Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/172

136 136 HARVARD LAW REVIEW "The thing to be looked at is the possession of the defendant, — not the want of possession in the plaintiff. A possession which has continued for a long time without interruption, and which has been accompanied by an iminterrupted claim of ownership, ought to prevail against all the world.'"* Although in general a tortious act can never be the foundation of a legal or equitable title, yet if the exercise of apparent ownership is made conclusive evidence of title, this wholesale method necessarily establishes and quiets the bad along with the good. The trespasser benefits, the true owner suffers, for the repose of meritorious titles generally. As Sir Frederick Pollock puts it, "It is better to favor some unjust than to vex many just occupiers." It is one thing to have the rightful ownership and just title to land; it is another thing to have the proof of that right which can be laid before a purchaser or before a jury. Suppose a landowner is ejected from his land and seeks to be reinstated. The deed under which plaintiff acquired title, without evidence of possession by the grantor of the premises conveyed, is not even prima facie proof of title such as to warrant recovery in ejectment. Nor is a con- nected chain of deeds, which does not reach back to the Govern- ment or to some grantor in possession, sufficient, unless it reaches back to some common source of title, or to some source acknowl- edged to be genuine and valid, or unless there is some estoppel to deny title.^ The proof of a paper title sufficient to make out a prima facie right to possession of land may, therefore, be exceed- ingly difficult. It involves proving the signature and delivery of every deed; the corporate existence of every corp>oration in the chain of title; the execution of all powers of attorney; all the statu- tory notices and formalities in execution, tax and probate sales; all the descents and probate proceedings; in short, every legal step of the transfer of the title, voluntary and involuntary, simple and complex, from a recognized source down must be shown by proper evidence. In order to give adequate protection to other titles, it has been found necessary to recognize possession as title. ^ It is therefore enough that a plaintiff in ejectment, or that his ancestor • Terhiine v. Porter, 212 HI. 595, 72 N. E. 820 (1904); Krause v. Nolte, 217 111. 298, 75 N. E. 362 (1905); Cottrell v. Pickering, 32 Utah, 62, 88 Pac. 696 (1907). ^ People V. Inman, 197 N. Y. 200, 206, 90 N. E. 438 (1910).
 * Langdell, Equity Pl., § 121.