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a title insurance company for a policy. In all such cases the registrant is required to comply with both systems of conveyancing. The costs are more than doubled. So great and vexatious were the troubles of the registrants that they made complaint to the Torrens title companies and their attorneys, and were solemnly promised full relief from the State Legislature in 1917.

Senate Bill No. 793 was introduced by Senator Brown making it a misdemeanor for any bank, loan company, mortgage company or other person to discriminate against Torrens certificates. This bill died in committee. New promises are made.

This survey shows a marked falling off in the Torrens activities in the nine counties, without exception. Even in Los Angeles County, which has proven to be the most fertile soil, the high water mark was reached in 1916, when the number of parcels in the petitions for registration averaged 198 per month. In 1917 this average fell to 187. It has now dropped to 176.

The Manager of the leading Torrens title company in Los Angeles informed the writer some months ago that his company lost $7,000 the first two years of its activities, and that the company had now established an Abstract and Escrow Department, and that it was now entering the field as an Abstract and Certificate Company, furnishing its clients whatever was demanded in the way of evidence of title.

FACT 9. Many errors have been made in registration decrees,— errors in vestings, in omitting valid liens, mortgages, trust deeds, and tax sales. Errors in descriptions are numerous.

CONCLUSION-The registration decree cannot be final, safe and sound, rendered largely in default cases, based wholly on the petition and testimony of the applicant. No abstract of the record title being furnished the court is wholly at the mercy of the applicant. There is no way to determine who the interested parties are that they may be served and brought under the jurisdiction of the court and their rights adjudicated.

Regardless of what we may think of the so-called Torrens system generally, we must conclude that the California law which throws no safe-guard about the Registration decree, upon which all subsequent Torrens Certificates are based, is unsound, unsafe and un-American, and will spell loss and disaster and litigation to those who accept and rely wholly on such evidences of title.

FIRST KNOWN PASSPORT.

Passports are of every ancient origin. The earliest of which there is record is one granted by Julius Caesar to a philosopher, and is worded as follows:

"If there be any one on land or sea hardy enough to molest Potaman, let him consider whether he be strong enough to wage war with Caesar."

Banking and Investment Field

The statement of the Hibernia Bank and Trust Co., of New Orleans of December 31, 1918, shows total resources $42,477,824.08. Undivided profits $102,010.21. 'Deposits of $29,504,381.13. Contrasting these figures in part with December 31, 1917, shows total resources then of $40,252,115.40. With deposits of $36,567,605.19. It cannot be charged that the dropping off in deposits from thirty six and a half million dollars in 1917 to twenty nine and a half million dollars in 1918 was occasioned by the war. Probably in the withdrawal of Mr. L. M. Poole, formerly of the Hibernia, and his starting of the Marine Bank & Trust Co., be found the solution.

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Total resources of $775,493,531.25 are shown by the financial statement of the Guaranty Trust Company of New York, as of December 31st, 1918, which has just been issued. Deposits on that date totalled $583,786,091.46.

Comparison of these figures with those of December 31st, 1917, shows an increase of $114,748,235.21, in resources, and of $49,504,115.96 in deposits.

In January, 1915, when Charles H. Sabin become President of the Guaranty Trust Company of New York, its total resources were somewhat over $269,000,000 and its total deposits a little over $211,000,000.

Robert F. Maddox, of Atlanta, Ga., president of the American Bankers Association, has just appointed a committee of fifteen prominent bankers to serve as a Committee on Commerce and Marine to further the interests of the merchant marine of the United States. The committee appointed carries out the action of the American Bankers Association taken at its recent Chicago convention, in which the Association pledged itself "to support by every means in its power the development of export trade, to encourage manufacturers to enter upon this field of distribution, and to provide as rapidly as possible adequate facilities for financing export operations sufficient to meet every reasonable demand that may arise."

John E. Bouden, Jr., vice-president of Whitney-Central Banks, New Orleans, is one of the committee members.

The Marine Bank and Trust Company, of New Orleans, which is less than a year old, is now doubling its capital stock, bringing its total to one million dollars.

