former is confined to the land actually in occupation; the latter is co-extensive with the premises described in the paper under which he claims, and which he believes gives him a good title. Angell on Limitations, sec. 400.

"Constructive possession is an incident of ownership, and results from title, and is in no way applicable to a case where the the occupant defends himself avowedly and exclusively on the ground of his own wrong." Angell on Limitations, sec. 394.

"The principle on which the Statute of Limitations is predicated, is not that the party in whose favor it is invoked. has set up an adverse claim for the period specified in the statute, but that such adverse claim is accompanied by such invasion of the rights of the opposite party as to give him a cause of action, which having failed to prosecute within the time limited by law, he is presumed to have extinguished or surrendered. It is the occupation with an intent to claim against the true owner, which renders the entry and possession adverse." Angell on Limitations, sec. 390.

* * *

There must be a disseisin, an ouster, a wrong amounting to a trespass, sufficient to give a cause of action. Surely the payment of taxes, or a professed conveyance, does not constitute such a trespass as to give a cause of action.

The complainant has not proved that he paid any taxes prior to 1870, but relies upon the presumption that they were paid by Todd. But the presumption is the other way. It would be presumed that some legal owner paid such

taxes.

"Every presumption is to be made in favor of the true. owner." Angell on Lim., sec. 385.

"Mere possession would be presumed to be in subordination to the real title, as the law never presumes a wrong." Id.

"The law presumes the person having the legal right to be in possession and seisin until ousted by one having a claim of right." Angell on Lim., sec. 384, cites 6 Peters, 743; 5 Id., 354; 2 Wh., 29; 8 Cow., 589.

"Survey, allotment and conveyance of a piece of land and the recording of the deed, does not constitute disseisin, without an open occupation." Angell on Lim., sec. 390.

As to what constitutes adverse possession see further 26 Am. Dec., 102 n.

In Ewing rs. Burnett, 11 Peters, 42, upon the prayer of the defendant, the court charged the jury that payment of taxes and speaking publicly of the claim, was not sufficient evidence of claim of right, and this was sustained.

"Payment of taxes, though it may extend the limits of an adverse possession, does not constitute it. Like any other voluntary payment of another's debt it gives no right or advantage against the owner. There must be along with it an actual occupancy of at least a part of the land, and for half the period there was no such occupancy before us." Sorber vs. Willing, 10 Watts, 142.

In Reed vs. Field, 15 Vermont, 672, it was held that tax deed of fifty years and payment of taxes under color of a tax collector's deed, was not sufficient to show even color of title, without also proving the preliminary requisites of such deed.

See also Naylor vs. Albright, 4 Whart., Pa., 21; Chapman vs. Templeton, 53 Mo., 463; 4 Watts & Serg't, 36; Jackson rs. Tendlow, 3 John., 388; Angell on Lim., sec. 396.

One of the reasons given for the necessity of a notorious occupation is that the running of the Statute of Limitations is founded upon the theory of acquiescence; (Angell on Lim., sec. 392); and there could be no idea of acquiescence without knowledge by the legal owner. Of course mere payment of taxes, even if there were any evidence of such payment, could give no notice.

The principal defects of the tax sale and deed were that there was not legal notice, and it was not made legally a matter of record. Besides, no tax deed made out as this was gives any one any notice, the grantor being the mayor, &c., of Washington, and the name of Stephenson not appearing in the index; and no report, by the collector of taxes, of said sale was placed upon the land records of the county as required by law.

There was no actual notice of any claim of title by the complainant, or of any person whatever, as against the heirs of Stephenson; and, as we have seen, nothing equivalent to any notice of such claim. There was no record of a sale for taxes as required by law; the alleged tax deed, made fourteen years thereafter, was not recorded according to law, and certainly there was nothing to call attention to the decree of the Baltimore county court. The heirs of Stephenson having the legal title were, constructively, at least, in possession until ousted, and if any such ouster has taken place they never knew it.

The claim of adverse possession against these heirs is certainly unsustained by any presumption of payment of taxes, which is the sole ground of complainant's claim.

