The oasis., 1900-09-08
OBJECT LESSON IN SILVER.
Trouble Caused in Baltimore by a Contract
 Payable in the White Metal.

tered into the trial here Of exceptions filed by D. K Este Fisher to the sale of ground rents purchased by him. S- Tageart Steele advertised for sale, as trustee, number of ground rents and certain fee simple property. Among the ground rents was one of sl00 and one of sl09 Is. These rents were ad- vertised as rents of so many dollars. MT. Fisher bid at the sale S2625, or be- tween 3f and B per cent for the slO0 rent, and s2S00, CT about 3s per cent for the Sl09. Is rent, in the belief that they were payable in legal tender dol lars, without limitation as to the kind of money In which they were payable.
 When MT. Fisher had the title ex- amined. instead of finding that the rents were payable in dollars, as is usual in leases for ninety-nine years renewable forever, he found they were payable in s'lawful silver money of the United States. each dollar weighing seventeen. pennyweights and six grains at least" This formed the basis of the first and second grounds of excep- tion to the sale.
 The points of law made on these two exceptions by w. Cabell Bruce, attorney for MT. Fisher, were that persons attending a pubic auction sale of irredimable ground rents, made in pursuance of decree of a court Of equity, have right to assume that the rents offered are payable in the kind of money in which irredeemable ground rents are customarily reserved aud generally made payable in leases in Baltimore city, unless the notices of sale clearly show that they are pay able in some other kind of money.
 Nr. Fisher testified that if he had the slightest idea that the rents were payable in silver he would not o0ly not have bid for them, but he would not even have attended the sale.
 There are obvious reasons, it was argued why a rent payable in lawful silver money of the United States, and of specified weight, might be unmarketable. apart from the dis credit already cast upon silver as a coin by the free silver agitation. Con- gress might change the weight of the silver dollar, or might abolish it altogether as a part of the currency. In the latter event the rents would be payable only in silver bullion of the weight specified, or in current money, expressed in terms based upon the market value simply of this silver bullion
 "When 1t i> recolected," the brief continued, that seventeen penny weights and six grains of silver bui- sion Is now worth on the market not d dollar, but less than half as much, it will be readily realized how grave the consequences would be to the unfor- Junate owner of the rent, who would then be entitled to call for pay yment not 10 current money, which, whether good or bad, would be what everybody else was receiving, but in commcd-
 ? nuctuating in value with all other commodities, according to the laws of supply and demand. Again, even if silver was not altogether dlsused as money the present policy of keeping silver money on a parity with gold might be abandoned by the gov ernment, in winch event, toe, silver money would pass only at it's bullion value. These leases were created in 1852, after tn enormous output of gold from the then recently opened