leased from it. When a person seeks to acquire a right, he is bound to act with a degree of strictness, such as may not be required where he is only endeavoring to excuse himself from a liability." This is regarded as a leading case on the question of acceptance of contract by letter, and the language quoted we regard as a clear and accurate statement of the law, as applicable to the present case. It is clear here, that the nature of the business demanded a prompt answer, and the words "you will confer a favor by giving me your answer by return mail" do, in effect, "stipulate" for an answer by return mail. Taylor v. Rennie et al., 35 Barb. 272.

The evidence shows that there were two daily mails between Peoria and Monmouth—one arriving at Monmouth at 11 o'clock a. m. and the other at 6 o'clock p. m., and it did not require more than one day's time between the points. Appellee's letter to appellant making the offer, it will be remembered, bears date March 21. Assuming the date of appellant's postal card (which, she says, was written on the morning after she received appellee's letter) to be correct, she received appellant's letter on the evening of the 22d. Appellee was, therefore, entitled to expect a reply mailed on the 23rd, which he ought to have received on that day, or at the farthest by the morning of the 24th; but appellant's reply was not mailed until the 25th. It does not relieve appellant of fault that she gave the postal card to a boy on the 23rd, to have him mail it. Her duty was not to place an answer in private hands, but in the post-office. The boy was her agent, not that of appellee, and his negligence in mailing the postal card was her negligence.

The question of whether it would not have equally well subserved appellee's object had he treated the postal card of appellant as the consummation of a contract, is irrelevant. Appellant seeks to recover upon the strict letter of a special contract, and it is, therefore, incumbent on her to prove such contract. It is required of her, as we have seen, to prove an acceptance of appellee's offer within the time to which it was limited that is to say, by the placing in the post-office of an answer unequivocally accepting the offer in time for the return mail, which she did not do. Appellee was, thereafter, under no obligation to regard the contract as closed. He might, it is true, have done so, but he was not legally bound in that respect, nor was he legally bound to notify appellant that her acceptance had not been signified within the time to which his offer was limited. She is legally chargeable with knowledge that her acceptance was not in time, and in order to fix a liability thereby upon appellee, it was incumbent upon her, before assuming that appellee waived this objection, to ascertain that he in fact did so.

Appellee was led, by the postal card of appellant, to believe that he

would, when he arrived at Chicago on Thursday, find her either at Wetherell's or Keith Brothers. Had he done so, it was his intention to treat the contract as closed; but she was not there, and this intention was not acted upon, and so is to be considered as if it had never existed. Appellee, not finding appellant at Wetherell's or Keith Bros. as she had led him to believe he would, had no reason to assume that she was, in good faith, acting upon the assumption that her postal card had closed the contract, and he cannot, therefore, be held estopped from denying that it was not posted in time. In view of the lateness of the season, and the danger to appellee's business from delay, of all which appellant is aware, it cannot be said appellee acted with undue haste in engaging another milliner.

The judgment is affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.

DICKEY, J., dissenting:

I cannot concur in this decision. I think the special contract was made and assented to by both parties. I concede that the delay of Miss Maclay in mailing her postal card was such that the mere mailing of it on Saturday, March 25, did not bind Harvey or consummate a contract. I agree that on Monday evening (the 27th) when he received that card, he had, at that time, the right, by law, to reject it, because it came too late, but, in my judgment, he waived that right. In the language of the governing opinion, appellee was "under no obligation to regard the contract as closed. He might, it is true, have done so, that is, he might have "treated the postal card as the consummation of a contract."

The point on which I differ from my brethren is this: I think the evidence tends to show that he did, in fact, waive the delay; that he did in fact, treat, "the postal card as the consummation of a contract;" that he did "regard the contract as closed." He received on Monday evening her acceptance of his offer, with a statement, dated on the Thursday previous, that she would (in pursuance of the supposed contract) "go up to Chicago next week." If he intended to avail himself of her delay in sending her answer, and for that cause refuse to treat the contract as closed, it was his duty to notify her at once of his intention to do so. He remained silent three whole days, and permitted her to make her journey to Chicago on the faith of the supposed contract. Even had Harvey not intended to treat this as a contract consummated, his neglect to so notify her ought to estop him from saying that he did not waive all objection on account of her delay in answering.

It is true, one cannot, on his own mere motion impose upon another, without his consent, the duty of rejecting an offer. In such case, the failure to reject an offer must not be held to be an acceptance. But in this case, special relations, as negotiators, had been established between these parties, at the instance of Harvey. The surroundings were such that common honesty demanded of him that he should notify her at once if he intended to object to her acceptance of his offer on the ground that it came too late. Not only was he silent, but he did, affirmatively, treat the contract as consummated. He started to Chicago on Wednesday evening, two days after he received her postal card, as he testifies, "expecting to find Miss Maclay in Chicago," and intending to confer with her about the business which was the subject of the contract. The expectation that he would meet her in Chicago was founded on the fact that he supposed she regarded the contract complete, and that she would, in pursuance thereof, be in Chicago.

A contract consists in the meeting of two minds at the same time on the same terms, and so made mainfest to each. The proof tends to show, that on Wednesday, when Harvey started to Chicago, he regarded the contract as closed, and that at that time Miss Maclay, also at Peoria, regarded the contract as made and complete; and it also plainly shows, that Miss Maclay understood that Harvey was consenting thereto, and at the same time Harvey well understood that she was consenting thereto. He thought he had hired a trimmer-she thought she had contracted for employment as such.

