Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1892-03-06

of climate, soil, population and business
conditions such as complicate legislation
and tend to defeat the application of a uni
form system of laws, The writer does not
cOncede that the men who legislate for this
southwestern empire, and who so largely
shape Its public policies and control the
welfare of its people, should, as purely
business proposition, be in any sense or de-
gree inferior to those who, at $1,000 year,
serve In the halls of our national congress.
True, the nation is larger in extent and
population; but 1t is true also th1t in its
longer existence the adjustment of national
affairs and questions has become matter
much more definitely settled by experience
and precedent Even the blind can walk
in a well-beaten way.
Let US examine little into the nature
and character of this extensive litigation
now flooding the state. Before me lies
volume rs of the supreme court reports, is
sued last year. OF the 1876 cases reported
in it. forty-eight of them, or 35 per cent,
were suits for land; and twelve others in
volved material questions relating to land.
such as the enforcement of mortgage and
vendors liens, and the settlement of dis
puted claims of omesteads-nearly 80 per
cent of the cases affecting land. Then
twenty-six of the cases, or nearly 20 per
cent, are against railroads and their re-
ceivers; and the wide, general field Of
business and litigation gets only 81 per
cent OF the whole. In the Daily GAZETTE
now before me is synopsis of the de-
cisions, eleven in number, rendered in the
supreme court two days back. OF these
four are land suits, and another involves a
lien on land; three are railroad cases, and
only three, or % per cent, belong to the
field at large. If we go back a few years,
say to volume IS Of the reports, we find that
the proportion of land cases, though large
in that volume, has materially increased
since then. These figures and comparisons
sufficiently indicate the principal source Of
the trouble.
When a league of land was given for
pair of boots, it was a matter of little con-
Germ Just then what the law OF title was, or
in what shape tie allcade, or other officer,
fixed the papers; the value involved justi-
ned neither controversy nor expense. The
boots went; but the land remained-as also
the deficiencies in the paper that trans
ferred it. Now, after the lapse of more
than fifty years, the heirs of boots are COM
ing even from Greenland's icy mountains
and the remotest regions of the antipodes,
and are claiming the land also; and the law
of Texas, bristling with technicahtieS
thicker than autumn leaves in Vallambro
is giving it to them. The owners who have
paid taxes on it for nearly two generations
are unable to understand how it is that
technical defect in title, except in some
cases of actual possession, never dies, but
grows stronger with age, so that IS against
it the accumulated equities of half a GEN.
fury are but as the small dust in the bal
auce; nor how 1t is that none Of the pre-
sumptions and statutory rules OF law that
should heal the ravages of time can be
found to operate in their favor, or touch
this Texas situation. That is their misfor-
tune. After the intermediate court of ap-
peals, and then the supreme court
gets through with them, they will be much
heA
have profounder respect for technicalities
but they will not have TO pay any more
taxes on that land.
1t will be understood that the case of
Boots heirs involves only one phase of the
land laws of Texas and does not typify all
the features of the subject. In the swamps
of Arkansas the traveller is informed that
he may take either of two roads Heading to
a given place, and he will wish he had
taken the t'other-but comparisons with
Arkansas are o0ious. 1t is charged against
our laws of title-perhaps uniustly charged
that they are Of 4 hybrid Mexican stock
upon which has been engrafted much of
the technicalities Of the common law sys-
TEN, technicalities that have elsewhere
been largely swept away by statute, and
that in this age of uneXampled progress,
including ii its scope the reform of legal
systems, these laws of ours have for more
than quarter of century past witnessed
scarcely Il Siu946 improvement OF Q general
or material character. Whatever may be
the facts of the matter, it is evident that
complaint exists. since thousands of people
in the thousands of cases pending are put
ting up hundreds of dollars TO test the
questions involved.
1t is especially unfortunate for Texas that
this extensive litigation and these ques-
tions relate to her lands Not many wears
since Texas consisted entirely of land ct
pretoria nihil She has now far more land
than any other state in the Union, and she
is the only state that mas reserved her pub
lc domain from the general government
for her own use. With land she has built
her own capitol and subsidized her rail-
roads and is now proposing to educate all
her children-if people will only come and
bay them. Land is her principal asset, her
stock in trade, the basis of her credit, the
substratum of all her prosperity, the chief
inducement that she holds out to the world
for the labor and capital she needs. She
says 20 the toiling laborer in the pins bar
rens and the white sandIats OF the East:
'tCome; here are cheap and fertile lands
upon which you can build a desirable home,
q shelter for your wives and children and