Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/54

34 34 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. ties, than the fact that the Supreme Court of Massachusetts — a court of learning, and always courageous in respect of constitu- tionality — did not have present to its attention, in 1885, the law of Pennoyer v. Neff. In closing, the writer desires to say, what he has said above, that he does not present these considerations as an alarmist ; but that, on the contrary, he has quite as much faith as any one, and probably more faith than most members of his profession, in the safety of the practice of taking title, as a rule, with little or no examination ; and that his main object in this article is to point out that the elaborate form of examination of title, where it is practised in this country, is neither complete nor even systematic in its omissions; that its selection of elements for examination and for omission is based upon no considerations of relative importance or relative percentage of risk, but upon habit and tradition ; and that such arguments as there are, — and they are many and weighty, — in favor of an elaborate examination, logically call for an examination very different from what is made by even the best conveyancers to-day. It is his aim also to suggest that the possible defects in a given title in this country, under our system of government, are such and so numerous that if we are to have any approach to a really authoritative assurance of title, we need, in our States, a logical rounding-out of our present legislation, to its full constitu- tional limits, so that in the ninety-nine cases in a hundred where unknown possible defects do not in fact exist, there may be relief from the necessity of investigation into the question of their exist- ence, and a sweeping and effectual decree of exclusion of them. Finally, he has desired to bring to notice the consideration, that, for any approach to completeness, the co-operation of Congress must be invoked in respect of th6se classes of possible adverse interests which, if they exist, rest upon the Federal Constitution and laws in such sense as to be thereby exempt from State legislation. H. W. Chaplin.