§ 84. An acceptance must be properly stamped and addressed It is obvious that authority to send an answer by mail must be limited to an acceptance properly addressed. 15 And as the postal laws of the United States require entire or partial prepayment of postage, a letter of acceptance mailed without a stamp will not create a contract. 16 But as letters with the minimum requirement of stamps upon them are sent forward, though their weight is such as to require additional postage, it is not so clear that an acceptance thus stamped is not effective when mailed. 17 That prepayment of a telegraphic acceptance is essential does not seem probable, since no added risk of delay or of failure to reach its destination is involved, The question may also be suggested whether a contract could be completed by mailing a letter of acceptance at a time when mails were stopped by disturbance of nature, by riots, or by war; and, similarly, whether dispatching a telegraphic acceptance would be sufficient if telegraphic communication had been interupted by breaking of the wires. Certainly if ,the acceptor knew of the circumstances, no contract ought to be held to have been formed.18 If the acceptor had no reason to know of the interruption, it would seem that since the offeror has authorized the means of communication adopted, he must take the risks which that method of communication involves. § 85. When an acceptance is mailed. An acceptance is mailed within the meaning of the rule under consideratiom, when it is put within the control of postal authorities authorized to receive it. Merely delivering an acceptance to a messenger with directions to mail it, amounts to nothing until the messenger actually deposits it in the mail. 19 15 Potts v. Whitehead, 20 N. J. Eq. (5 C. E. Green) 55. A letter directed to the offeror at a place to which he only occasionally resorted, was held not to create a contract when mailed. 18 Britton v. Phillips, 24 How. Pr. 111; Blake v. Hamburg-Bremen F. I. Co., 67 Tex. 160, 2 S. W. 368. "In Schultz v. Caledonia Insurance Co., 77 Fed. 375, it was held without discussion that such an acceptance was effective when mailed, though the deficiency in postage delayed delivery of the letter. 18 In Bal v. Van Staden, 20 So. African L. J. 407, it was held that mailing a letter of acceptance did not complete a contract when communication by mail was interrupted by war. 19 Maclay v. Harvey, 90 Ill. 525, 32 Am. Rep. 35. In England where postmen a 1ot required by law to receive letters for mailing, the delivery of a letter to a postman with the request that he post it, is wholly ineffectual until the letter is actually posted. 20 In the United States the postal regulations require the carriers on their rounds to receive all prepaid letters that may be handed them for mailing. Therefore, handing an acceptance properly addressed and stamped to a postman would complete a contract.21 Depositing a letter in a street mail box is still more clearly a mailing of it within the requirements of the law. 22 § 86. It is not important that the acceptor has the power to withdraw his acceptance from the mail. An inference is possible from an English case 23 that the doctrine that an acceptance is complete when it is mailed, is based on the assumption that thereafter the letter is no longer within the sender's control, and that where, as in France, the sender may reclaim his letter, the contract should not be regarded as complete until the acceptance is received. This doctrine can hardly be accepted in the United States, however, where, by the postal regulations, 24 the sender of a letter may regain it by complying with certain specified formalities, 25 and yet as has been 20 Re London & Northern Bank, [1900] 1 Ch. 220. 21 In Pearce v. Langfit, 101 Pa. 507, 511, 47 Am. Rep. 737, the court said: "It certainly can make no difference whether the letter is handed directly to the carrier, or is first deposited in a receiving box and taken from thence by the same carrier. . . . The postal regulations of the United States require that carriers while on their rounds shall receive all letters prepaid that may be handed them for mailing." 22 "It is clear that when the plaintiff in pursuance of defendant's request deposited the duplicate of the contract signed by her, with her address, in the United States street mailing box, the agreement by that act became complete." Watson v. Russell, 149 N. Y. 388, 391, 44 N. E. 161. See also Re London & Northern Bank, [1900] 1 Ch. 220; Wood v. Callaghan, 61 Mich. 402, 411, 28 N. W. 162; Greenwich Bank v. DeGroot, 7 Hun, 210. 23 Ex parte Cote, L. R. 9 Ch. 27. The decision, however, involved the question whether the ownership in bills of exchange passed when they were mailed not whether a bilateral contract was completed. See supra, § 80. 24 §§ 531, 533. 25 See Crown Point Iron Co. v. Aetna Ins. Co., 127 N. Y. 608, 609, 28 N. E. 653, 14 L. R. A. 147. In McDonald v. Chemical Natl. Bank, 174 U. S. 610, 620, 43 L. Ed. 1106, the court said, however,-"Nor can it be conceded that except on some extraordinary occasion and on evidence satisfactory to the post-office authorities, seen a contract is completed by an authorized mailing of an acceptance.26 Moreover, after an acceptance by telegraph, there can be little doubt that the company would, if requested by the sender of the dispatch immediately after he had delivered it for transmission, return it. In England the telegraph lines are in the control of the government, and are operated by the postoffice department. Attention does not seem to have been called in the American cases to the difference in this respect of the telegraph from the post office as a medium of transmission. It may be observed that in the law of property title may pass by an authorized appropriation on the part of the seller though the property still remains entirely within his control," and though it would not be universally admitted that there may be delivery of a formal document remaining wholly within the maker's hands, 28 it does not seem that a mere possibility that the maker may regain possession would prevent a delivery to the post-office from operating as a delivery of the instrument to the person addressed.29 Though the analogy is by no means perfect between a transfer of property or of a formal instrument on mailing and the formation of a bilateral contract by the mailing of a letter of acceptance, no reason is apparent why the possibility of withdrawal by the sender should be of any more importance in the latter case than in the former. § 87. An acceptance inadequate when mailed may become valid when received. If an acceptance is actually received by the offeror which complies with the terms of the offer, while the offer is still When a letter once mailed can be withdrawn 27 Williston on Sales, §§ 274 et seq. 28 See infra, § 211. 