5 i2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



or credits in excess of or separate from the embodied labor they are 

 supposed to represent, we call the act swindling. Fancy a member 

 of the legal profession appearing in court to defend such a person 

 for selling a title, separate from an actuality, on the ground that 

 such a title was property because he was able to sell it, and that some- 

 body not keen was persuaded to buy it! Would the plea caveat 

 emptor avail in such a transaction? 



In other words, when the title does not inhere in the physical 

 actuality, we give it a bad name, and the most imaginative do not call 

 it property. A title which is really a title is never suspended or in 

 abeyance. If a thing is embodied labor, some one, or a number of 

 persons, has some form of title or dominion over it, and the title is 

 inseparably allied to the thing; and therefore the sale of the title is 

 the sale of the thing, because they are one and inseparable. Em- 

 bodied labor, therefore, embodies all forms of title to the embodied 

 labor. Credits and titles of themselves have no value, and separated 

 from the things they represent, they can not honestly be sold at all. 

 Who will buy them? We know the character of the men who will 

 sell them,, and their representatives will always be found in penal 

 institutions. 



If some other name be given to embodied labor than property, 

 it will not diminish its power to satisfy human wants ; and if, on the 

 other hand, we call credits and titles property, they can not be 

 eaten, or made of themselves in any form to satisfy wants, but 

 they can represent things which will satisfy wants. It is interest- 

 ing also to note that when attempts have been made to claim salvage 

 for the recovery of bills of exchange, or other titles of property, from 

 wrecks, the courts have decided that salvage in such cases is not 

 allowable; and, therefore, have practically held that credits and 

 titles are not property, but mere rights to property, and in the case 

 of negotiable instruments, when destroyed by fire or otherwise, the 

 right under the destroyed instrument still remains, and can be en- 

 forced in courts when identified. 



Actualities, not Fictions, the Legitimate Subject of Taxa- 

 tion. — Enact such laws, also, in respect to taxing titles as we may, 

 experience will prove that taxes can not be practically levied on im- 

 aginary things, or legal fictions, because it is some physical actuality, 

 in the sense of embodied labor, that must, after all, and in the end, 

 pay all taxes. Also, " taxes are generally demanded in money, and 

 any tax law will be understood to require money when a different 

 intent is not expressed " (Judge T. M. Cooley). If legislatures have 

 the power of creating fiat property — that is, imaginary or fictitious 

 property — it is beyond their power to make it pay taxes, for nothing 

 less than omnipotence can make something out of nothing. 



