the promisee's land before the making of the promise. In such cases the true ana logue of the restrictive agreement is the note payable to bearer. THE "Liability of Telegraph Companies" is discussed exhaustively by Morris Wolf in an article of some seventy pages in The Amer ican Law Register for December. The con clusion which is reached is this: "That the best basis upon which to lay the foundation for a tek-graph company's liability consists in the public nature of its employment; and that, so laid, recovery can be had, according to the ordinary measure of damages in delictual actions, in every case in which a mes sage is sent and carelessly handled, whether the message be open or cipher, and whether trie natural and not too remote consequences of its non-delivery or of its late or inaccurate delivery be pecuniary or sentimental injury." TAKING as a text the newspaper protest against the decision of the Supreme Court of Missouri in the Butler bribery case, The Kan sas City Bar Monthly defends the action of the court., as follows: The corpus delicti of bribery, as declared by the statutes of Missouri, is the exercise or attempted exercise of corrupt means to se cure the action of some officer upon any mat ter "which may be then pending or which may by law be brought before him in his official capacity." The last clause is quoted literally from the statute. The first duty of the court was to determine what elements were essential to come within the terms of the statute and at the outset of his opinion Judge Fox defines these elements as follows : First, there must be a public officer of the city or of the State; secondly, the offer there made must be with intent to influence the vote, opinion, judgment or decision of such public officer; thirdly, the vote, opinion, judg ment or decision must be in respect to some question which may by law be brought be fore a public officer in his official capacity. The court then proceeds to examine the ordinance of the city of St. Louis under
which the contract was awarded to Butler by the Board of Health, and in the light of the city's charter determines the ordinance to have been void as an attempt to invest the Board of Health with powers expressly and exclusively vested by the charter in the Board of Public Improvements. Upon this branch of the case, which, by the way, is one that affects the law of municipal corporations iar more vitally than it does the law of crimes, we venture no opinion but assume that the construction of the charter .s founded upon reason and precedent. As the ordinance entrusting the power in tho public officer attempted to be bribed was void, the matter was not, therefore, one which might by law be brought before him in his official capacity. When the court found the ordinance void it is difficult to see how the court could have logically found otherwise than it did on the main issue. It is no doubt unfortunate for many reasons that the court should have been compelled in this particular case to hold the attempted exercise of authority of the Board of Health beyond the powers which might be entrusted to them under the charter of the city, but it is neither fair nor sensible to say that the justice and logic of the case demanded that in order to sustain this con viction the charter must be so warped by con struction as to place municipal authority in hands other than those to which the people adopting the charter have plainly entrusted them. The division of governmental powers by charters adopted as those of this city and St. Louis are adopted is expressive of the will of the people as to the best method of securing efficient administration. The main tenance of such provisions is far more vital to the protection of public and private wel fare, of personal liberty and private property than the conviction of any criminal, howeve: great the enormity of his crime or however much its commission or his escape may shock the public conscience. Whether the question arises in a civil or a criminal action this division must be upheld. Otherwise chaos of municipal activity results.
