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deposited it in a drawer within his safe, locked the safe and put the key away in a box in his office, nevertheless if a clerk or employee had taken the key from the box, unlocked the safe, abstracted the check and used it for his own benefit, its payment by the bank would have bound the depositor. His loss would have been due not to the failure of the banker to distinguish his genuine signature but to the crime of his employee who had obtained it surrep titiously. One of two innocent persons must suffer because of the payment of the check, and the law determines that the loss shall fall up on him whose act or omission made the loss possible. If the depositor had not signed his check and left it where it was possible for a criminal to appropriate it, palpably the loss could not have happened. This princi ple rules this case. It is conceded that the plaintiff caused the stamp to be made with which this check was executed. He says he only intended to use it for a particular purpose, but it is perfect ly apparent that he intended his signature produced by this stamp should be recognized as his by the friends and acquaintances who should receive it, as it certainly would be. Now this stamp belonged to him, was made under his direction, and for his use. It was intended for the rapid production of his sig nature. It was in his possession. He was bound to take care of it as safely as of his own signature made by himself with his own hand. He was bound to do this at his peril. There is no question of reasonable or suffi cient care in the case. As with the signed check so with this stamp signature. When he put it in his safe and left the key where it was possible for anyone to get it and gain admission to the safe, he exposed himself to the loss that might follow, and that loss is his. He seeks in this action to put his own proper loss upon the bank that paid the checks by alleging that the checks were

forged. But they were not forged. The signature was his. He prepared it. All that can be said is that he did not affix it to the checks. But he had prepared it so that any one could affix it to a check or any other paper, and when so affixed it was absolutely impossible to tell that it had not been done by him. There would be some justification for his claim upon the bank, if he had advised the banker that he had pre pared such a signature, that might by a pos sibility be clandestinely gotten from his possession, and given him an impression made by it, and pointed out, if he could have done so, how it might be distinguished from his signature as made by a pen, but he did nothing of the kind. I1 the bank is not protected by his sig nature made by means of his own private stamp, if they are bound at their peril to know and discriminate between his signature made with his pen and that made with his private stamp, then he had by the use of the stamp very greatly increased the re sponsibility and peril of the banker without so much as giving him notice or affording the slightest intimation of the necessity for additional vigilance in scrutinizing checks purporting to bear his signature. Upon every rule of commercial law and upon every consideration of equity and good con science the plaintiff is not entitled to re cover. Such are horns of the judicial dilemma. As one reads one finds himself agreeing with both opinions : that's all right, that's good common sense, there's nothing the matter with that; and then when one finds that he has assented to and affirmed both points of view one wonders where he is at. Well, take your choice of opinions. Of course you want to be on the winning side, for majorities count in the matter of legal opinions as they do in political conventions. It's as good as a guessing game to tell, if you don't know, which was the majority opinion. Can you guess? Give it up. It