NOTES, 289 was void as against public policy. The court says : " It is true that many authorities have held that such an agreement is binding upon all who assent to it," because of the "'risks and uncertainties attendant on the transmission of messages by means of electricity, and the difficulties in the way of guarding against errors and delays ; ' " but this is " not a sufficient reason why such stipulations should be sustained. The tele- graph company is only bound to use ordinary care and diligence in transmitting messages, and is not responsible for any errors or failures which such care and diligence are insufficient to guard against or avoid." The Bishop of Lincoln's case, which has attracted so much attention in England on account of its importance in regard to the rites of the church, presents also several matters of interest from a legal point of view. The jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury's court (a question to which attention was called in 3 Harv. Law Rev. 42) was affirmed by the judgment delivered in May, 1889, but it was not until Nov. 21, 1890, that the archbishop delivered judgment upon the merits. The judgment, which is exceedingly long, shows great learning and very careful research in regard to the ecclesiastical questions at issue. The point which chiefly concerns us, however, is the fact that, although the archbishop's court is admitted to be one of first instance from which an appeal lies to the Privy Council, the archbishop disregards three decisions of the Privy Council and reaches exactly opposite conclu- sions.^ His justification lies in the fact that his historical investigations, which appear to have been most thorough, have thrown new light upon the questions in dispute ; and it must be conceded that upon such sub- jects his opinion, based upon the profound learning of himself and the five bishops sitting with him, is of much greater weight than that of the judicial committee of the Privy Council. To a lawyer, the spectacle of a court of first instance undertaking to review the decisions of the court of last resort is indeed somewhat startling. Yet from a layman's point of view (at any rate on this side of the water) it cannot be denied that the result reached seems emi- nently satisfactory. For what more fitting than that a purely ecclesias- tical question should be decided by the highest ecclesiastic in the land, unfettered by the opinions of common-law judges. From a practical standpoint, moreover, there is an obvious difference between this case and that of an inferior common-law court. For while it would be sheer waste of time, if nothing worse, for the latter to disregard a decision of the House of Lords (especially in the light of the English doctrine that the House of Lords is absolutely bound by its own decisions), it seems to be generally supposed that in the case before us the defeated party will be satisfied to abide by the archbishop's judgment. 1 Martin v. Mackonochie, 2 P. C. 365 (1868); Hebbert v. Purchase 3 P. C. 605 (1871); Ridsdaiey. Clifton, 2 P. D. 276 (1877).
