SOUTHERN STORIES

JUST LIKE THE DOCTOR.

While sea-fishing with a friend off Osprey Florida, Dr. Marshall D. Ewell, the noted hand writing expert of Chicago, lost his sinker.. Rather than cut the day's fishing short, he hit upon the happy idea of utilizing his flask which unfortunately was found to be empty. The bottle was filled with water, carefully corked, and sent down on its mission. A few minutes later the doctor was lucky enough to pull up a pair of whiting, one on each hook.

"Ha, doctor!" exclaimed the companion; "twins this time!"

"Yes," replied the doctor, with a smile, "and brought up on the bottle, too!"

THE SPIRIT OF 1861.

He came from the mountains of Kentucky to say "God Bless you!" to his son soon to sail for France with his regiment. He wore a Confederate button and was dressed in the old time grey.

"I fit for the cause in 62 under the 'Stars and Bars' he said to the youth-a strapping six footer. "Now your going to fight for the Star Spangled Banner. When you get a chance at a German go at him just as you would if he were a revenue spotter."

AN INJUDICIOUS KNOCK.

"You can knock a thing in such a way as to boost it," said Attorney General Gregory in an address in Washington. "Injudicious orators often make this mistake.

"Perhaps you've hear of the revivalist who shouted:

""I tell you, friends, hell contains nothing but chorus girls, cocktails and roulette wheels'

Thereupon a young man in a back seat yelled: ""Oh, death, where is thy sting?"

VERY LIKELY NOT.

During a trial in a Texas Court an attorney asked a witness: "Was it the defendant's habit to talk to himself when alone.

After deep study for several moments the witness cautiously replied. "Ah can't recall ever being with him when he was alone."

DONT WANT TO LOSE HIM.

"Aftah we's married we'll hab chicken fo' dinnah ebery day

deary."

sure

"Oh you honey! But I wouldn't let you run no sesh risk jes' fo' mah sake. No I don't want 'a lose you."

A GOOD GUESS.

"The slimmest show I ever had of getting a fee" said a Gulfport Mississippi lawyer to a New Orleans brother practitioner "was when a client had no other assets than a watch without any works in it."

"I suppose you took the case?" commented the Louisianaian,

A SUCCESS RECIPE.

The late Senator James of Kentucky, though he hailed from a state famous for its whisky, was an ardent advocate of temperance.

A young Louisville grocer once asked Senator James a recipe for

success.

"Temperance is the best recipe I know of," he answered. screws have sunk more people than cork jackets will ever save."

"Cork

A FITTING REPLY.

It is said that while Dr. Marshall D. Ewell, the famous handwriting expert was reading law he was asked:

"How would you discover a fool?"

"By the questions he would ask" was the immediate response and we opine Dr. Ewell was correct.

KNEW THE JUDGE.

The prisoner faced the judge in a New Orleans Court:

"How many times have you been here before?"

"Never sir," answered the man.

"But your face is so familiar,"

"I tend bar across the street from the St. Charles, Sir," replied the prisoner.

SURE HE KNEW HIM.

He was one of those smart men who hang around in front of the Grunewald Hotel on Baronne street, who like to show their cleverness.

"Watch me take a rise out of him," he said, as the tramp approached. Then he listened solemnly to the tale of hard luck.

"That's the same old story you told me the last time you accosted me,”

he said, when the vagrant had finished.

"Is it?" was the answering question. "When did I tell it you?" "Last week."

"Mebbe I did, mebbe I did," admitted the tramp. "I'd forgotten seeing you then. I was in the Parish Prison all last week."

ABSTRACTING AS APPLIED TO PERSONALTY.

A nation-wide campaign has been undertaken by the Automobile Abstract and Title Company, with executive offices at Detroit, Michigan, whereby it is planned to issue an abstract of title in book form to the owner of each and every automobile throughout the United States.

This abstract is in itself an absolute insurance, a guaranty and proof of title which goes along with the automobile, and which should be required with its purchase the same as the purchaser of real estate demands with his deed.

The plan seems to be feasible. It will reduce the "stolen car industry" to a minimum. It will safeguard the enormous investments in automobiles, and contains precautions rendering it impossible to forge the abstract or evade the provisions of the scheme. If carried out to its logical conclusion, the abstracting and title company will be an aid to the States' license bureaus as well as to the police department. The claims of the inventor for which patents and copyrights have been issued, are certainly original. We cannot see where there is anything new in the plan, save that it applies to automobiles in the same sense as abstracting and title insurance now covers the protection of titles to real property. The abstract issued by the Detroit company gives in detail a history of the title to the automobile, and its perfect description. Land abstracts give the history of titles to property, and its location. Therein is the only difference.

TEXAS ABSTRACTERS IN ACTION.

The Executive Committee of the Texas Abstracters Association met in Dallas, January 6th, 1919, and attended to the general business coming before it. Among other things it was voted that the Executive Committee be specifically empowered to oppose any bill that might be introduced in the coming legislature inimical to abstract business.