Mr. Justice WYLIE delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a bill to quiet the title to the west half of lot 3 in square 780. The bill was filed the 19th of September, 1883. The plaintiff claimed under a tax title, and some mesne conveyances. The defendants claim under the real title. The property was vested in James S. Stevenson in his life time, and he died about the year 1811, seized. The defendants are all heirs at law of James S. Stevenson. It is a claim, then, of the party who holds the tax title under the corporation of Washington against the heirs who hold the real title.

The tax title is briefly this: This piece of property was sold for $1.42, in the year 1827, for taxes due for the years 1824, 1825 and 1826. No tax deed was ever made for this property to the purchaser for thirteen years, and then, in 1841, the tax deed was made in pursuance of the sale which took place in the year 1827, and no possession was taken by the purchaser, or by any person claiming title under this tax sale, until 1870. The tax title had passed by many conveyances through different hands, amongst others William B. Todd, well known in this District as a dealer in tax titles. In 1870 these plaintiffs took possession of the property.

The lot lay out in an unimproved part of the city, and although we have no evidence of the fact, it is very probable, from the lights we have, that the intermediate taxes, after the tax sale in 1827, had been paid by either the original purchaser at the tax sale, or by those who claim under the purchaser. There is no evidence that these heirs ever paid the taxes, which were very small. The bill does not aver that this was a valid tax sale, and there is no proof to establish its validity. But the theory of the bill is that, whether the tax sale was valid or not, the deed under it gave a colorable title. It was necessary, if the plaintiff relied upon the validity of the tax title, that he should show it. A tax deed of itself proves nothing. There are statutes in some States which declare that a deed given by an officer who is authorized to give a tax deed, gives a title prima facie good. But we have no such law. In this District, a man who claims under a tax title must show it to be good just as a man who claims under a deed from the marshal cannot make out any title on the face of the deed. The marshal's deed itself gives no title, because the marshal is acting under an authority, and his authority to make a deed must be shown, and to establish that authority it is necessary to give in evidence the judgment and the execution, and show the authority of the marshal to make the deed. So in regard to a public officer who sells property for the non-payment of taxes. His deed, on its face, amounts to nothing. His authority for making the deed must be shown; otherwise it is a void act.

As we have said, the bill does not aver a good tax title. It is merely claimed that it was a colorable title. But a colorable title is generally a void title in itself. A party who claims to enter under color of title, and by length of adverse possession gains a good title, will hold according to the metest and bounds set out in his colorable title, and that is the only effect of his color of title. The entry in the first instance may be that of a mere trespasser, without colorable title, but if he remains in adverse possession twenty years he gains a title but his title is only for exactly the land that he

claims and stands upon-that he has actual possession of But if he had entered under a color of title, and his deed sets out by metes and bounds the property, then his possession of a part of the land would extend in contemplation of law to the whole, if he has possession long enough to give him title to the whole tract.

It is a very liberal concession to the complainant in this case to say that he has a colorable title. For if the face of the tax deed shows that it was absolutely void it does not even give color of title, and in this case there is strictly nothing to show that this tax deed amounts to anything at 11. But assuming that the complainant has a color of title, as it is claimed, it is only colorable, for he has made out no title under the tax deed. The fact that he has a tax deed, that the tax deed was recorded and that he has paid the taxes on the property, is no proof of title at all as against the real owner. In this case there was no actual possession until the year 1870, and from that date we have thirteen years of adverse possession by the complainant. But thirteen years of adverse possession does not make a title. It requires twenty years of adverse possession to make a good title, and that possession must be open, notorious and actual, not constructive. Payment of taxes does not amount to adverse possession; nor does recording a deed amount to it, and for the reason that it is not visible, open and notorious, and more it is not actual. There is not an authority in the books which supports or gives countenance to the pretext that a man can be ousted of the title to his property by some other person paying his taxes, and by simply getting a tax deed for the land. The tax deed must either be valid or there must be actual, open, notorious, visible adverse possession against all the world for twenty years. It is not necessary that a mere fence should be about it, but there must be actual, open and notorious possession of the property.

We do not find the statute, which is in force here, in regard to adverse possession either in Thompson's Digest or in Kilty's Laws of Maryland. Our statute is the statute of