of persons then existing, with an exception intended to favor a
minor heir. American courts accepted this rule, but some of them
construed it as meaning that no estate in lands could be created
which was to continue after the expiration of such a period.
This construction was shown by Professor John C. Gray, in a work
on "Perpetuities," to be unwarranted, and since its publication
the cases which had proceeded on that basis have been generally
treated as erroneous.

The nature of a legal presumption, also, had been misconceived by
several American courts. It had been treated as evidence of
facts.[Footnote: Coffin _v._ United States, 156 United
States Reports, 432.] Professor J. B. Thayer, in his
"Preliminary Treatise on Evidence,"[Footnote: Pages 337, 566-
575.] argued so forcibly against this view that in at least one
State a decision in which it had been taken has been formally
overruled.[Footnote: Vincent _v._ Mutual Reserve Fund Life
Association, 77 Connecticut Reports, 281, 291; 58 Atlantic
Reporter, 963.]

The Court of Appeals of New York once held in a carefully
prepared opinion that a railroad might be built along the shore
of a navigable river, under authority from the State, without
first making compensation to the riparian proprietors, whose
access to the waters might thus be obstructed.[Footnote: Gould
_v._ Hudson River Railroad Co., 6 New York Reports, 522.]
In a text-book written by Chief Justice Cooley, this decision was
justly criticised,[Footnote: Cooley on Constitutional
Limitations, 670.] and not long after the publication of that
work it was formally overruled.[Footnote: Rumsey _v._ New