Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/419

* CONVEYANCING. 359 CONVICT. ehange haVe at all times been surrounded with legal difficulties of everj' description." As prop- erty is subdivided into smaller and smaller por- tions, and as the number of con'eyances which make up the chain of title to a piece of real estate continually increases, the dilfieulty and cost of establishing a clear title becomes more and more burdensome. An illustration of this is given by a New York newspaper, which points out that when the famous Jumcl estate in New York was disposed of, it was divided into 1383 pieces and sold to over 300 buyers; each of these liad to engage a lawyer to search carefully through every old deed, mortgage, and record relating to the entire property, picking them out from 3500 volumes of deeds and mortgages in the office of the New Y'ork Registrar; here it is clear that 299 out of 300 parts of the total labor and expense were wasted. The same writer asserts that in New Y'ork City the amount thus expended is over one per cent, of the total value of the property transferred, and that at least half of this is unnecessary waste. So great has the task of searching and verifying titles become in New Y'ork and other large cities that land- title giiarantce companies have been formed, which insure purchasers and mortgagees against Haws in titles; the companies make a business of searching records, and sometimes have elabo- rate analyses and abstracts of real estate records, costing them many scores of thousands of dol- lars. In the United States the system of convey- ancing generally adopted is that by deeds of grant, or bargain and sale; many States have enacted statutes simplif.ving the old method, and several prescribe an exact form of deed, defining the legal effect of the specific words of con- veyancing, limiting, conditioning, and so on. It follows that the laws of the States are not uni- form, but the essentials of a conveyance by deed are practically the same, requiring that it be in writing, be signed and sealed by the grantors, be acknowledged before a notary or other officer authorized by the statutes, and be actually deliv- ered. The direction which all present agitation for reform in conveyancing is taking is that pointed out by the success of the Torrens sys- tem of Australia. The main principle in that system is the registration of titles as distin- guished from the registration of deeds. It was introduced first in South Australia about thirty years ago by Mr. (now Sir) Robert Torrens, was eminently successful practically, and has since been adopted by the other Australian colonies. Under it the ownership passes only on the filing, in the proper registry office, of the title ; thus the actual transfer and the public notice of it are simultaneous, and the I'ecords of the office cannot be impeached by flaws in the conveyance itself, nor can a purchaser be deceived by the existence of a deed not recorded and of ^^■hich he could have no knowledge. The system of registration is a very simple one; a special folio of the record is devoted to a single piece of land, and there in one place and together are recorded all trans- fers and transactions affecting the title of that piece of land or forming a charge on it: and, we repeat, he title to that land can shift only upon the registration itself. The Government holds to the land-owner under this system much the same relation that a corporation issuing certifi- cates of registered stock holds to the purchaser thereof — that is, the transfer of such stock cer- tificates is made on the books of the company and takes ciTect only upon new entry therein. Under the Torrens system a 'INIaster of Titles' is intrusted with the duty of seeing that the trans- fer is regular and is properly executed. A guar- antee fund is established by the State to com- ])ensate any persons injured by errors of any kind. But the percentage of claims made from the guarantee fund to the value of the property involved has been very small — less, it is said, than the one-hundredth part of one per cent. The great merit of this system is that, once established, it makes title certain and absolute, and obviates research in ancient conveyances. No doubt there is exjiensc and difficulty in chang- ing from the old to the new system of convey- ancing, but the results attained are great. In Canada the system has been tried — though in a limited and imperfect form — in Toronto, and there is a strong agitation for its universal adoption vmder a compulsory law. In England a Land Transfer Reform Bill was introduced in 187.3 by Lord Cairns, and passed, but in a nmti- lated and altogether unsatisfactory form ; in 1882 a second act was passed simplifying the art of conveyancing and leading the way toward a general reform; in 1889 Lord Salisbur.y's Govern- ment introduced a bill making the Torrens sys- tem compulsory, which was defeated only after its third reading and by a veiy small majority. It seems probable that such a reform liill will pass before many years. In the State of New York an act was passed and went into cfTect in Januaiy, 1891, which provided for a reformed or block scheme of indexing conveyances to supplant the old system of consecutive registration of deeds indexed only by the names of the parties thereto. This is also a step in the direction of the Torrens system of registration and transfer by titles. The Torrens system has been adopted in Massachusetts, Illinois, and several other States. Consult: Leonard A, Jones, Forms in Con- veyancing and General Forms (5th ed., Indian- apolis, 1899) ; Wolstenholme, Forms and Prece- dents Adopted for Use Under the Conveyancing Acts (5th ed., London, 1891); Sheppard, The Touchstone of Common Asstirances, etc. (Anier. ed., Philadelphia, 1840-41) ; Greenwood, Manual of the Practices of Conveyancing (8th ed., Lon- don, 1S91); Elphinstone, Introduction to Con- vei/cincing (5th ed., London, 1900) ; Himter, The Dominion Conveyancer (Toronto, 1893). CONVICT (Sp., Port, convicto.. from Lat. convictus, p.p, of convincere, to convict, from com-, together + vincere, to conquer). A person found guilty, after due trial, of a criminal of- fense; in general use applied only to those con- victed of felony or serious crimes, not to those guilty of petty offenses. The system used bya coun- try in dealing with convicts is termed the con- vict system. In Euro|ie in the Middle Ages the punishments inflicted upon criminals were cruel and brutal. Through the influence of the Church a system of fines was established and physical punishments were modified. Later it became customary to transport convicts to colonial pos- sessions. England transported convicts to .4us- tralia until about the middle of the nineteenth century. The year 1900 marks the practical abandonment of transportation by all civilized countries, except France, where it is a secondary