Unknown claimants

The construction of the court of the local statute is that it requires the parties defendant in an action to quiet title to be designated 'by their names, as near as they can be ascertained,' and permits parties defendant to be designated as 'unknown claimants' only when their names cannot be ascertained. In other words, requires them to be unknown in fact, not merely in designation. Any other conclusion would make the statute not a facility for removing clouds from titles, but for putting clouds upon them; and the accommodation of the law of its process to an exceptional condition could be perverted, and rights devested by a semblance of notice of adverse claims to them.