A letter was read from Hon. Chas. A. Leddy of the Federal Land Bank at Houston Texas, in which he insisted upon a bond for the abstracters, and asked the assistance of the abstracters of Texas in its passage. It was voted to ask Mr. Leddy to submit a copy of the bond to the Executive committee for suggestions. Mr. Leddy states that a bonding feature is all that he thinks necessary at the present time. We feel sure that most of the abstracters feel themselves duty bound to make good any loss their clients may suffer by reason of their abstracts and will not object to a reasonable bond.

It was voted to have the 1919 annual meeting in Waco, some time during the month of June. Let every one begin to make preparation to attend the annual convention.

FEDERAL FARM LOAN BONDS.

Federal farm loan bonds may now be bought from each of the 12 land banks under a new treasury policy ordered by Secretary Glass modifying the former plan by which farm loan bonds were to be absorbed by the treasury until after all Liberty loans were floated.

About $1,500,000 worth of these bonds have been sold by federal land banks since January 1, when the new policy was adopted.

The bonds bear 4 1-2 per cent interest, sell at one-half per cent above par, and are exempt from federal taxes.

Since November 1, the treasury has absorbed $9,500,000 of farm loan bonds.

The Farm Mortgage Bankers' Association of America seems to be getting excited because a few wealthy investors have bought up several million dollars' worth of Federal Farm Loan Bonds and sent the value of these bonds up to 105, or $1,050 for a thousand dollar bond. This active demand for Farm Loan Bonds is due to the fact that income from them is not taxable. The Bankers' Association claims that the movement is tying up money needed for other purposes, and they urge that immediate steps be taken to make the income from these bonds subject to taxation.

We wish we could feel assured that this association, whose members compete with the Government in loaning money to the farmer, is entirely disinterested in its zeal in this matter. These bankers know, even better than most people, that in the long run it is the borrower who pays the taexs on income from securities of all kinds, and in this case this means the farmer. The tax suggested would also make the bonds less desirable as investments.

Just at present the Government finds it necessary to raise so much money that there is little market except for government securities. The Government needs the money for prosecuting the war. But one of the direst needs of the world at the present juncture is food. The Allies are looking to us for greatly increased shipments of foodstauffs this year. This can not be produced by the American farmer unless he is adequately financed. The financing of our farms is therefore just as urgent a matter as the sale of bonds to provide ammunition. It is highly important that the most satisfactory means the farmer has yet found for obtaining credit should not be interfered with at the present time. If these Farm Loan Bonds were made less desirable Investments, the Government itself would have to take large amounts of them, as the law provides, and as actually happened before investors began to know their value. To do this it would be necessary to use funds obtained from other sources for this purpose. The matter is as broad as it is long. There is every reason why the Federal Farm Loan Bonds should remain, as they now are, one of the best and safest investments in the country.

FAVOR'S TITLE INSURANCE,

In a letter to The Editor written from Copenhagen, Denmark Mr. Adolph Kahn who represents a very large amount of Holland money placed on mortgage securities in the United States and Canada said:

There is one field which has hitherto been practically untouched by title companies, and which is capable of almost endless development. This line should not be only valuable to the title company, but of incalculable importance to the general investing public; that is, to educate the bond buyers to demand that bonds secured by real estate mortgages or deeds of trust have endorsed upon them a certificate from a reputable and reliable title insurance company that the mortgage or deed of trust is an absolutely first lien, or, if a junior encumbrance, then a statement of the exact standing of the lien.

Financial institutions, as well as individual investors, who, in so many cases, are widows and orphans, have been victimized out of millions and millions of dollars by having been persuaded to purchase so-called refunding bonds or general mortgage bonds, with no other thought but that they were a first lien, only to find out too late that they had merely purchased a second, third or fourth lien bond which had prior encumbrances far in excess of the actual value of the property.

I do not know of any more practical or valuable work which the Title Insurance men can take up than a campaign of educating the general public to what they have to offer them. There is a place for title insurance companies and a useful work for them to do in the complex machinery of modern businesss life.

Under date of August 17, 1918, Mr. Leonard G. Robinson, President of the Federal Land Bank at Springfield, Massachusetts, writes to the Editor:

"I want to congratulate you upon the very excellent article which appeared in the July-August number of the LAWYER AND BANKER, by such an authority as Mr. Henry Hall. I consider it one of the most lucid analyses of the investment market situation since our entry into the war. Mr. Hall's review of the Federal Farm Loan System and his discussion of the Farm Loan Bonds are especially illuminating."

CONTRAST AND COMPARISON.

In 1895 a book was issued by the Torrens Press of Chicago, Ill., edited and copyrighted by Thomas W. Yeakle, containing an essay explanatory of the Torrens systems, by Harvey B. Hurd, LL.B., then chairman of the Illinois Torrens Commission. Among the many subjects discussed we notice two which can be fairly answered at the present time. On page 34, this question is asked: "Whence comes opposition to the Torrens system?" A full page is devoted to the questioner's answer. Had he written in the light of today, the one