Opinion of the Court.

record under the above statutes in Illinois. It was not certified to have been executed and proven according to the laws and usages of the State of Ohio, where it was made. Besides, while the certificate of the judge and clerk of the probate court, in Ohio, refers to the order and proceedings of that court admitting the will to probate, no copies of such order and proceedings were, in fact, attached to the certified copy of the will filed for record. If the certified copy of the will filed for record had been accompanied by a duly certified copy of the proceedings in the Ohio probate court, relating to the probate of the will, and if that would have been a compliance with the statute, entitling the copy of the will to be recorded in Illinois, it is certain that without certified copies of such proceedings, or without a certificate by the proper officer, showing that the will had been executed and proven agreeably to the laws of Ohio, the copy of the will filed with the recorder of Woodford County could not be recorded in Illinois, so as to make that record notice as in cases of deeds or other written instruments concerning real estate. Baldwin v. Ratcliff, 125 Illinois, 376, 384. It results that the recording in Illinois, in 1866, of what purported to be the will of Romeo Lewis was without legal effect, and was not, in law, notice that the lands in dispute were part of those referred to in that will.

The contention of the plaintiffs is that even if the will was not properly recorded in Illinois, it was, nevertheless, evidence as to the title to the lands. Shephard v. Carriel, 19 Illinois, 313; Newman v. Willetts, 52 Illinois, 98; Safford v. Stubbs, 117 Illinois, 389. But this view does not meet the question before us as to whether the record of the will in Woodford County, from and after it was made, was itself notice to those who purchased from Mrs. Lewis. A duly certified copy of the will may be competent evidence upon the issue as to paramount title, but it could not operate as constructive notice of its contents from the date of the insufficient record of it made in 1866 in Woodford County.

It is said that the Book of Land Entries kept in the office of the county clerk of Woodford County, and furnished by the auditor to that officer for the purposes of taxation, furnished

Opinion of the Court.

evidence of the fact that Romeo Lewis was seized of these lands by patent from the United States, and that they were thus put upon inquiry as to the nature of the estate which Mrs. Lewis took. But this fact would only have proved the ownership of the lands, at one time, by Romeo Lewis, not that he had made a will, which was recorded in Ohio, and which gave his wife only a life estate in his Illinois lands. Besides, in Betser v. Rankin, 77 Illinois, 289, it was held that knowledge of the facts appearing in the Book of Land Entries must be brought home to purchasers. "They are facts," the court said, which, in order to affect a purchaser, he must have actual notice of; there is no constructive notice of such facts. At that time reports of the entries of public lands were certified by the auditor to the several county clerks in the State, and the list of entries so furnished by the auditor was copied by the clerk into his Book of 'Land Entries;' but all this was for the purposes of taxation, not of notice of the entries. No such effect of notice has been given by law to such report or Book of Land Entries. Such entries, books and papers, in the office of the county clerk are not constructive notice of their subject matter to subsequent purchasers." See, also, Bourland v. Peoria County, 16 Illinois, 538; Anthony v. Wheeler, 130 Illinois, 128, 136.

Some reliance is placed upon the fact that the recitals in a deed for certain lands, made by Mrs. Lewis to one Mohr in 1853, indicated that they were devised to her by the will of her husband. It is scarcely necessary to say that those recitals were not notice to those who purchased other lands from Mrs. Lewis of the existence of such a will or of its provisions, there being no valid record of it in Illinois.

It is proper, also, to say that no claim is made that this case is affected, in any wise, by the proviso in the statute of limitations saving the rights of persons laboring under certain named disabilities at the time the cause of action accrued. "The tax sale," the Supreme Court of Illinois has said, "although it may have been defective, and the title acquired. under it, when relied upon alone as a title, might not have been regarded as valid, yet the deed which the defendant

Opinion of the Court.

obtained, which, upon its face, purported to convey the land, was color of title. A title of this character, obtained in good faith, followed by the payment of all taxes legally assessed for seven successive years, while the land is vacant, and possession then taken, has been uniformly held by this court to be a valid title as against all persons, except such as may be under the disability named in the statute." Whitney v. Stevens, 77 Illinois, 585, 587. And in McDuffee v. Sinnott, 119 Illinois, 449, 452, it was held that when the bar of the statute becomes absolute, "the occupant thereby acquires such a title as he may successfully assert against all the world, including the paramount owner himself, except such as are laboring under disabilities." So clearly is this the case, the learned counsel for the plaintiffs in error frankly concedes, as he must have done, that these actions are barred by the statute, if limitation ran against them during the life of Mrs. Lewis, before or after she conveyed.

