Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/438

 The Law of the Land. in a dusty bottle to bind yourself. A leadpencil signature, either hard or soft, will fas ten you as tight as a signature made with a gold pen dipped into the best writing fluid. A person can use only half a name and it will go as far as the whole name, so that if Jane B. makes a lease by name of Joan it is good. Or the initials can be used, or any odd Hebrew, Japanese or Chinese hierog lyphics, and it will be just as good as the full name. As it is written by the oracle of laws, a person may execute an instrument and bind himself as effectually by his initials as by writing his name in full. Figures or a mark may be used in lieu of the proper name, and where either is substituted by a party, intending thereby to bind himself, the signa ture is effective to all intents and purposes. The fact is you do not have to write your name, alias, initials or mark to bind yourself. Your hands may have been up to the wrists in a batch of dough, or you may have been weeding your garden, and have authorized another to write your name. That fact be ing established, the signature will bind you as well as one made with your own hand. It is possible that Brown may have been thinking about a winning lottery combination when he endorsed a bill of exchange with the figures 1, 2, 8, as a substitute for his name. It being shown that he intended thereby to bind himself as endorser, 1, 2, 8 was held to be just as good for that purpose as his name. There are undoubtedly thousands of Cath arines in the world, but when one of them signed a mortgage with that name alone, and in the body of the instrument it appeared what particular Catharine she was, she was bound, the court remarking the object of names being merely to distinguish one per son from another, it seems to be sufficient if this is effected though the full name of the party be not used or even no name at all. So again where Dr. Jekyll made a deed for a piece of land he owned to Mr. Hyde, and Mr. Hvde conveved the same to a third

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party, the latter took a good title, neither being permitted to deny his fictitious other self, for it was held to be the law that there are no authorities which hold that one is not bound by the name he adopts or uses. In other words all the law of the land looks to is the identity of the individual, and when that is clearly established the act will be binding upon him and upon others, for if an individual assume a name for the purpose of making a written contract and put that name to the contract with the view to bind himself, the name thus assumed is his name pro hae viee and he will be held to the contract. Thus is fulfilled the legal maxim, "that is certain which may be ren dered certain." Now if one can write with pencil or pen his name, initials, figures, pseudonym or mark, and in the eyes of the law it all goes as one and the same thing, can one rubberstamp his signature? Of course he can, as was recently decided. This rubber-stamp signature decision il lustrated two points of view in addition to the legal points disposed of. The first was, and we will take the word of counsel and court for it, that there was no parallel au thority to be found in the books. It was a new question growing out of a rubber state of civilization. The second was the fact how courts do disagree. Of course we all know what hap pens when doctors disagree. There are two diagnoses and either may kill. It is to be expected that lawyers would disagree as a matter of business. If they did not, there wouldn't be any litigation and the practice might fall into innocuous desuetude. But when courts disagree with as little shame-facedness as two women i1f a wrangle on either side of a fence, the result is usually a beautiful battle of opinions. The approv al of the opinions of the dissenters becomes a comfort to the loser of the case, so that the wrong of the majority opinion does not make, in his eyes, the matter necessarily and