Day 190 - 23 Nov 95 - Page 16


     
     1             delivered and on the same day H, a porter in the
     2             defendants' service at U station, disappeared.
     3             A superintendent of police at U gave, after
     4             objection by defendants, the following
     5             evidence:- 'I know P, the station-master at
     6             defendants' railway station at U.  In
     7             consequence of a communication, I went to him on
     8             Saturday, the 30th of July.  He told me that H,
     9             a parcel porter, had absconded from the service;
    10             that a money parcel was missing, and he, P
    11             suspected H of taking it; would I (the
    12             witness) make inquiries after him?'  A verdict
    13             having passed for plaintiffs:-
    14                  Held, that the evidence was rightly
    15             admitted: for that it must be taken that the
    16             station-master, being the person in charge
    17             there" -- and I emphasise those words as
    18             well -- "had authority from the defendants to
    19             set the police in motion, and that what he said
    20             pertinent to the occasion, when acting within
    21             the scope of his authority, was evidence against
    22             the defendants."
    23
    24        My Lord, the judgment Cockburn C.J. begins on page 470.
    25        The judgments are quite short, so it may be best if I read
    26        the whole of them.  At the bottom of page 470:
    27
    28             "I am of the opinion that the rule must be
    29             discharged on the ground that the evidence was
    30             admissible under the particular circumstances of
    31             the case.  A man, a railway porter at the
    32             station to which the parcel is addressed, is
    33             believed to have absconded with a parcel of
    34             money, which must be taken to have been the
    35             plaintiffs' money.  The parcel and man disappear
    36             simultaneously, and the man was the person to
    37             whom, in due course, the parcel would have been
    38             delivered; there was, therefore, reasonable and
    39             probably cause for arresting him on the charge
    40             of taking the parcel.  Suppose the principal in
    41             this case had been an individual, and had gone
    42             to a policeman and said, 'A parcel has been
    43             taken from my premises, and I cannot doubt it
    44             has been taken animo furandi, for the person to
    45             whom it was delivered has absconded just at the
    46             time the parcel was missed, I therefore believe
    47             him to be the thief; I ask you to make inquiries
    48             and to apprehend him if you find him under
    49             suspicious circumstances.' There is no principle
    50             on which that would not be admissible evidence. 
    51             Then, if Podmore was the agent of the 
    52             defendants...." 
    53
    54        He, my Lord, I think is the station master.
    55
    56             ".... and if it was within the scope of his duty
    57             and authority as agent to do what the principal,
    58             if on the spot, would have done, what he says
    59             while he is so acting is equally admissible as
    60             if said by the principal himself.  Now, it is

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