a reference is made to the former folium, where is also a reference to the new one, so that at all times the exact status of the title can be determined at a glance. While the first expense of the registration may be more than under the present system, thereafter it will be much less.

To secure the entry upon a folium of the register of land titles of the name of the owner of the fee simple of a tract of land, accurately bounded and described, with memorials thereon entered of all lesser estates, liens, encumbrances and charges, and the instruments creating the same filed with or recorded by the recorder, and thus establishing an indefeasible title free from all estates, liens and charges not so noted, is the aim of the Torrens system; this, as passed, the bill prepared by the commission insures to all owners in fee simple of land within the State of Ohio who accept its provisions and register their land.

The commission also prepared a joint resolution requesting the Senators and representatives from Ohio to secure the passage, by Congress of an Act requiring memorials of all judgments and decrees affecting registered land to be entered as memorials, and also all penalties and assessments under the laws of the United States to be so entered. If such an Act is passed by Congress, in one office and on one folium of the register of land titles, one can ascertain the exact condition of any tract of registered land.

This system is not an experiment; it has been tried and fully tested. The bill as passed, I doubt not, will be followed in other States, and ere long we shall have uniformity of laws in dealing with real estate. This of itself is of importance sufficient to the passage of the bill. I have thus briefly given the main features of the Torrens system and its mode of operation. The bill passed will be accessible to all and can be studied.

No measure before the General Assembly received the attention that was given this bill. No other so surely will benefit the people. It assures to the owners of land in Ohio confidence in their titles and a convenient and cheap method of transfering and dealing with their lands. It will save to them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

IN

CENTRAL OHIO FORTY YEARS AGO.

BY MARTIN WELKER, RETIRED U. S. JUDGE.

III.

N the summer of 1851, there was held on the Butler farm on the Walhonding, in Coshocton county, a so-called horse fair, at which there were horse racing for three or four days. In those times these races attracted large crowds of people, and constituted a very popular

amusement.

These races were all running races from one to three miles, two best out of three heats winning the purse. There were then no trotting

races.

I attended this fair, taking with me a race mare I thought was fast, and entered her in one of the races. My mare came out second best, so I lost the race.

The same day a Mr. Borden, who had ridden my mare in the race, made a bet for a half-mile race of his horse matched with another horse, but did not have money enough to put up, and asked me to put in part of the bet, which I did. The race was lost by Mr. Borden and our money was gone.

That fall I was nominated and elected Common Pleas Judge, and in the spring went to Coshocton to hold court. I found on calling the docket a case of the State of Ohio vs. Benjamin Borden for betting on a horse race, the indictment having been found by the grand jury at the previous fall term.

I supposed of course it was our Butler race, so I concluded I would have Mr. Borden plead guilty, and would assess the regular fine and pay half of it myself to avoid a trial, as it would appear that I had made part of the bet.

But the prosecuting attorney stated that he had issued a warrant for Mr. Borden, and the sheriff had returned not found, and he supposed he had left the country, and if the court would allow him he would enter a nolle to the indictment. I said "certainly if you think it best," and it was so entered. It turned out that Mr. Borden had not left the country, but had secreted himself to avoid arrest until he could confer with me to keep me from being mixed up in the bet and race.

At the same term of the court, one Joe Butler, who kept a tavern in the village of New Castle, wanted his license renewed for another year. Under the law then every tavern-keeper had to obtain a license from the court of common pleas of the county, to do so, and this license also allowed him to sell intoxicating liquors in the tavern. Το obtain such license he had to prove by two witnesses, that he was a man

of good moral character, had suitable accommodations, was a suitable man to keep it, and that a tavern was necessary at the place for the accommodation of the public.

Butler was a rollicking, whisky drinking, swearing sort of a man, but withal a popular fellow, and he had a good wife who really kept the tavern.

He had his two witnesses in court, but did not know what he had to prove. So I examined the witnesses, who swore to the affirmative of all necessary to be proven, and I ordered the renewal of the license.

In going to dinner at noon adjournment, Joe came to me and said, "I wouldn't have sworn as them fellers had about my character, for the best horse I ever owned." I told him I of course knew all about him, but in court we settle things according to the evidence.

