David E. Spencer, A. B., Instructor in History, University of Wisconsin. (Price, 25 cents.) Baltimore: Publication Agency of the Johns Hopkins University, January, February and March, 1890.

In view of the enormous amount of theorizing and political dogmatism that has been indulged in regarding the precise manner of the origin of the American State and its significance for the interpretation of the Constitution, President Small has done the public a service in laying before it the "documents in the case." The present number gives the documentary history, drawn largely from the Congressional journals, of the Congresses of 1774 and 1775, and their relations with the colonies.

In Mr. Spencer's brief paper the Johns Hopkins investigations in local government are carried into a Western State which is of especial importance to a student of the subject because, as he remarks, "the three general types of local government in the United States, the town, the county, and the mixed system, have contended for the mastery on its soil."

THE GENERAL DIGEST ANNUAL. Vol. IV. Year Ending September, 1889, Covering

the Court Calendar Year. Rochester: Lawyers' Coöperative Publishing Co. This Digest undoubtedly has many points of superiority to other similar compilations, which lack of space prevents us from dwelling upon. Not the least of these is the fact that its price is but six dollars, as against the usual ten dollars of volumes of its size. It may also be noticed that it contains mention of English and Canadian cases that have a bearing upon American law; further, that in each case we have a precise statement of the principle of law decided, not as is usual in such works, a bare summary of the facts and the opinion, leaving us to grope in the dark for the actual point involved.

We take pleasure in acknowledging the receipt of the "Third Annual Report of the Inter-State Commerce Commission," published in December, 1889.

TO BE REVIEWED. PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. By Joseph Henry Crooker. Boston: George H.

Ellis.

PRINCIPLES OF PROCEDURE IN DELIBERATIVE BODIES. By George Glover Crocker. G. P. Putnam's Sons.

The New York Act presents the elements of priority which have been traced in the doctrine of priorities administered by the Court of Chancery. A prior conveyance becomes absolute and indefeasible if recorded before the record of a subsequent conveyance. This conveyance may be a voluntary one, for while the English courts have held a conveyance made without consideration to be a fraudulent conveyance under Statute 27 Elizabeth Ch. IV., this construction has been expressly changed in New York by a statutory provision that no conveyance or charge shall be adjudged fraudulent as against creditors or purchasers solely on the ground that it was not founded on a valuable consideration. (Rev. Stat. II., p. 137, 4; Ring vs. Steele, 4 Abb., Ct. of App., p. 68.) The first purchaser may leave his deed unrecorded until he has knowledge of a subsequent conveyance taken in good faith for a valuable consideration, provided that this omission on his part is not fraudulent; and if he then succeeds in putting his deed on record

first, he will have the better title. The second purchaser can therefore protect himself only by recording his conveyance immediately.

While thus the record gives the first purchaser all the rights and more than the rights of the holder of the legal estate at common law, the second purchaser has only an inferior equity, and-apart from the record-can prevail only by showing a valuable consideration, and want of notice. Provided that both these elements are present, he can obtain priority by first recording his conveyance. The first conveyance can therefore be defeated only before it is recorded, and then only be a conjunction of prior record and valuable consideration and want of notice.

The second conveyance may have been first recorded and made for a valuable consideration, or it may have been first recorded and taken without notice of a prior conveyance; yet, if there is in the first case notice of a prior conveyance, or if in the second case there is no valuable consideration, the first purchaser may

still defeat the second, recorded, conveyance by putting his deed on record. If, however, before he does so, the second purchaser makes a further conveyance to one without notice and for a valuable consideration, and this second conveyance is put on record first, the first unrecorded conveyance is finally defeated, for the statute protects any subsequent purchaser, and does not confine itself in terms to the second purchaser who takes from the original grantor immediately. This view of the law is abundantly confirmed by authority. (Varick vs. Briggs, 6 Paige, 323; Jackson vs. Given, 8 Johns, 137; Wood vs. Chapin, 13 N. Y., 509; Schafer vs. Reilly, 50 N. Y., 61.) It would seem. to lead to the logical conclusion that the first combination of prior record, want of notice, and valuable consideration in the junior claim would defeat the prior conveyance, so that this effect will also result from the record of the deed of a grantee under a subsequent conveyance which itself is not recorded (so held in Wood vs. Chapin, 13 N. Y., 509). In other words the junior claims need not be perfect of record as against a prior conveyance, while, as we shall see presently, the want of record of the first link in any chain may be fatal to that chain as against any subsequent recorded conveyance derived from the same common source.

The influence of equitable doctrines is especially strong in the recognition of notice as one of the elements which vitiate the conveyance of the second purchaser. The statute, it is true, speaks only of a purchaser in good faith, but this has always been construed to mean a purchaser without notice of a prior conveyance. (Dunham vs. Dey, 15 Johns, 568; Raynor vs. Wilson, 6 Hill, 469.) It is easy to imagine cases where a purchaser may have notice of a prior conveyance and yet act

in good faith, as where the intention was to consider the unrecorded deed as a nullity. And yet it has been held in a case where the prior deed had been destroyed deliberately, that the title under it would not be avoided except by reconveyance, and that the second purchaser, with notice of its existence, was not protected by the Recording Act. (Raynor vs. Wilson, 6 Hill, 469.)

The accepted construction of the statute seems, moreover, open to criticism where there is no notice in fact of a prior deed, but the premises are held in adverse possession. Such a possession, it is said, is constructive notice of some claim; that is, it raises a presumption which cannot be rebutted, it is a fact equivalent to notice. It is clear, however, that such constructive notice is perfectly consistent with good faith, especially where, as in most cases, the nature of the possession, whether adverse or not, does not readily appear. The earlier cases in which the doctrine of constructive notice is strictly applied to subsequent purchasers (Grimstone vs. Carter, 3 Pri., 421, 437; Tuttle vs. Jackson, 6 Wend., 213) have therefore been considerably modified by more recent decisions. (Raynor vs. Timerson, 54 N. Y., 639; Cook vs. Traus, 20 N. Y., 400, 402; Brown vs. Volkening, 64 N. Y., 76.)

While our Recording Act preserves the full effect of notice as recognized by equity jurisprudence, so on the other hand want of notice enjoys a similar protection even where not directly covered by the requirement of record. It is on this ground that the statute provides that implied and resulting trusts shall not affect subsequent purchasers without notice, and the whole Statute of Uses and Trusts manifests the policy of removing and rendering inoperative latent and unexpressed interests.