seas, being a forcible depredation on the high seas without lawful authority and done in the spirit and intention of universal hostility. Indictments and trials for piracy are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal courts, and it is the exclusive province of congress to say what acts constitute piracy.

§ 303. Riot.-Riot is a tumultuous disturbance of the peace by three or more persons assembling together on their own authority with an intent, mutually, to assist one another against any one who shall oppose them, in the execution of some enterprise of a private nature, and afterwards actually executing the same in a violent and turbulent manner, to the terror of the people, whether the act accomplished was of itself lawful or unlawful. The act is not criminal because it is unlawful, but on account of the violent and turbulent manner of doing it. There must be three or more guilty parties, and if three only are charged and two are acquitted, the third can not be held guilty. An agreement to participate in the enterprise may be implied from the circumstances and conduct of the parties.

§ 304. Treason and misprision of treason.—Treason against the United States exists where a person owing allegiance levies war against them, or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. The different states define treason in substantially the same way. Under the federal constitution no person can be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. If a body of men be actually assembled for the purpose of effecting by force a treasonable design, all those who perform any part, however minute or however remote from the scene of action, and who are

actually leagued in the general conspiracy, are to be considered traitors.

It is the duty of a citizen who has knowledge of the commission of treason against the United States to disclose the same to the president or a judge of the United States, or to the governor or some judge or justice of a state, and the failure to make such disclosure is misprision of treason.

305. The law of property.-The law of property is that branch of the civil law which is concerned with ownership and other interests in property. For the purpose of furnishing an adequate basis of adjusting the inevitable conflicts over property rights and providing a definite, uniform system for such effective dealings in property interests as modern commercial life requires, the state has formulated an elaborate and technical set of

legal rules. There is, perhaps, no field of law where more emphasis is placed upon technical formalities. The law frequently prescribes detailed, formal requisites for certain instruments. One of the reasons for this is found. in the fact that certain rights of property, as titles to land, for instance, are established by proving an unbroken chain of title. For purposes of convenience, this requires that where possible all transactions affecting land titles should be evidenced in a certain, definite and authorized manner. This furthermore explains why much of our law on this subject is so strongly influenced by

historical considerations. In England, whence came our common law, titles are traced back several centuries to the feudal system, and necessarily this is reflected in the body of our law.

No greater source of useless litigation and domestic irritation could be found than a legal system where property rights were indefinite and uncertain. To guard against this evil and at the same time facilitate the ease and freedom of property transactions is one of the main purposes of this branch of the law.

§ 306. Basis of ownership.-In speaking of the Roman laws the German jurist Savigny says that "all property is founded on adverse possession ripened by prescription." Sir Henry Maine gives it as his opinion that the "true basis of the right of property is not an instinctive bias towards the institution of property, but a presumption arising out of the long continuance of that institution that everything ought to have an owner. Where possession is taken of an object which is not or has never been reduced to dominion, the possessor is permitted to become proprietor from a feeling that all valuable things are naturally the subjects of exclusive enjoyment, and that in the given case there is no one to invest with the right of property except the occupant. The occupant, in short, becomes the owner, because all things are persumed to be somebody's property and because no one can be pointed out as having a better right than he to the proprietorship of this particular thing." The individual right of property, as appears from a closer study of ancient law, seems to be a comparatively modern conception. Ancient law knows next to nothing of individuals; it is concerned not with individuals, but with families; not with single human beings,

but groups. It is more likely that joint ownership and not separate ownership prevailed in primitive societies.

§ 307. Origin of private ownership.-Out of this community ownership, in which the rights of all the individuals were blended, there grew the idea of private property. So long as the family or tribe or community held property in common the right of individual or private ownership was practically ignored, if, indeed, it existed at all. This right grew and strengthened as the family, tribe or community disintegrated disintegrated under the ameliorating influences of advancing civilization, and as the individual escaped from the tyranny of the head of the family or the chief of the tribe.

§ 308. Its importance.-The power or assertion of exclusive ownership is manifested by boundaries, fences, walls encircling land, and the actual possession and control of personal property. This dominion of the individual over his property is permitted and defended by the state as a pure matter of convention and policy. In a savage state it is not essential, except as to things of little value, but in a civilized society it is the basis of property, and without it progress would seem to be impossible. Land being indestructible in character, limited in extent and incapable of increase, can not be regarded as a true subject of permanent individual appropriation. And however important it is that the tenure of the cultivation of the soil should be secure, the paramount dominion of the state over every part of its territory is a fact which in a high condition of social progress can not be emphasized too strongly or made to be felt too universally and really. By enactments prohibiting the entailment of estates in land by abolishing primogeniture, by succession taxes, and other devices in case of need,