A CHRISTMAS PRESENT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 294, 3 April 1877, Page 4

A CHRISTMAS PRESENT.

F. H. C. writer to the Tim * that a rowda}** before t"in»t«i!W he received "an interesting-tombing case," which turned Mitt to contain a dozen of champagne. There lining nothing to s!»«r whenc.? it cwiie, F. 11. C. took it for an anonymous Christmas present, ;*»;£ it would seem, consumed it. On January however, there ame a letter fci>ia a wine merchant stating t.iat his cleric hail omittf»l to post a letter on the 12ch lJ>i eemlier, announcing the merchant's intention to send a sample doz_w, unless he shmil i hear anything to tUe contrary within three or four days, " and i>f count; expecting payment for the same." Thereupon •*. H. C. asks. " l-f a tradesman with who t» one has never deaf? justified in send rvg wine v-'ithoufc order at Christmas time r Surety lip is jtistdi.,*d, or at other time. So far there is* m> i>!fcnc; at all. But ! fct'.r question continues. '"ls one bound to pay fur what i>ne lias unsuspectingly consumed, taking it t»> i>« a gift f'' To this answer i* th X the consumer is under theso ciretimsfanci'st c'Huliy justified in declining to pay. Tito case is tints resolved l»y Mr. Benjamin in his learned and acute work on the law of sale. Say. more, if F. 11. C. Itad received the wine tu rch"nt's letter he would have been trt no w;«t bound to answer it, for the party who th':-t proposes a transaction has no right whaWer to throw on th« other party the r»tvn of communicating a ri.fttsal. Tuts devise of a!fectiiij' to premill.;it' ass.-nt from silence likewise occurs. I>y the way. in the solicitations uiic receives every t:»s ami then trout the agents of Continental lotteries. It on the strength of this unauthorised presumption the wine had then been sen?, F. H. C. might have refused to receive it ; or if it had hten received i»y reason of the nature and sender of the goods no: being apparent tilt the eis.? was opened, F. H. 0. would have had no further duty in the mttt. r than to inform the m -reliant that the wine was not accepted, and lay at the sender's risk ; indeed, it is not certain that he would, in strictness, lie bound ev\n to do that.—/"off M<>,H Jhnlj-L