Mr. L. M. Pool, president and founder of the institution, gave it the name "Marine Bank" because of his faith in New Orleans as a port.

The bank started with a capital of $400,000, and a surplus of $100,000. Deposits now are near seven million, and the increase in capital is made necessary by the remarkable business and patronage given it both by the marine interests, who have a tendency to favor it, as well as the general public.

A. B. A. COUNCIL TO MEET AT WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS.

The Executive Council of the American Bankers Association at its session held in Chicago, referred to the Administrative Committee full authority and power to decide on the time and the place for holding the spring meeting of the Executive Council. The Administrative Committee at its last meeting considered suggestions from various resorts and cities and finally decided that if satisfactory arrangements could be made, the spring meeting would go to the Greenbrier, White Sulphur Springs, W. Va.

General Secretary Farnsworth has just visited White Sulphur Springs and the management of the Greenbrier and the White hotels met every requirement as to desirable hotel accommodations, meeting rooms for the Council and the various committees, etc. These hotels are beautifully situated with picturesque surroundings; removed from business life and will be admirably adapted for meeting purposes. The dates selected are May 19, 20, and 21, 1919.

Frederick W. Hyde of Jamestown, N. Y., has been chosen secretary of the National Bank Section of the American Bankers Association, succeeding Jerome Thralls, who resigned to become secretary and treasurer of the Discount Corporation of New York. Mr. Hyde was the first President of the National Bank Section, serving from its organization in September, 1915 for the year 1915-16. He was formerly cashier of the National Chautauqua County Bank of Jamestown, and left that position some time ago to engage in business. He was a member of the Executive Council of the American Bankers Association for the three-year term 1912 to 1914.

BOOK REVIEWS

SINGER'S INTERNATIONAL LAW, is a work in one volume published by T. H. Flood and Company, 214 West Madison Street, Chicago, which every citizen who desires to follow intelligently the proceedings of the World's Peace Conference should have. It is a book of facts filled with historical information covering every feature of international law. There is hardly a question which can be asked arising out of the world's conflict, from the subject of citizenship to flags of truce that is not discussed in this work. The matter of extradition, the right of visit and search, suspension of intercourse, acquisition and loss of sovereignty are fully defined.

This book is handsomely printed, in flexible binding, and is sold at $2.50.

TITLE TO REAL PROPERTY, including the preparation and examination of abstracts with forms, by George W. Thompson, one volume, 1194 pages, price $7.50, published and for sale by The Bobbs-Merrill 'Company, Indianapolis, Indiana.

With the publication of this new work which is indeed the last word on all that pertains to the title to real property, by Mr. Thompson, all other works are relegated to the background. It may be fairly said that Mr. Thompson has compiled a complete handbook which the busy lawyer will find all that he requires in the examination of a title to real property. It is moreover a comprehensive and practical guide to the conveyancer and abstracter. Here will be found an epitomy of all the law applicable to title questions.

The author and his publishers are entitled to the thanks of the legal profession as well as the abstracting fraternity. The book should be in the office of every real estate dealer as well. The subjects treated cover every feature of the title world from abstracts in general down to the registration of title under the Torrens system. Here too will be found a digest of the statutes pertaining to the execution and acknowledgment of deeds, contracts to sell and convey real estate, liens and incumbrances; the writer has solved every question that is likely to arise concerning title to real property.

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Ex-Senator George F. Edmunds, for many years recognized as one of the country's foremost statesmen, and who recently passed to the Great Beyond, wrote the Editor some three months ago. Mr. Edmunds in his last years had more than prophetic vision. He said in his communication from Pasadena, Cal.:

My Dear Mr. George:

Your editorials greatly please me. You are doing a good work, which I trust may be continued. The United States needs an alarmist. The present administration is too much given to theory and has not enough of a scientific practical basis. I do not speak as a party man, but as a citizen who loves his country. Jefferson Davis was a theorist. General Lee was not. President Wilson can see rainbows where only clouds appear to men of the more practical type. Socialism is in the saddle. Can it be unhorsed short of

armed force? I do not know."

In an address by Hon. Rome G. Brown of Minneapolis, at St. Louis, that gentleman gave utterance to views along the same line as

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