Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/386

358 358 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. conclusion is reached in a case concerning the common law offence of conspiracy, and for the present purpose there seems no distinction between a common law and a stat- utory offence. The doctrine of the Supreme Court is consonant with the established regard for the rights of the citizen, but the decision of the principal case has practical grounds of convenience and despatch. On the second point, the decision seems correct. Cooley, Const. Limit. (5th ed.) 507, and cases cited. See Notes. Contracts — Defence — Fraud. — Plaintiff sued on a written instrument, pur- porting to be a contract between plaintiff and defendant. Defendant pleaded that an oral contract had been entered into between plaintiff and defendant, under which plain- tiff agreed to purchase a safe; that plaintiff fraudulently represented to defendant that the document sued on embodied the terms of the oral contract, whereas in fact the alleged promise of defendant in the written instrument substantially differed from defendant's promise in the oral agreement ; that defendant, relying on plaintiff's repre- sentation, signed the instrument sued on. The lower court struck out this plea on the ground that it varied a written contract by oral evidence. Held, that this was error. Wood. Cincinnati Safe Co., 22 S. E. Rep. 909 (Ga.). Clearly a correct decision ; the object of the plea was not to vary the written agree- ment, but to show that it conferred no enforceable rights on plaintiff. This case sug- gests the inquiry whether the facts disclosed constitute an affirmative personal defence or a negative defence to be pleaded under non-assumpsit. Under certain circumstances the answer to this inquiry determines the question of a defendant's liability. In Foster V. Mackinnon, L. R. 4 C. P. 704, the defendant, who was sued as an indorser of a prom- issory note, had written his name on the back of the instrument, relying on a fraudulent representation that he was signing a guaranty; an instruction that defendant, if not guilty of negligence, was not liable to plaintiff, an innocent purchaser for value, was held correct. It would therefore seem that in the principal case the defence was properly non-assumpsit. Pollock on Contracts, 5th ed., 441-466. Corporations — Limitation of the Indebtedness of a City. — A State con- stitution provided that no city " shall become indebted in any manner " oVer a certain amount. Held, this does not prohibit a city already indebted to said amount from bor- rowing money to finish waterworks, if the loan is to be paid out of a special fund created by the receipts derived from such waterworks, as this imposed no further lia- bility on the general funds of the city. Winston v. City of Spokane, 41 Pac. Rep. 888 (Wash.). Two judges out of the five who sat on the case dissent, and the question is undoubt- edly a close one. Those who loaned the money must go at the special fund, and can- not claim payment out of the general city funds even in quasi-contract, it seems. The city would be liable for failure to create the special fund, and damages could be claimed from the city's general funds. But themajority of the court thought such liability too remote. Corporations — Power to Take Forbidden Property by Devise. — Bill by widow and heirs to construe a will. The will directed a trustee to sell certain ware- house property and pay the proceeds to the defendant corporation. The proceeds of the sale were in the trustee's hands. The corporation's charter forbade it to take and hold property over a certain amount, and plaintiffs contended that this limit was already reached. Held, this question can be raised only by the State. Hanson v. Little Sisters of the Poor, 32 Atl. Rep. 1052 (Md.). See Notes. Criminal Jurisdiction — Bringing Stolen Goods into State. — Held,h2it the common law rule, that, where one steals goods in one country and brings them into another, the latter has no jurisdiction of the offence, applies to the different States of the Union. Strotither v. Commonwealth, 22 S. E. Rep. 852 (Va.). The case is right. Several States, it is true, allow conviction in similar cases, on the ground that the States are in the same relative position as the English counties. State V. Ellis, 3 Conn. 185; State v. Hamilton, 11 Ohio, 435 ; Comvi. v. Holder, 9 Gray, 7. But the anomaly, which made each new act of removal across a county line accompanied with the felonious intent, a complete new crime, and yet allowed one con- viction to bar an indictment anywhere else, was not extended to thefts in Scotland, or to the Channel Islands. Reg. v. Anderson, 2 East P. C. 772 ; Rex v. Prowes, i Mood. C. C. 349. On the actual facts the doctrine cannot stand, for the thief certainly gets possession by the original act ; and it is submitted that though this objection may be waived in a set of counties where only one Legislature exists, and only one conviction can be had, it is an insuperable obstacle to any application of the rule to this country. The criminal laws of the States differ in important respects, are not derived from the