fense is technically that the town is not liable because it says that the burial should have been provided or authorized by the municipal officers to enable the plaintiff to recover against the town.

In the case last cited the court says: "The services must be rendered. It is better that those things should be done upon the credit of the estate than that there should be hesitation and inquiry as to who is liable to pay."

This construction of the act is in accord with the manifest intention of the legislature, which was that no honorably discharged soldier who had served his country during the war of the Rebellion should, at his death, fill a pauper's grave; and that there should not be even the semblance of a pauper burial, as would be the case if the municipal officers, who, in towns, are usually overseers of the poor, were required to provide for the burial. If the municipal officers are, under the act in question, in the first instance, to provide or authorize the expenses of such soldier's burial, they can only do so upon proof of his services and his honorable discharge. The obtaining of such proof may require days or weeks, especially when the deceased served in the navy or marine corps, or in the army in a regiment of another state. Could it have been the intention of the legislature that, in such case, the soldier should remain unburied during the time required for obtaining such proof?

When a bill for such burial expenses is presented to the municipal officers of a town, they then have ample opportunity to investigate and determine whether they come within the purview of the statute. If payment is refused, what is the remedy of the party who provided the burial? He has none against the state, for the state authorities are required to refund to the town. He has none against the municipal officers, who have no remedy against the state. His remedy, if he has any, and it is not to be presumed that he is without remedy,-can only be by a suit against the town, in which the question of the soldier's service and of his honorable discharge and of his destitute circumstances at the time of his death can be determined.

In the case at bar the defendant town does not deny that the soldier served in the army of the United States during the war of the Rebellion, or that he was honorably discharged therefrom, or that he died in destitute circumstances, but all these essen

The defense says, further, that no action will lie against the town for such burial expenses because by the statute no right of action is given against the town. It is true that the statute prescribes no specific remedy. It is a familiar maxim that, "whenever a statute gives a right, the party shall, by consequence, have an action to recover it." Stearns v. Railroad Co., 46 Me. 115. "It is a vain thing," says the court in the case above cited, "to imagine a right without a remedy, for want of right and want of remedy are reciprocal." In Farwell v. Rockland, 62 Me. 296, it was held that an action of assumpsit was maintainable against the city of Rockland by the judge of the police court of that city for his salary, though he had no contract with the city and no right of action was given by statute. The court say, quoting from People v. Mayor, etc., of New York, 23 Wend. 685, "an action on the case or assumpsit will lie for neglect of corporate duty." It cannot be presumed that the statute in question imposes upon the municipal officers the duty of personally paying the burial expenses of the deceased soldier, nor that the plaintiff's remedy, if any he has, is against such officer.

A statute must be construed as a whole, and the construction ought to be such as may best answer the intention of the legislatur Such intention is to be sought by an examing tion and consideration of all its parts, a not from any particular word or phrase th may be contained in it. This is the guid star in the construction of any statute. S a construction must prevail as will for consistent and harmonious whole. Ber Clary, 77 Me. 482, 1 Atl. 360; Smith v. ( 71 Me. 164; Lyon v. Lyon, 88 Me. S Atl. 180.

It is true that the statute makes it t of the municipal officers to pay the b penses in a case like that at bar, bi provides that the state shall refun the municipal officers, but to t the amount so paid. The legislat not be held to the absurdity of I payment by the municipal office individual capacity, and a refundin town of the amount so paid. The fund" implies a payment to the money previously paid by the obvious meaning of the statute spect, is that such burial exper paid by the municipal officers, individual capacity, but town, at the charge funded to the town

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Defendam GERA

(93 Me. 134) GEORGET. T (Supreme Jud

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oes not see fit to avail se remedies, but brings For the conversion of her ich as may belong to her owner of the land from was taken. And if the e under whom the defendere intruders and trespassquestion, operating withever, or claim of title, we to say that the plaintiff led to maintain her action are of the converted props nothing in the case auer that the defendants were They appear to be in posaim of right. As the facts defense were not reached, p on the plaintiff's proofs, nditions are not, perhaps,

question is whether, at the March 2, 1897), the defendmay be properly regarded een-sixteenths of the logs divided, had converted the the property by converting p or other manufactures. lence sufficiently proves a

pulp mill is situated in .bove Bangor, on Penobscot were run down to Lincoln ngly, and long in advance

e to go into the Penobscot ite testified that the men the logs out of the stream t they were rafted at the am, and run down Penobne 8, 1896, the logs were lants' boom at Lincoln, for aintiff on that day as folis now scaling these logs, your claim against them." erefore, at the very beginfacturing season, in defendor the purpose of being man

6, the defendants, deprecater the property, and urging make some settlement with whom they purchased, wrote

2. The defendant company further contends that the plaintiff should have given the statute notice within 20 days from the end of each month, in order to recover of the railroad company his unpaid wages for that month, and hence cannot recover his wages for June. The statute, however, only requires him to give one notice, and that within 20 days after the completion of the labor. This plaintiff worked continuously on the railroad during June, July, August, and September, under the same subcontractor. He gave the notice within 20 days after the completion of those 4 months. This was sufficient. The statute makes no requirement of any notice at stated times during the progress of the laboring. The notice given seasonably at the end relates back and covers all unpaid wages accrued since the beginning of the continuous employment. The unpaid wages in this case amount to $110.75.

