the courts, and litigation in land titles is becoming almost unknown.

Q. 12. Are the rights of possession recognized under the Torrens system? A. No. It is the aim to make Torrens titles absolutely conclusive and final as registered, and all Torrens laws declare that no amount of adverse possession will be permitted to defeat a registered title.

Q. 13. How are Torrens titles evidenced?

A. By a certificate in the possession of the registrar and a duplicate certificate which may be issued to the owner.

Q. 14. What superiority over our recording system is claimed for the Torrens system?

A. That it simplifies transfers and makes titles positive where now they are doubtful and unsafe; that such delays and expenses as are now experienced with abstracts and opinions on them will disappear, and that no need for investigation of title will remain.

Q. 15. Has experience with the Torrens system in this country verified those claims, or otherwise?

A. Every one has been disproved, exactly the opposite conditions has developed and new burdens have been added without removing any which exist.

Q. 16. Are titles under our present system in fact "doubtful and unsafe"? A. Not with ordinary prudence. In recent years much attention has been paid to making bad titles good and keeping good ones so. No one ever loses on account of title, under our present system, unless because of his own gross carelessness.

Q. 17. What are among the principal objections to a Torrens system? A. It takes away valuable rights and imposes severe burdens, without conferring any benefits, and increases cost, confusion, delay and uncertainty in the transfer of land.

Q. 18. Is not a certificate of title, conclusive without further investigation, of real benefit?

A. In many cases Torrens certificates are not dependable, and so cannot safely be accepted in any case without investigation.

Q. 19. What are some instances where a Torrens certificate is not dependable?

A. In case the Registrar in issuing it has overstepped his limited powers, also there are exceptions in every Torrens law as to which it is not conclusive, and every such law provides a period, usually two years, after every court proceeding when the title is open to attack. When the same land is described in two certificates, as sometimes happens, neither can be conclusive, of course, nor can any certificate be conclusive if the court did not have jurisdiction of the parties.

Q. 20. What is meant by jurisdiction of the parties?

A. Our Federal and State constitutions provide that no one may be deprived of liberty or property without due process of law, and the Supreme Courts of the United States and of many states have held that if one who might have been made a defendant by name is only notified by a published notice" to all whom it may concern”, the court does not require any jurisdiction over him or his rights.

Q. 21. What need for investigation then is removed by a Torrens title? A. None whatever. Prudence requires investigation of the proceedings to register the title, and of its entire history before and after that time, with even more care than now, for the certificate is to be the sole dependence. Adverse possession cannot be asserted if it conflicts with another certificate.

Q. 22. Do Torrens laws provide any relief for those whose lands are wrongfully registered in the name of another?

A. Yes, by an assurance fund to which every registered owner is compelled to pay a percentage of the value of the land, on the initial registration, and in certain cases thereafter.

Q. 23. How does a man benefit by making this payment if his title was perfect and entitled to registration?

A. He does not. Neither is the man reimbursed who loses his land unless he finds out what has happened and brings his action within the time limit fixed by the law. The real beneficiaries of the fund are the rogues who by means of such a law are able to get title to land which they do not own. Q. 24.

Do Torrens laws afford an opening for real estate crooks?

A. A very inviting one. Numerous supreme court cases attest to this. In Baart x. Martin, 99 Minn. 197, the Supreme Court in annulling a Torrens certificate said: "No public policy requires that such a title be indefeasible, or that so tempting a reward be offered for the stealing of land under the forms of law."

Q. 25. What are some of the "valuable rights" which it is said in Answer No. 17 that Torrens laws attempt to take away?

A. The right to acquire and perfect title by adverse possession, the right to notice that one's land is claimed by another, the right to keep property lawfully owned instead of being forced to bring action against an