At another term, on application of a young lawyer in one of the villages, I allowed a writ of habeas corpus, to bring into court a man in jail on a commitment from a justice of the peace. On the hearing I examined the cause of caption and detention, and found the papers all right and remanded him to jail. The attorney did not say anything on the hearing, but as we went to dinner, he said he thought a habeas corpus always released a prisoner. I explained the proceedings to him, which he no doubt remembered for a long while.

Under the Constitution, the legislature had passed a severe law to provide against the evils resulting from the sale of intoxicating liquors. At the first term held in Holmes county after the passage of the law, I charged the grand jury specially upon the law. Several complaints were made to the jury, and witnesses examined showing many violations of the law. But the grand jury refused to find any indictments, holding the law unconstitutional.

The following term I took occasion to say to the grand jury that they were not the tribunal to decide whether the law was constitutional or not, but that question must be left to the courts of the State. So no grand jury afterwards raised the constitutional question on the violation of the liquor law in that county.

Western Reserve Law Journal.

Published Monthly during the Academic Year, at the Law School of Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.

THE expert as a witness was first introduced about five hundred years ago, when upon the theory that the court was not "above being instructed and made wiser by him," persons specially learned were called in to discourse upon subjects to which their knowledge and skill peculiarly adapted them.

However important this species of testimony may have become, it is held in disfavor by some of our most learned judges and writers.

"It is often surprising to see with what facility and to what extent their (skilled witnesses) views can be made to correspond with the wishes or interests of the parties who call them ***** Being zealous partisans their belief becomes synonomous with faith as defined by the apostle and it too often is but "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Taylor on Evidence § 58.) See also Best on Ev. § 514.

Redfield on Wills Vol. 1 p. 103, speaks of Medical experts as hired advocates and their testimony as nothing more that a studied argument in favor of the side for which they have been called.

Prof. Ordronaux in Am. Jour. of Insanity Jan. 1874 says: "The calling of experts has now come to be regarded as the signal for a display of forensic pyrotechnics beneath whose smoke and lurid glare, law, common sense, and unalloyed justice are swept away in a whirlwind of muddy metaphysics. It should never be forgotten that the calling of an expert to pass upon the merits of the issue joined is an open confession of its incomprehensibility to a jury."

“They are designated as men who seem to regard their line of duty as lying in the direction of the success of the one who employed them, rather than the discovery and establishment of truth." Prof. Washburn in Am. Law. Review Vol. 1 p. 45.

And this as a rule seems to be the consensus of opinion among not a few of our eminently able writers upon the subject. It is unreliable in many instances and therefore unsafe to the same extent. In many cases it is tedious, taking up valuable time and incurring enormous expense. Such evidence as to handwriting is entitled to very little weight and often none at all. In general it is very unsatisfactory and while we admit this species of testimony is a necessary adjunct to the proper administration of justice and it has come to stay, it must be evident to the casual observer that some improvement in this direction is needed. We must have the aid of testimony of men skilled in science, art, mechanics, medicine, and many other fields of human effort. But some practical plan should be evolved in order that the best results possible may be reached in the use and application of this kind of testimony, or else the administration of justice in this respect will degenerate into a roaring farce.

"Expert testimony should be the colorless light of science brought to bear upon any case where it is summoned. It should be impartial, unprejudiced. There should be no half truths uttered, and the suppression of the whole truth is in the nature of false testimony.”

WHILE all classes and professions are affected by the laws, the legal profession is the one most intimately connected therewith, and should therefore feel deep concern regarding not only the laws at present in force, but also regarding the measures about to be enacted into laws. This concern should extend to the body in whom is reposed the power of enacting new, and altering existing laws.—The Legistature. As the profession in its sphere of work comes in contact, and has to do with all laws, both of substantive and of procedure, it should take an active interest in all measures, whether substantive or of procedure.

measure.

The importance of the sphere occupied by the legislature is not realized at the present day. Within its constitutional limits it is It is the sole judge of the necessity, merit, or justice of a As regards these phases of a subject, the judiciary is powerless to interfere. The judiciary cannot change existing laws. They can only put the best interpretation possible on those laws. Reform and advancement in the law, coming through the judiciary must therefore be slow, irregular, and unsatisfactory. The only true method is to have the fountain from which the law emanates, pure, and not attempt to purify the polluted stream by means of a judicial filter.