Judgment for the plaintiff.

(93 Me. 110)

FLEMING v. KATAHDIN PULP & PAPER CO.

(Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. June 12, 1899.)

ADVERSE POSSESSION-SUFFICIENCY OF POS

SESSION-VOID TAX DEEDS-CO-TENANTS. 1. One who, under a claim of sole ownership of a lot of wild land, has for over 20 years made partial clearings on portions of the lot, but whose occupation has been somewhat casual and intermittent, connected a good deal with lumbering operations, does not thereby effect a disseisin of the true owners, who stand in relation of co-tenants with him; nor is his claim of title made any better by tax deeds from the state or county, which are defective, and thereby void.

2. The plaintiff acquired title by deed to onesixteenth in common and undivided of a tract of wild land, while the other owners, or persons claiming under them, were carrying on a lumbering operation on the tract, without permission of the one-sixteenth owner, or any statutory notice to him, a portion of the cutting having been before the date of the plaintiff's deed, and a portion afterwards, but all before the deed was recorded; the deed containing a lause that the grantor "assigned, sold, and conveyed to the grantee all his rights and claims for stumpages for trespasses on and from said land from October, 1888." Held, that the deed and assignment in it gave to the plaintiff title to one-sixteenth in common of all the lumber cut during the operation, that it was immaterial whether the deed was recorded or not, and that the plaintiff can maintain an action of trover for his one-sixteenth interest in the logs against the defendants who purchased the same, and (evidently) converted them into pulp before the ac tion was brought.

(Official.)

Report from supreme judicial court, Penobscot county.

This was an action of trover, brought by Ida M. Fleming against the Katahdin Pulp & Paper Company to recover the value of 6,000 pieces of spruce pulp logs, which were cut upon lot No. 13, in Woodville plantation, during the lumber season of 1895. The evidence in the case shows that the logs were cut by one W. L. Hughes for Butterfield & Gates, of Lincoln, and by Butterfield & Gates sold to the defendant company. While the action is brought to recover the value of personal property, it involves the title to the lot of land upon which the logs were cut. The action came on for trial at the October term, 1897, and, after the evidence for the plaintiff was in, the defendants' counsel moved for a nonsuit upon the ground that the plaintiff had shown no cause of action: (1) Because there was no evidence that the plaintiff owned the logs; (2) because, if she had any interest in the logs under her deed, it was an undivided interest, and she owned them in common with the defendant company, which company had committed no act of conver sion. Motion denied.

Argued before PETERS, C. J., and HASKEIL, WHITEHOUSE, WISWELL, STROUT, and SAVAGE, JJ.

M. Laughlin, for plaintiff. E. C. Ryder, for defendant.

PETERS, C. J. The plaintiff sues to recover against the defendants in an action of trover for the conversion of 6,000 pieces of spruce pulp logs cut in the winter of 189596 upon lot 13 in the town of Woodville in Penobscot county. She claims to recover according to her title to the premises upon which the lumber was cut; and while she supposed at the time of her purchase that she was obtaining a title to the whole of lot 13, or to a major part of it, it turns out, according to the admission of her counsel, that she became an owner, by her deed, of only onesixteenth in common and undivided of the tract.

To be sure, there is considerable evidence in the case showing some patches of cuttings and partial clearings by the plaintiff's predecessors under claims of ownership during the last 20 or more years, but such acts were somewhat casual and intermittent, consisting a good deal of lumbering operations, and were ineffectual to establish any title by disseisin of the true owners, especially when such owners stood in the relation of co-tenants with the persons in possession.

The plaintiff also submits in evidence certain tax deeds from the state and county as supporting her assumed title to the whole lot, but they are, on their face, clearly void.

