802 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of Illinois, on bonds conditioned for its repayment, and secured by 

 deeds of trust. One of said bonds, and one of said deeds, as a speci- 

 men of all, is made part of the record. This bond declares ' that 

 it is made under, and is in all respects to be construed, by the laws 

 of the State of Illinois, and is given for an actual loan of money 

 [$3,000] made at Chicago, by Charles W. Kirtland [the plaintiff], 

 to Edmund A. Cummings [the obligor] on the day of the date 

 hereof [July 17, 1869]. The deed of the same date is a convey- 

 ance in fee, by Cummings and his wife, of a lot of land in Chicago, 

 to Norman C. Perkins, of said city, to be held by him in trust, as 

 security for the payment of said loan, with power to sell and convey 

 the same, and apply the proceeds in payment of the loan, in case of 

 default on the part of said Cummings to perform the stipula'tions of 

 said bond. It is quite obvious that Cummings has incurred a debt 

 to Kirtland, and that Kirtland has a claim against Cummings. 

 Cummings is the debtor, Kirtland the creditor. Has this debt a 

 situs? If it has, where is it? In Illinois, or in Connecticut? The 

 contract to loan was made in Illinois, there the creditor parted with 

 his money, there is the property pledged for its repayment, there 

 the debtor is domiciled, there the trustee. 



" This seems to indicate Illinois as the situs of this debt. So 

 far as it is a thing having a substantial existence, it is there, and not 

 elsewhere. The Connecticut statute provides in terms, i that money 

 secured by mortgages upon real estate in this State shall be set in 

 the list and taxed only in the town where said real estate is situated.' 

 This manifestly recognizes the situs of the property pledged as 

 security for a debt, as the situs of the debt. But a debt has no situs. 

 Only a material thing can have a corpus, and only a corpus can have 

 a situs, for it is the location of the corpus that constitutes a situs. 

 A debt is neither visible, tangible, nor ponderable; it has no situs, 

 no corpus. It is a misnomer to call it property. In legal phrase it 

 is but a chose in action, a jus incorporate. It is an equitable title 

 in the property of the debtor, and it adheres, as a title, in the prop- 

 erty it represents. It does not follow the person of the owner in his 

 domicile, though he may transfer it there. 



" These views are fully sustained by the United States Supreme 

 Court, in the case of Brown vs. Kennedy, 15 Wall., 591.* 



* In this case, which covered a proceeding under the confiscation act of 1862, the 

 United States Court rejected the theory that a credit has a legal situs where the owner 

 resides, and held that a bond and mortgage form of credit could be confiscated by the 

 United States where the mortgage debtor resided, though, in point of fact, the bond and 

 mortgage were never in the State of Kansas where the proceedings in forfeiture took place, 

 and were, in fact, in possession < f the owner, in the rebel lines, in the State of Virginia. 

 The court accordingly passed a decree, and ordered that the said bond, mortgage, and 

 credit be condemned and declared forfeited to the United States. The decree also ordered 



