Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/15

 ■8 ,, FEDERAL REPORTER. �chase money something over $2,000, and then conveyed it to the corporation. �Now, it was to pay this money, by them advanced, tîiat Mrs. Burch made the loan now in controversy. I say this haa an important bearing upon the question of good faith, because it might well have been believed by Mrs. Burch that the sec- retary of the oompany had authority to use the bonds of the Company for the purpose of raising money to pay this debt, which was a debt, in equity at least, against the corporation. Then, again, she received the bonds from the secretary of the corporation, and, I believe, it has been repeatedly held by the supreme court of the United States, and perhaps by other courts, that a purchaser of the' bonds of a corporation may presume that an officer of the corporation, acting in the capacity of an agent of the corporation, is acting within his authority, unless actual or construotive notice is brought home to suoh purchaser. But it is said that the husband of this lady knew the facts, and that notice to the husband is notice to the wife. I think, however, that this is not true for ail purposes. When a married woman is acting or contracting with refer- ence to her separate estate, it is well settled that she is to be regarded as Sbfeme sole. �In regard to such transactions, especially under the more modern and enlightened view of the subject, she is as inde- pendent of her husband as he is of her. She is bound, then, in such transactions, only by notice given to him in so far as he acts as her agent. The supreme court of Missouri haa stated this doctrine in the sixty-seventh volume of the Mis- souri Eeports, page 601, in the case of Morrison v. Thistle, as follows: "In equity, husband and wife are not, in a large number of cases, regarded as one and the same person. They, for this reason, may sue and be sued, contract and be con- tracted with, and becomo the crediter or debtor of each other with like eiïect, so far as regards equitable contemplation and rights, as if they had never become one flesh, " citing numer- ous cases. �Now, thore is no proof that Mrs. Barch had any informa- tion with regard to the authority of the secretary of this com- ����