20 



CONTRACTS CONCERNING HORSES, ETC. 



Where no 

 price is 

 agreed upoE. 



Contract by- 

 Letter. 



Sufficient 

 between the 

 parties. 



Must express 

 all the terms 

 of the agree- 

 ment. 



If, however, no price is fixed and agreed upon, a note 

 or memorandum which does not state any will be suffi- 

 cient, and the law will infer that a reasonable price was to 

 be paid {m) ; on the principle that if I take up wares from 

 a tradesman, without any agreement as to price, the law 

 concludes that I contracted to pay their real value («). 



The omission of the particular mode or time of payment 

 does not necessarily invalidate the agreement (o). 



A person who transacts a proposal by Letter must be 

 considered as renewing his offer every moment, until the 

 time at which the answer is to be sent, and then the con- 

 tract is completed by the acceptance of the offer. For if 

 the law were otherwise, no contract could ever be com- 

 pleted by post (^;). And if a letter be given in evidence 

 with the direction torn off, the jury will do well to pre- 

 sume prima facie, that it was addressed to the person who 

 produces it {q). 



Where an intending purchaser wrote to the seller saying, 

 " If I hear no more about the Horse, I consider the Horse 

 is mine at 50/. 15s.," and the seller did not answer the 

 letter, the purchaser would have been bound to his offer, if 

 the seller had chosen to accept it ; but the fact of the seller 

 not having answered the letter Avill not bind him, as the 

 purchaser had no right to put upon him the burden of the 

 choice of writing a letter of refusal or being bound by the 

 agreement proposed (;•). 



If letters taken together contain a sufficient contract, 

 namely, one that would express all its terms, they would 

 constitute a memorandum in writing within the Statute. 

 And of course therefore the Court may look at all the 

 letters which have passed, for the purpose of seeing whe- 

 ther or not they contain a sufficient contract to take the 

 case out of the Statute («). 



But they must express all the terms of the contract (t). 

 Thus, where it was clear from Letters and Invoices that 

 the defendant had bought goods from the plaintiff upon 



(m) HandJey v. M'Zaine, 10 Bing. 

 488. 



(«) 2 Bla. Com. 30. 



(o) Sari V. Boicrdillon, 26 L. J., 

 C. P. 78. 



(^j) Bxmlop V. Higyins, 12 Jui'. 

 295 ; Chitty on Contracts, 10th ed. 

 11. 



{q) Curtis V. Richards, 1 M. & G. 

 47, per Tiudal, C. J. 



(>•) Felthouse v. Bindley, 31 L. J., 

 C. P. 204. 



(.•)) Archer v. Baynes, 5 Ex. 629 ; 

 Ilichards v. Forter, 6 C. B. 438; 

 Warner v. WiUington, 25 L. J., Ch. 

 662 ; Smith v. Neale, 26 L. J., C. P. 

 143 ; Watts v. Ainsicorth, 1 H. & 

 C. 83. 



{t) Bailey v. Siveetiny, 9 W. R. 

 273. 



