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peat them to ensure their accuracy irrespective of such an agreement.

31. Of course, a company in all cases must use reasonable skill in transmitting and delivering its messages. The above rule does not protect a company against the gross neglect or indifference of its operators. Should the addressee live several miles from the place to which a message is addressed, the company is under no legal duty to deliver it there.

Stipulations concerning night messages does not exonerate the company for any negligence in transmission, or exempt it from liability arising from the want of due diligence in prompt delivery. The company must exercise the same diligence in delivering them on the following morning as if they had been sent as day messages. A stipulation though to the effect that, in consideration of reduced rates, the company's duty to deliver shall be fulfilled by noon of the succeeding day is reasonable and valid.

Is a delivery to a hotel clerk of a message addressed to one of its guests or boarders in his absence a good delivery? The courts have answered both ways, but in one of the latest cases the court said: "We can see no reason why such a duty would exist, if voluntarily assumed, any more than that of receiving other notices or transacting other business for the boarder."

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32. To whom does a company give credit for the price of sending a message? The answer is, in the first place, to the sender. If sent without payment

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the receiver may take it or not, as he pleases; if he refuses he cannot be held liable for the amount. But, if he takes an unpaid message, he must pay therefor. Finally, after receiving and opening the envelope containing a message, and especially after reading it, he cannot then decline to receive it and to pay for it, for he has received it.

The damages recoverable for a breech of the contract between a telegraph company and the sender of a message are those which may fairly and reasonably be considered to arise naturally from the breech of the contract, or such as may reasonably be supposed to have been in the minds of both parties at the time of making the contract.

33. The business of supplying the public with electricity, like that of supplying gas for lighting, involves the handling of a highly dangerous agent, and therefore requires a corresponding degree of care on the part of the undertaker to prevent injury. He must put his wires high enough to enable persons who are rightfully under them to pass without coming in contact with them, and to keep them properly insulated. One who lets the use of a structure, for example, a telegraph pole, for attaching electric wires thereto, is liable for defects whereby the electricity is caused to escape from a wire and injuring a third person.

34. Telephone companies, like telegraph companies, are analagous to common carriers in affording equal facilities to all, and may be compelled by law to furnish facilities to one offering to comply with their

regulations, even though such party is a rival company. A telephone company doing a general telephone business is a common carrier of news, and must furnish impartial service without discrimination to all persons in the same class. The cases hold a telephone company, like a telegraph company, to be a common carrier of news intelligence or communications. The interstate commerce act makes a telephone company, doing an interstate telephone business, a common carrier within the meaning and purpose of that act.

35. A telephone company must furnish its services to each patron at a uniform price for the same services. They are often regulated by statutes. It may make a greater charge to a subscriber who has a single line than to one who is on a party line. The charges for a long distance telephone must be the same to all, whether the patron be a subscriber or not; nor can the company do the business over a longer route and charge accordingly when it could be done over a shorter one.

36. One of the duties of a telephone company, with few exceptions, is to transmit all messages tendered to them in the order they are received. In many states this is a statutory requirement. A subscriber may demand that his "calls" at the exchange receive proper attention in the regular order in which they are made; that all calls for him be properly looked after; and that he be given prompt and efficient connections with other subscribers.

37. Under some circumstances, a telephone com

pany may decline to serve an applicant. If he should use abusive language over the wires, or such as would tend to create a public disturbance, they may refuse to furnish him service while using such language. And should one of their subscribers use, continuously, such language or abuse over his telephone, after persistent requests by the company not to do so, they may, as a last resort, remove their instrument from his premises.

CHAPTER XV

PROMISSORY NOTES AND BILLS OF
EXCHANGE

1. What is a negotiable bill or note.

2. Its four characteristics.

3. Non-negotiable paper.

4. Promissory note defined.

5. Must be delivered.

6. How it must be signed.

7. Forged signature.

8. Ambiguities and omissions.

9. Effect of additional statements.

10. Ways of payment.

II. Instrument need not follow language of the act.

12. Consideration.

13. Who is an accommodation party.

14. Indorsement.

15. Liability of an indorser.

16. Indorsement to an official.

17. How an agent or representative may indorse.

18. When is an indorsement presumed to have been

made.

19. Holder may strike out indorsements.

20. Transfer without indorsement.

21. Instrument may be negotiated back.

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