Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/315

 508 FEDERAL REPORTER. �receipt was a communication of the fact stated therein, that the bond was received subject to examination and aeceptanoe at Washington. But if the point assumed in this ruling was correct, that it was incumbent on the assistant treasurer to communicate this fact, then I think it is clear that there was no error to the prejudice of the plaintiflf in the manner in which this question was submitted. A person chargeable with the duty of giving a notice does not perform that duty by handing the party entitled to notice a paper containing such notice, especially if the person to whcto it is handed is directed to use it in a particular way and for a particular purpose, which does not require him to examine or read it. If he does read it, it is of course notice to him of the con- tents. But if his attention is not called to its contents — if he is not told to read it, but is told simply to take it somewhere else and present it and get his money, and he does so with- out reading or learning its contents — ^it would be most unrea- sonable to hold that the duty of communicating the fact written upon it bas been discharged. No authority for such a prop- osition bas been cited. �It is also claimed by the plaintiff that money paid under a mistake of fact to one who is known to be and treated as an agent can be recovered back from the agent, even af ter he has paid it oyer to his principal, in case the principal had no right to give the agent authority to aet. The argument is that one who has no right to receive money can give no authority to another to act as his agent in receiving it, and so that the power of attorney in such a case is a nullity, and no act done under it can avail the assumed agent as a defence. I think this reasoning is unsound, and not in accordance with the authorities. If A. holds B.'s note, and sends his servant to B. with the note demanding payment for A., and B., knowing that the person presenting the note is presenting it as servant or agent of A., and not for himself, thereupon takes the note and gives the money to the servant, he gives it to him for the purpose of having him pay over the money to A. Though nothing is said, the payment is with an implied direction to delirer the money to A. as surely as if B. should say : "Here, ����