29 In Canterbury v. Bank of Sparta, 91 Wis. 53, 64 N. W. 311, 30 L. R. A. 845, 51 Am. St. Rep. 870, a check was dispatched by mail in accordance with an offer. It was held that the title to the check passed at once on the mailing, and that when it was subsequently withdrawn from the mail by the sender, he converted the check, and was liable for its amount. See further, supra, § 80. open, a contract will be formed. Accordingly if for any reason an acceptance when mailed or dispatched by telegraph does not complete the contract, as, for instance, because the use of the mail or telegraph was not authorized, or because the acceptance was not properly addressed, a contract will, nevertheless, be formed if the acceptance is received while the offer still remains open. 30 An inquiry suggests itself which does not seem to have been considered by the courts; how far the duration of the offer may be affected by permitting an accepttance, ineffective when sent, to become valid when received. If an offer is sent by mail from San Francisco to Boston, expressly or impliedly requesting an answer by the same channel, it may be supposed that an answer by mail must be sent within a day or two to create a contract, and if so sent will form a contract when it is mailed. As the mailing constitutes the acceptance, this seems to involve the conclusion that a reasonable time within which acceptance must be made is a day or two. Let it be supposed that the offeree instead of taking this course waits three or four days longer than would be permissible if he had used the mails, and then sends a telegraphic acceptance which reaches the offeror as soon as a letter promptly mailed would have reached him. It seems certainly arguable that when the telegram was sent no offer was open; yet if this result is accepted, the general statements sometimes made must be qualified. It must follow that where a letter of acceptance is called for, and one is sent which is misdirected but which, nevertheless, arrives as soon as if it had been correctly addressed, no contract is created unless the letter of acceptance arrives within a time which would have been reasonable not for receiving, but for dispatching a properly addressed letter. The only apparent escape from the difficulty (which is a consequence of the prevailing rule that mailing an acceptance may create a contract) is to say that a reasonable time for the acceptance of an offer is not an absolute 30 See as to telegrams-Webb v. Sharman, 34 U. C. Q. B. 410; Perry v. Mt. Hope Iron Co., 15 R. I. 380, 5 Atl. 632, 2 Am. St. Rep. 902; Lucas v. Western Union Tel. Co., 131 Ia. 669, 109 N. W. 191. As to mail-Linn v. McLean, 80 Ala. 360, 365; Summers v. Hibbard, 153 Ill. 102, 38 N. E. 899, 46 Am. St. Rep. 872; Potts v. Whitehead, 20 N. J. Eq. 55 (5 C. E. Green); Haines v. Dearborn, * £. 474, 49 Atl. 319. quantity even for that offer but may vary with the means adopted for accepting. Thus a reasonable time for dispatching a letter of acceptance would be shorter than the time permitted if the acceptor accepted in person or put the acceptance directly in the offeror's hands. Though this reasoning is somewhat forced, it is not impossible, and the fact that such an expression as "return mail," when inserted in an offer as a requirement has been construed as meaning within such a time as return mail would reach the offeror, 31 seems to indicate a disposition on the part of the courts to give effect to the probable attitude of mind of the offeror, which ordinarily regards the time when receipt of the acceptance is expected, not the time when it shall be started. One may suppose, however, conditions in an offer concerning the time of acceptance from which escape would be difficult. If an offer by mail said "this offer will be open three days" or "this offer must be accepted within three days" presumably an acceptance mailed within that time would be sufficient; but it seems a difficult construction to interpret the offer as meaning that acceptance may be made at any time within which a letter mailed in three days would normally take to reach the offeror. Unless such a construction could be given the offer, a misdirected acceptance mailed within three days would be ineffectual if it arrived after the lapse of three days, although it arrived as soon as it would if it had been properly directed. When it is proved that a letter properly addressed and stamped was put in the mail there is a presumption that it reached its destination in due course of post.32 A similar presumption has been applied to telegrams. 33 31 See § 76. 32 Warren v. Warren, 1 Cr. M. & R. 250; Bussard v. Levering, 6 Wheat, 102, 5 L. Ed. 215; Rosenthal v. Walker, 111 U. S. 185, 195, 28 L. Ed. 395; Kimberly v. Arms, 129 U. S. 512, 529, 32 L. Ed. 764, 9 Sup. Ct. 355; Young v. Clapp, 147 III. 176, 190, 32 N. E. 187, 35 N. E. 372; Goodwin v. Provident, etc., Ass'n, 97 Ia. 226, 66 N. W. 157, 32 L. R. A. 473, 59 Am. St. Rep. 411; Collins v. Swan Lumber Co., 158 Ky. 231, 164 S. W. 813; Chase v. Surry, 88 Me. 468, 34 Atl. 270; McDowell v. Aetna Insurance Co., 164 Mass. 444, 41 N. E. 665; Farmers' Handy Wagon Co. v. Newcomb, 192 Mich. 634, 159 N. W. 152; Dade v. Aetna Ins. Co., 54 Minn. 336, 56 N. W. 48; Hand v. Howell, 61 N. J. L. 142, 38 Atl. 748; Jansen v. McCorkell, 154 Pa. 323, 26 Atl. 366. 33 Eppinger v. Scott, 112 Cal. 369, 42 Pac. 301, 44 Pac. 723, 53 Am. St. |