The defendants contend that the plaintiff has not even a one-sixteenth interest in the ìumber in question, or in the stumpage on it, because the lumber was in part cut, as they allege, before she received her deed, and, at

all events, wholly cut long before her deed was recorded. The deed was delivered January 2, 1896, and recorded May 25, 1896. The operation on the tract commenced in November, 1895, and terminated on the last of January, 1896. We do not see that it is at all material when the deed became recorded, or that it was of any concern to the defendants, or to the persons of whom they made their purchase, whether the deed was ever recorded or not, inasmuch as they represented no right or title dependent upon the deed. The question is, who was the owner in fact at the time of the cuttings?

From the statement thus far it appears that the plaintiff's ownership would attach to only such portion of the lumber as was cut in the month of January, 1896, and not to the portion cut prior to that time. But, appreciating that point when the conveyance was taken, the plaintiff insisted upon a clause in the deed to cover the operation, and these words were inserted by her grantor: "I also hereby assign, sell, and convey to her all my rights and claims for stumpage for trespasses on or from said land from October, 1888." Consistently with this construction was the verbal talk of the parties at the time. None of the lumber had been removed from the land when the deed was delivered, and, having been wrongfully cut, either because the operators were naked trespassers, or because they were acting as owners who had not given the statutory notice to co-tenants required by section 5 of chapter 95, Rev. St., in either case the language of the assignment was sufficient to preserve to the plaintiff an interest in all the lumber cut equivalent to her ownership in the land, whether cut before or after the deed.

It does not appear by what right or title those carrying on the lumbering operation acted. But it does appear that the defendants bought the lumber in good faith of their neighbors, the firm of Butterfield & Gates, who, by their servants and employés, conducted the operation in the woods; and it nowhere appears, even upon suggestion merely, that the plaintiff or her grantor consented to the operation, or received any statutory or other notice of it.

Upon these facts the counsel for the plaintiff sets up the claim that there was such an infringement of his client's rights as to authorize her to recover of the defendants in this action the entire value of all the logs cut, or else the value of her proportion of them, notwithstanding the defendants at the date of plaintiff's writ may not have converted the logs to their own use by a sale or the manufacture of them.

We hardly see how such a right exists in the present facts. If the operation was carried on by co-tenants, an action inures to the plaintiff to sue for treble damages, under section 5, c. 95, Rev. St. And if carried on by strangers without any possession or title, -by mere intruders.-then a right is confer

red, by sections 18 and 19 of the same chapter, upon any tenant in common to institute an action of trespass for the benefit of all the owners, in which the plaintiff can obtain execution for her share of the injury, the other co-tenants having a right jointly or severally to obtain theirs by scire facias on the common judgment to be rendered in behalf of all the co-tenants. In the case of a trespass by cutting down trees by a stranger, the owners would no doubt have a right to seize the lumber into their possession, or they could enjoin the trespass by injunction in a chancery proceeding. And there may be even other remedy for such a flagrant invasion and abuse of property.

But the plaintiff does not see fit to avail herself of any of those remedies, but brings an action of trover for the conversion of her personal property, such as may belong to her as a one-sixteenth owner of the land from which the property was taken. And if the defendants, or those under whom the defendants claim, were mere intruders and trespassers upon the lot in question, operating without any title whatever, or claim of title, we are not prepared to say that the plaintiff would not be entitled to maintain her action at once for her share of the converted property. But there is nothing in the case authorizing us to infer that the defendants were naked trespassers. They appear to be in possession under a claim of right. As the facts relied on by the defense were not reached, the case going up on the plaintiff's proofs, all the actual conditions are not, perhaps, presented to us.

The remaining question is whether, at the date of the writ (March 2, 1897), the defendants, who perhaps may be properly regarded as owners of fifteen-sixteenths of the logs in common and undivided, had converted the plaintiff's share of the property by converting the logs into pulp or other manufactures. We think the evidence sufficiently proves a conversion.

The defendants' pulp mill is situated in Lincoln, 50 miles above Bangor, on Penobscot river. These logs were run down to Lincoln in rafts, and not singly, and long in advance of logs which were to go into the Penobscot boom. E. B. Waite testified that the men commenced driving the logs out of the stream in April, and that they were rafted at the mouth of the stream, and run down Penobscot river. On June 8, 1896, the logs were evidently in defendants' boom at Lincoln, for they wrote the plaintiff on that day as follows: "Our scaler is now scaling these logs, and we will note your claim against them." The logs were, therefore, at the very beginning of the manufacturing season, in defendants' possession, for the purpose of being manufactured.

On June 11, 1896, the defendants, deprecating a lawsuit over the property, and urging the plaintiff to make some settlement with the parties of whom they purchased, wrote

thus: "We shall not use this wood for several months, and will agree not to use it until some time during the latter part of the coming fall or early winter, as we have a large quantity of loose logs in our booms that we must take care of." Here is a clear admission by the party itself that it will not postpone the threatened conversion later than the late fall or early winter of 1896. And such would be the natural supposition that a season's supply has been exhausted during the season. Such would be the ordinary course of business. Lapse of time is always a forcible factor.

