Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/488

 482 LIME TREE LIMITATION 3,339 other cattle, 3,960 sheep, and 13,566 swine ; 1 flour mill, and 3 saw mills. Capital, Athens. II. An E. central county of Texas, watered by the Navasoto and several other small streams; area, 900 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 8,591, of whom 1,919 were colored. The sur- face is undulating ; about two thirds of the soil is a fertile sandy loam, the rest being black sticky prairie. The Houston and Texas Cen- tral railroad passes through it. The chief pro- ductions in 1870 were 190,609 bushels of Indian corn, 13,741 of sweet potatoes, 10,608 Ibs. of wool, and 3,414 bales of cotton. There were 6,000 horses, 620 mules and asses, 844 milch cows, 38,472 other cattle, 3,681 sheep, and 13,370 swine. Capital, Springfield. LIME TREE, or Basswood. See LINDEN. LIMITATION, Statutes of, laws which provide that certain debts or claims shall not be prose- cuted after a certain time. The origin of these statutes, which are now found in every civil- ized community, was undoubtedly the prob- ability that an old debt had been paid, and the hardship of holding a payer to pay his debt twice over because, in the lapse of jiime, he had lost the evidence of his payment. When therefore such a stale debt was brought before a court, the law presumed that it had been paid, without proof. Such a presumption still exists in cases not provided for by the statutes ; it being a general rule of the common law of England and America, that there is a presump- tion of payment of all personal claims, after 20 years have passed without any evidence of acknowledgment by the debtor. But in the year 1624 (21 James I.) it was enacted by the parliament of England that all actions of ac- count, and all actions upon the case other than such accounts as concern the trade of merchan- dise between merchant and merchant, all ac- tions of debt on any lending or simple contract, and all actions of debt for rent due, should be commenced and sued within six years next after the cause of such actions should accrue. This statute was the foundation of all the stat- utes of limitation which have been since then enacted in England and in the United States ; nor have they varied greatly from it. Divested of technical language, it may be said that no action can be maintained for any debt more than six years old, founded upon a simple con- tract; by which is meant any contract not created by a sealed instrument or resting on a judgment of court. The exception of actions founded on mutual accounts of trade between merchants is common ; and in many states all mutual accounts are excepted, while in some others there is an exception in favor of a wit- nessed note of hand, these accounts and notes being barred only by the 20 years' presump- tion. For a time the courts favored these laws, and construed them liberally against the debt or action. Then, however, the views and practice of courts changed, and they seemed to regard the statutes of limitation as proper objects of dislike, and construed them very liberally in favor of the debt or action. That is, they permitted the defence of the statute to be overthrown by slight and even frivolous evidence of any acknowledgment on the part of the debtor within six years ; and although they could not say that this made the original debt any younger, and so took it out of the operation of the statute, they did say that the acknowledgment was a new promise, and main- tained the action on this ground. But in re- cent times wiser views began to prevail. Judge Story said (5 Mason, 523): "I consider the statute of limitation as a highly beneficial stat- ute, and entitled as such to receive, if not a liberal, at least a reasonable construction, in furtherance of its manifest object." These views now decidedly prevail both in England and America. The question, by what rule the statute shall be construed, is in fact the ques- tion whether it shall be regarded as a statute of presumption or a statute of repose. If the former, then an action founded upon an old debt is to be barred only because it is prob- able that an old debt has been paid ; and there- fore all confessions or acknowledgments, all acts and all words, in any way throwing a doubt on this payment, may be considered as overthrowing the presumption of payment, and maintaining the action. But if it is to be regarded as a statute of repose, then it is founded on the principle that an old debt, whether it have been paid or not, should not now be brought out to disturb relations be- tween the parties which had become settled by time ; for a creditor who has been negli- gent enough to let his debt lie by so long, neither prosecuted nor verified, should lose it, because the peace of society requires that claims which have long slumbered should be considered as dead. Where this view was adopted, it is plain that no mere acknowledg- ment of an old debt would prevail against the statute; but if the debtor saw fit to make, within the six years, a distinct new promise to pay the debt, there was no reason why he might not make it, and none why, if he made it, he should not be held to perform it. So also, if the debtor saw fit to make, within the six years, a part payment of the debt, not in full, but as an acknowledgment of the whole debt, it might fairly be regarded as a promise to pay the remainder, and as reviving the bal- ance of the debt. These views at length pre- vailed so decidedly in England, that in 1828 (9 George IV.) what is there called Lord Ten- terden's act was passed ; which appeared to be so reasonable, and was found in its operation so useful, that it has been widely adopted in the United States. This statute provides, in substance, that no debt which is barred by the statute of limitation shall be revived by any new promise or acknowledgment, unless that be in writing ; but this statute still permits a part payment to revive the debt. As the law now. stands, it may be said that the new prom- ise which revives a debt must not be in words