We are of opinion that, by the law of Illinois, the actual possession of the several defendants, for more than seven successive years prior to the commencement of these actions, of the lands in controversy, under claim and color of title made in good faith, that is, under deeds purporting to convey the title to them in fee, and the payment of all taxes legally assessed on them, without notice, actual or constructive, during that period, of any title to or interest in the lands upon the part of others that was inconsistent with an absolute fee in their immediate grantors, and in those under whom such grantors claimed, entitled them to be adjudged the legal owners of such lands according to their respective paper titles, even as against those, if any, who may have been entitled by the will of Romeo Lewis to take the fee after the death of Mrs. Lewis without heirs of her body. If that will only gave a life estate to Mrs. Lewis, and the plaintiffs, as reversioners or possible reversioners, had no right of entry pending the life estate, and, therefore, were not chargeable with laches; and if, as is contended, Mrs. Lewis, as life tenant, was under a legal obligation to pay the taxes for which the land was sold, and could not, by permitting them to be sold for taxes and

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becoming the purchaser, acquire the fee and thereby despoil those in remainder; it was, nevertheless, in the power of the plaintiffs and those under whom they claim-long before the defendants became the owners of the lands by possession and payment of taxes, under claim and color of title made in good faith to have placed the will of Rome Lewis, duly proved, upon record in Illinois, and, in that mode, to have given notice of their interest in the lands.

The judgment in each of the above cases is affirmed.

QUINCY, MISSOURI AND PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY v. HUMPHREYS.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI.

No. 223. Argued March 23, 1892. - Decided April 25, 1892.

A receiver appointed by order of a court of chancery is obliged to take possession of a leasehold estate, if it be included within the order of the court; but he does not thereby become the assignee of the term, or liable for the rent, but holds the property as the hand of the court, and is entitled to a reasonable time to ascertain its value, before he can be held to have accepted it as lessee.

The Wabash Company controlled 3600 miles of road, made up by the consolidation and leasing of many different railroads, upon nearly every one of which there existed one or more mortgages. Among them was the Quincy road, 77 miles in length, which was leased by the Wabash in August, 1879, for a term of 99 years, with privilege of renewal, acquiring with the lease a majority of the stock. The Quincy road at the time of the lease had issued mortgage bonds to the amount of $2,000,000, on which there was a large amount of interest in arrear. To provide for this and other floating debts, and to extend the road, a new issue of mortgage bonds was provided for as part of the arrangement, which were issued, and the road was completed, and entered into and formed part of the Wabash system. In May, 1884, the Wabash company filed a bill in equity, alleging that it was insolvent and could not procure the means to pay its floating debts and interest due, and praying the court to take possession of its property and administer it as a whole. Receivers were thereupon appointed. who took possession. They were

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directed to pay out of the income which should come into their hands rental which had accrued or which might accrue upon all the company's leased lines, but to keep accounts showing the source of income and revenue with reference to expenditure. In June, 1884, the trustees under a general mortgage, which the Wabash company had made of its whole system, filed a cross bill praying for the foreclosure of their mortgage and the appointment of receivers; but the court declined to appoint receivers other than those already appointed. On the 26th of January, 1884, the receivers informed the court of their inability to pay interest falling due on certain classes of bonds and interest on certain stocks, and made a statement in regard to several of the consolidated and leased roads from which it appeared that the earnings of the Quincy road had at no time since its acquisition been sufficient to pay its operating expenses, the cost of its maintenance and the interest upon its mortgage bonds. The receivers further petitioned the court for its advice, and they were thereupon ordered to keep separate accounts of the earnings, incomes, operating expenses, cost of maintenance, taxes, etc., of each of such lines, and to make quarterly reports thereof. These reports, when made, showed, as to the Quincy Company, that in May, 1885, there was a deficit of $20,251.09 in nine months' working. The court thereupon made a general order, as to all the properties, which provided in substance that where there was no income, rental claims were not to be paid by the receivers. On the 15th of July, 1885, the trustees of the Quincy mortgage petitioned the court to direct the receivers to transfer that road and its rolling stock to them, and an order was made to that effect. No possession was taken under that order, but the leased property was retransferred before the sale under the foreclosure of the general mortgage of the Wabash Company. The proceedings under the cross bill resulted in a decree for such foreclosure on the 6th of January, 1886. No surplus was realized from the sale under that decree. The receivers' accounts on surrendering the property showed the net earnings to be $3,304,633.61 less than the amount of the preferred debts with whose payment they were charged. On the 8th of December, 1885, the intervening trustees of the Quincy mortgage filed a petition praying the court to order the receivers to pay arrears of interest, taxes, cost of repairs and rental, aggregating $114,380, and to decree them to be liens superior and paramount to all mortgages on all the property of the Wabash Company. On the 19th of March, 1888; the court denied this prayer and dismissed this petition from which decree the Quincy Company and the trustees took this appeal. Held,

(1) That the occupation of the Quincy road by the receivers under the order of court created no relation which obliged them to pay rent therefor under the lease;

(2) That no equities existed which called upon the court to divert the proceeds of the sale or the net earnings of the property while in the receivers' hands, and apply them to the payments prayed for by the intervenors;'