When we consider, therefore, that the defendants were holding in their possession property of the plaintiff for the very purpose of manufacturing and converting it (property forcibly obtained from the plaintiff against her consent), and that it would be difficult for the plaintiff to ascertain whether and when the logs had been manufactured (a fact easily ascertainable by the defense), it would seem reasonable to allow a jury to regard all the foregoing facts, occurring in 1896, as at least prima facie proof in 1897 that the defendants were guilty of conversion of plaintiff's property, leaving the defense to rebut the presumption if it can. And, if the plaintiff's presumption is wrong, the defense can disprove it very easily.

Action to stand for trial.

. (68 N. H. 236)

SUPREME COUNCIL, AMERICAN LEGION
OF HONOR, v. ADAMS et al.
(Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Hillsboro.
March 15, 1895.)

INSURANCE MUTUAL BENEFIT INSURANCE
-RIGHTS OF BENEFICIARY AND REPRE-
SENTATIVES CHANGING BY-LAWS.

1. Where, under the laws of a benefit society, the holder of a certificate has the full power to direct the disposal of the benefit and to change the designated beneficiary, and there is nothing in the certificate giving the rights to representatives of the beneficiary, neither the beneficiary nor her representatives acquire any vested rights under the certificate during the life of the hold

er.

2. Where the laws of a benefit association give the holder of a certificate the right to control and dispose of the benefit at all times, and there is nothing in the certificate giving the representatives of the beneficiary any right therein upon the death of the beneficiary during the lifetime of the holder of the certificate, there is a resulting trust in the holder.

3. The constitution of a benefit society provided that all proposed amendments to the constitution must be referred to the committee on laws, who shall report thereon, and that the committee "shall examine and report upon all proposed amendments to the constitution and laws of the supreme council presented at the supreme council." A committee was appointed at one session to revise and codify the constitution and laws of the order, and at the next session offered a report, which was referred to the committee on laws, who reported favorably thereon to the supreme council; and the supreme council thereupon repealed the old laws, and accepted the revision in their stead. Held, that such changes were made in accordance with the constitution of the society.

4. Where, in an application for a certificate in a benefit society, the applicant agrees to con form to the laws, rules, and usages of the society then in force, or which might thereafter be adopted, and the certificate is issued upon condition that he comply with the laws then in force, or that might thereafter be enacted by the supreme council, any future enactments changing the rules are binding, if they are reasonable and are within the laws of the society.

ams.

be

A bill of interpleader as to $5,000 paid into court by plaintiff, the Supreme Council, AmerIcan Legion of Honor, upon a benefit certificate issued to Joseph G. Adams. The benefit is claimed by defendant Alice' G. Adams, and by defendants the children of Martha A. AdDecree for defendant Alice G. Adams. The certificate was issued upon condition "that the statements made by said companion in application for membership * made a part of this contract," and upon condition "that the said companion complies in the future with the laws, rules, and regulations now governing the said council and fund, or that may hereafter be enacted by the supreme council to govern said council and fund. These conditions being complied with, the Supreme Council of the A. L. H. hereby promises and binds itself to pay out of its benefit fund to Martha A. Adams (wife) a sum not exceeding five thousand dollars, in accordance with and under the provisions of the laws governing said fund, upon satisfactory evidence of the death of said companion, and upon the surrender of this certificate," etc. The application referred to contained the following: "I agree to make payment of all dues and assessments for which I may become liable, and to conform in all respects to the laws, rules, and usages of the order now in force, or which may hereafter be adopted by the same." Martha A. Adams died in 1884, and Joseph G. married the defendant Alice G. Adams in 1888. He died in 1892. Five children by the first wife survived him, and are the other defendants. When the certificate was issued, and thereafterwards until October 31, 1891, a law of the plaintiffs provided that, "in the event of the death of all the beneficiaries selected by the member before the decease of such member, if no other or further disposition thereof be made, the benefit shall be paid to

the dependent heirs of the deceased member." The children, being "dependent heirs" of Joseph G., claimed the fund by virtue of this law. The widow claims that at a regular session of the plaintiffs, holden August 25 to September 1, 1891, this law was changed to the following: "In the event of the death of all the beneficiaries selected by the member," etc. (substantially as above), "the benefit shall be paid to the widow. If none, then to the heirs of the deceased member," etc. She claimed the fund under the law. At the time of the issuance of the certificate the plaintiffs' constitution contained this provision: "The constitution of this supreme council and the laws governing the benefit