Page:St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Co. v. Beidler.pdf/14

30 Rh  if the division superintendent would certify in writing to the correctness of the lines as shown on the plat.

Beidler, not having a personal acquaintance with the division superintendent, requested Hogane, the surveyor, to lay the map before him and have him examine it, and if found correct, to so certify. This was done, and the division superintendent indorsed on the map, over his official signature, "This is correct."

On the 19th of December, Beidler called at the commissioner's office in Little Rock, for the purpose of making the purchase, but not finding him in, left with his chief clerk the plat certified by the division superintendent to be correct, and $200 in money to be applied on the proposed purchase when the terms were settled. Under date of December 24th, the commissioner writes Beidler that lie has the certified plat; that he considered the land worth $16 per acre, and wishes to hear from him soon. In response to this, Beidler came in person, and on the 26th of December the treaty of purchase was concluded.

On the same day, but after the writings had been drawn and delivered, the commissioner and the division superintendent discussed the matter and came to the conclusion that too much of the land had been sold off, and that the Company might hereafter need some of it to accommodate future expansions of its business. Prompt measures of retraction were taken, but the matter had proceeded too far to allow of any jus deliberandi or locus poenitentiae.

In all this we see nothing that comes up to the legal idea of fraud. No fiduciary relation existed between the parties, and the means of information were equally accessible to both. All that can be said is that Beidler seems to have taken advantage of the want of understanding between the land department and the operating department of the Railway. But we are not