RECENT CASES. 1 85 would have been bitterly contested. But no such doubt oc-curred to Massachusetts lawyers. On principle it would seem desirable that a religious society in a country of religious equality should be allowed to change its faith with- out losing its property. It is of course true that, if property be given in trust for the support of certain doctrines, it ought not to be used by those not entertaining such doctrines, and a court of equity may be forced to undertake the difficult task of defining what doctrines the donors intended to support, and just how far the trustees may deviate therefrom. But it need not be implied that property left to a church under a denomina- tional name was intended to be used only to forward the doctrine which the church then held. Would it not be wise to consider the property as left to the church for such religious and charitable uses as it might think best, always having regard to the donor's express declaration ? This whole matter is well threshed out in Hale v. Everett^ 53 N. H. 9-276, in a very long opinion against the heretical majority of the church, and a still longer and very able dissenting opinion by the late Chief Justice Doe, then Associate Justice. RECENT CASES. Agency — Vice-Principal Rule, — Held (three judges dissenting), that the her.d of a section squad on a railway is not a vice-principal when his negligence in managing a brake causes injuries to a hand working under him. The vice-principal doctrine recognized, No7'therit Pac. Ry. Co. v. Peterson, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 843, The decision sustains the better view of the vice-principal doctrine, that superiority of position does not constitute the relation, but that it exists only where a manager is in charge of a department acting for the principal. But the case is interesting as show- ing a change of view in the Supreme Court toward the vice-principal theory itself. The theory was recognized in Ry. Co. v. Ross, 112 U. S. 377 ; qualified in Ry. Co. v, Baugh, 149 U, S. 368 ; and all but repudiated in Ry. Co. v. Humbly, 154 U. S. 349, and Ry. Co. v. Keegaji, 160 U. S. 259. Bills and Notes — Bill raised by filling in Blanks — Effect of Negli- gence OF Acceptor. — L. accepted a bill for ;^500 bearing a stamp sufficient to cover a bill for ^{^4,000, and with blank spaces upon it which- were afterwards fraudulently filled up so as to make the bill read as one for ;i^3,500. In that condition it was nego- tiated to the plaintiff, who took it in good faith and for valuable consideration. Held, the acceptor was liable only for ;!^500 on the bill. Scholfield v. The Earl of Londes- borough, 12 The Times L. R, 604, The ultimate ground of this decision in the House of Lords is that the defendant was not in fact guilty of negligence in accepting the bill in the condition in which it was when brought to him, but the Lord Chancellor proceeds vigorously to attack the doc- trine of Young V. Grote, 4 Bing, 253, that one who facilitates forgery by another affects the validity of the instrument forged as against himself, which doctrine he traces to the civil law. •' I am not aware," says the learned Chancellor, " of any principle known to the law which should attach such consequences to a written instrument when no such principle is applicable in any other region of jurisprudence where a man's own care- lessness has given opportunity for the commission of a crime. A man, for instance, does not lose his right to his property if he has unnecessarily exposed his goods, but could recover against a bona fide purchaser of any article so lost, notwithstanding the fact that his conduct had to some extent assisted the thief." That the principle is not known in any other region of jurisprudence would not seem fatal to its existence as a part of the law of negotiable paper, founded as it is upon the custom of merchants. That some degree of care should be required of one who helps into existence an instru- ment intended to circulate from hand to hand as money seems self-evident. If one can with impunity create an instrument of such a kind that it presents an obvious oppor- tunity to a dishonest holder of effecting a fraud, it is a serious diminution of the use- fulness of negotiable paper, in so far as it tends to hamper its free circulation.
