NOTES, 279 our colonial system, and having to deal with this alleged power solely as a supposed necessary deduction from the existence of a written consiitution, have finally decided that the power does not exist. The Imperial Tribunal in the case of K. v. The Dyke Board of Niedervieland (cited in Coxe, Judicial Power and Unconstitutional Legislation, p. 99) held that a " constitutional provision that well acquired rights must not be injured is to be understood only as a rule for the legislative power itself to interpret, and does not signify that a command given by the legi^ative power should be left disregarded by the judge because it injures well acquired rights." It is not to he questioned that the judicial check on unconstitutional legislation is beneficial ; that it is a more convenient and stricter check than that the people directly exercise But it is, at the same time, to be remembered that the right to exercise this check is not to be deduced from the existence of a written constitution. The grave practical results of the decision of the German courts on this point show clearly that the question is not one of merely academic interest. Tacking of Adverse Possessions. — In most jurisdictions privity of estate is regarded as essential to the tackino^ of adverse possessions. In view of the fact that it is a question primarily of barring the owner's right of entry, and not of bestowing title upon the last adverse pos- sessor, the word privity has often been interpreted rather liberally. For example, in Davock v. Ncalon (32 At). Rep. 675), the New Jersey court recently held that where one encloses and occupies more land than is covered by the description in his deed and sells (by the same description) to another, who enters into possession of all the land enclo?ed, the successive possessions may be tacked to make up the period required by the Statute of Limitations. As to the land not included in the deed, the court held that the clear intention of the pirtits, coupled with the actual transfer of po-session, raised the required privity. The same result was reached in McNeely v. Langixn (22 Ohio St. 32), while the opposite view was taken by the Massachusetts court in Ward v. Bartholomew (6 Pick. 409). Each case has a considerable following. Notwithstanding some rather cautious statements in the opinion, it may probably now be taken as sett'ed in New Jersey, that any voluntary transfer of possession will suffice to sanction tacking. This seems the better view. Whether or not one to whom an absolutely void convey- ance has been made, and whose possession is consequently adverse to his grantor, can be said to stand in privity of title with the latter, may be only a question of words, and at any rate it is a difficulty for the New Jersey court to deal with. One who looks at the matter purely in the light of principle may well throw overboard the whole doctrine of privi y, and conclude, as at least one American court has done, (see Fatniingv. Willcox, 3 Day, 258,) that there is no logical stopping place short of hohhng that even successive disseisins are no break in the continuity of adverse possession, and that accordingly a disseisor, as well as a grantee, an heir, or a devisee, must be allowed the privilege of tacking For it certainly seems in accord with the reason of the Statute of Limitations to look at the whole matter solely from the point of view of him whose right is to be barred. If he is kept out of posses-
