Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/820

798  which is exhibited by the influences that have modified species into fitness for their environment, are facts which must never be lost sight of, for if we forget them our attempts to understand the history of the properties of living things are certain to mislead us and to end in failure.



HE above designation has been popularly given to one of the most important questions that has ever come before the legal tribunals of this country, and the record of which has been heretofore so difficult of access that it has not attracted the attention it merits, but which it is to be hoped will prove at no distant period a subject of popular interest and future judicial consideration. The particulars of the case are in the main as follows: In 1869, or previous, Charles W. Kirtland, a citizen of Woodbury, Litchfield County, Connecticut, loaned money, through an agent, a resident and citizen of Illinois, on bonds secured by deeds of trust on real estate in the city of Chicago. Each of these bonds declared that "it was made under and is in all respects to be construed by the laws of the State of Illinois," and that the principal and interest of the obligation were payable in the city of Chicago. The deed of trust also contained a provision that all taxes and assessments on the property conveyed should be paid by the obligor (borrower) without abatement on account of the mortgage lien; that the property might be sold at auction, in Chicago, by the trustee, in case of any default of payment, and that a good title, free from any right of redemption, on the part of the obligor, might in that case be given by the trustee. Another interesting feature of the case not to be overlooked was, that pending the proceedings to be next related, the loans as originally made became due and were paid; when the proceeds, without being removed from Illinois and returned to Mr. Kirtland in Connecticut, were reinvested in Chicago by his agent, under terms and conditions as before.

These facts becoming known to the tax officials of the town of Woodbury, they added in 1869 to the list of property returned by Kirtland for the purpose of taxation, as situated within the State, the sum of eighteen thousand dollars; and in 1870 the sum of twenty thousand dollars, to represent the amount of property owned and