Skc. 7] PROPERTY 31 
merely to increase the tax upon it until all its value has 
been taxed out of it; that is, to take from the individual 
all of the services or profit of his landed wealth for the bene- 
fit of the public, leaving him merely the empty shell of 
nominal ownership. The case is analogous to that of a per- 
son or a community which has mortgaged its wealth so 
heavily that the value of its services is entirely consumed 
in the payment of interest, and nothing is left with which 
to redeem the pledge. The same principle applies to all 
taxes, even when not carried to such an extreme. 
§7 
A second helpful guide in resolving the various obscure 
forms of property is found in the fact that one property right 
is often overlaid by another. For instance,a mill is owned in 
shares; a railway company owns some of those shares; a 
bank owns some of the railway shares; and John Smith 
owns some of the bank shares. It is evident that John 
Smith has a claim upon the wealth constituted by the mill, 
although his property is only distantly connected with it, 
and through several intermediate layers of property rights. 
A common example of such secondary relation between 
wealth and property occurs when the property is held in 
trust. At common law, the trustee is the legal owner; but 
the law of equity recognizes the fact that the beneficiary is 
the true owner. He has a claim against the trustee, and the 
trustee holds the right to the wealth as against the rest of 
the world. The beneficiary must work out his rights 
through the rights of the trustee. 
Another good example is that of a claim upon a govern- 
ment, as, for instance, a government bond. This is really 
a claim against the community, for the government is 
merely an intermediary between the bondholder and the 
public wealth which is taxed to satisfy the bondholder’s 
claims. The government owns property only as a sort of 
trustee for the public. The Boston Common is held by the