Had Harvey found Miss Maclay at Chicago, and had she there at once refused to perform the contract, and had she thereby compelled him, at increased expense, to hire another trimmer, Harvey could, doubtless, have had an action against her for a breach of the contract. If she were bound, he ought also to be held bound by this contract.

It is suggested, that the failure of Miss Maclay to be found in Chicago on Thursday, in some way gave Harvey the right to cease treating this contract as closed. It is true, as a matter of fact, that Harvey expected Miss Maclay would be in Chicago on Thursday, preparing to execute the contract. It was no fault of hers that she was not there on that day. She had written the week previous, saying, "I will go up to Chicago next week." on Friday, March 31. to meet her there, or intended to go there at all. gation to be there before Friday, and I cannot perceive how that fact can operate to release Harvey from what I regard as a binding contract.

She kept her promise.
She had no intimation

She arrived at Chicago that Harvey expected She was under no obli

UNACCEPTED OFFER MAY BE WITHDRAWN

SHUEY V. UNITED STATES

92 United States, 73 (1875)

Appeal from the Court of Claims.

Henry B. Ste. Marie filed his petition in the Court of Claims to recover the sum of $15,000, being the balance alleged to be due him of the reward of $25,000 offered by the Secretary of War, on April 20, 1865, for the apprehension of John H. Surratt, one of Booth's alleged accomplices in the murder of President Lincoln.

The Court below found the facts as follows:

1. On April 20, 1865, the Secretary of War issued, and caused to be published in the public newspapers and otherwise, a proclamation, whereby he announced that there would be paid by the War Department "for the apprehension of John H. Surratt, one of Booth's accomplices," $25,000 reward, and also that "liberal rewards will be paid for any information that shall conduce to the arrest of either of the abovenamed criminals or their accomplices;" and such proclamation was not limited in terms to any specific period, and it was signed "Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War." On November 24, 1865, the President caused to be published his order revoking the reward offered for the arrest of John H. Surratt. 13 Stat. 778.

2. In April, 1866, John H. Surratt was zouave in the military service of the Papal Government, and the claimant was also a zouave in the same service. During that month he communicated to Mr. King, the American Minister at Rome, the fact that he had discovered and identified Surratt, who had confessed to him his participation in the plot against the life of President Lincoln. The claimant also subsequently communicated further information to the same effect, and kept watch, at the request of the American Minister, over Surratt. Thereupon certain diplomatic correspondence passed between the Government of the United States and the Papal Government relative to the arrest of and extradition of Surratt; and on November 6, 1866, the Papal Government, at the request of the United States, ordered the arrest of Surratt, and that he be brought to Rome, he then being at Veroli. Under this order of the Papal Government, Surratt was arrested; but, at the moment of leaving prison at Veroli, he escaped from the guard having him in custody, and, crossing the frontier of the Papal territory, embarked at Naples, and escaped to Alexandria in Egypt. Immediately after his escape, and both before and after his embarkation at Naples, the American Minister at Rome, being informed of the escape by the Papal

Government, took measures to trace and rearrest him, which was done in Alexandria. From that place he was subsequently conveyed by the American Government to the United States; but the American Minister, having previously procured the discharge of the claimant from the Papal military service, sent him forward to Alexandria to identify Surratt. At the time of the first interview between the claimant and the American Minister, and at all subsequent times until the final capture of Surratt, they were ignorant of the fact that the reward offered by the Secretary of War for his arrest had been revoked by the President. The discovery and arrest of Surratt were due entirely to the disclosures made by the claimant to the American Minister at Rome; but the arrest was not made by the claimant, either at Veroli, or subsequently at Alexandria.

3. There has been paid to the claimant by the defendants, under the Act of July 27, 1868 (15 Stat. 234,§3), the sum of $10,000. Such payment was made by a draft on the Treasury payable to the order of the claimant, which draft was by him duly indorsed.

The Court found as a matter of law that the claimant's service, as set forth in the foregoing findings, did not constitute an arrest of Surratt within the meaning of the proclamation, but was merely the giving of information which conduced to the arrest. For such information the remuneration allowed to him under the Act of Congress was a full satisfaction, and discharges the defendants from all liability.

The petition was dismissed accordingly, whereupon an appeal was taken to this Court.

Ste. Marie having died "pendente lite," his executor was substituted in his stead.

STRONG, J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

We agree with the Court of Claims, that the service rendered by the plaintiff's testator was, not the apprehension of John H Surratt, for which the War Department had offered a reward of $25,000 but, giving information that conduced to the arrest. These are quite distinct things, though one may have been a consequence of the other. The proclamation of the Secretary of War treated them as different; and, while a reward of $25,000 was offered for the apprehension, the offer for information was only a "liberal reward." The findings of the Court of Claims also exhibit a clear distinction between making the arrest and giving the information that led to it. It is found as a fact, that the arrest was not made by the claimant, though the discovery and arrest were due entirely to the disclosures made by him. The plain meaning of this is, that Surratt's apprehension was a consequence of the disclosures made. But the consequence of a man's act are not his acts. Between