NOTES OF RECENT CASES out a license on evidence showing defendant disposed of a bottle of Peruna. There was also evidence establishing, as the court says," beyond dispute," that Peruna is intoxicating, and was used as a beverage. This is sufficient, says the court, to sustain a conviction, and it was no defense that the liquor was sold as a medicine. The seller is charged with the duty of acquainting himself with the contents of the preparations he is selling, and if they contain the elements necessary to constitute an intoxicating liquid in such form that they may be used as beverages, it is unlawful to sell them, even though the seller in doing so believes that they are to be used as a medicine. LIMITATIONS. (Real Actions — Accruing In terests.) Australia. — Although there is no sta tute in force in New South Wales giving a person title by prescription, there is in operation the English Real Property Suits Limitation Act of 1833, which came into effect in the colony, by adoption, in 1837. By it a person claiming land under a common law title can bring an action against another in adverse possession within twenty years only after such time as the right accrued to him. The man in possession during that time can claim the land against all but the true owner, and after the lapse of the specified time, he can hold against the world and convey his title accordingly. What his position mean time was, so far as the value of his possession was concerned, has been undefined until the recent case of Clissold v. Perry, Commonwealth Law Reports, 363. The plaintiff Was in possession of lands, without a documentary title, for ten years, when part of the land was resumed by the govern ment under the Public Works Act, 1900, sees. 95 and 96. Upon making the usual claim for compensation, the defendant, who was the minister administering the act, refused to make assess ment on the ground that the plaintiff, not having a title documentary or possessory under the Limitation Act, was not entitled to receive any compensation. The state court upheld this contention from which the plaintiff appealed to the high court of Australia. This court decided that, as the act under which the resumption was made did not specifically bar such interests as were possessed by the plaintiff, and it was obviously the intention of the act not to interfere with vested interests, Clissold was entitled to have the value of his possession assessed as compensation. He was in possession of the land for ten years, which was a substantial interest, as it brought him nearer the twenty years under the act nec essary to protect him against an action of eject ment. Possession being good against the world, save the true owner, is a salable and devisable
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interest, so that if the government were not made to pay for the land resumed, it would be confiscating part of a man's property. Further, the act gave an indefeasible title to the govern ment on such resumption, the title of the holder of the resumed land being converted into a claim for compensation. The court could not permit the ten years' title of the plaintiff to be swallowed up — to do so would in effect be giving judgment in ejectment to the real unknown owner — and the claim for compensation by the holder would be illusory. Judgment went in favor of Clissold that an assessment be made and the amount determined to be paid into court to await the expiration of the twenty years under the act, then — should the true owner meanwhile not turn up — it should be paid to the plaintiff or his representa tives. This judgment was subsequently up-held by the Privy Council on appeal by permission from the high court. The act limiting real actions can be made, in New South Wales, to have the effect of the Pre scription Act. as by it indirectly an indefeasible title can be obtained. Under the Torrens System which that obtains, upon the twenty years' possession being clearly proved, a certificate of title will issue, and be registered in favor of the holder of the land upon which the common law documentary title of all others to the same land is extinguished, and alTclaims are barred against the holder of the certificate. The important point in this case under notice is that by the Limitation Act, immediately upon a person going into pos session adverse to the true owner, he begins to establish a material interest accruing from day to day, the actual value of which he can handle only when the limit of twenty years' possession has been reached under the act. NEGLIGENCE. (Telegraphs.) U. S. C. C. A. 8th Circ. — The duties of telegraph companies arc further elucidated in Bank of Havelock v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 141 Fed. 523, where it is held that in the absence of notice of facts or circumstances which would awaken in quiry or arouse suspicion in the mind of a person of ordinary prudence and intelligence in a like situation, regarding the authority of a person who presents a message for transmission, the exercise by a telegraph company and its operators of rea sonable care to receive and transmit genuine and authorized messages only, does not require them to investigate or ascertain the identity or authority of the person who tenders a message for transmis sion, whether that message is in writing, or is spoken directly to the operator, or is communicated to him by telephone. It is, however, declared that when such facts or circumstances come to the
