Frederick v. The Marquette, Houghton & Ontonagon Railroad Co. but to a large majority of the passengers ordinarily carried. Such rules and regulations should also be of a permanent nature, and not be made for a particular occasion or emergency." It is within the common knowledge or experience of all travellers that the uniform and perhaps the universal practice is for railroad companies to issue tickets to passengers with the places designated thereon from whence and to which the passenger is to be carried; that these tickets are presented to the conducter or person in charge of the train, and that he accepts unhesitatingly of such tickets as evidence of the contract entered into between the passenger and his principal. It is equally well known that the conductor has but seldom if ever any other means of ascertaining, within time to be of any avail, the terms of the contract, unless he relies upon the statement of the passenger, contradicted as it would be by the ticket produced, and that even in a very large majority of cases, owing to the amount of business done, the agent in charge of the office, and who sold the ticket, could give but very little if any information upon the subject. That this system of issuing tickets, in a very large majority of cases, works well, causing but very little, if any, annoyance to passengers generally, must be admitted. There of course will be cases, where a passenger who has lost his ticket, or where through mistake the wrong ticket has been delivered to him, will be obliged to pay his fare a second time in order to pursue his journey without delay, and if unable to do this, as will sometimes be the case, very great delay and injury may result therefrom. Such delay and injury would not be the natural result of the loss of a ticket or breach of the contract, but would be, at least in part, in consequence of the pecuniary circumstances of the party. Such cases are exceptional, and however unfortunate the party may be who is so situate, yet we must remember that no human rule has ever yet been devised that would not at times injuriously affect those it was designed to accommodate. This method of purchasing tickets is also of decided advantage to the public in other respects; it enables them to purchase tickets at times and places deemed suitable, and to avoid thereby the crowds and delays they would otherwise be subject to. Were no tickets issued and each passenger compelled to pay his fare upon the cars, inconvenience and delay would result therefrom, or the officers in charge of the train to collect fares would be increased in numbers to an unreasonable extent, while at fairs and Frederick v. The Marquette, Houghton & Ontonagon Railroad Co. places of public amusement where tickets are issued and sold entitling the purchaser to admission and a seat, we can see and appreciate the confusion which would exist if no tickets were sold, or if the party presenting the ticket were not upon such occasions to be bound by its terms. How, then, is the conductor to ascertain the contract entered into between the passenger and the railroad company where a ticket is purchased and presented to him? Practically there are but two ways one, the evidence afforded by the ticket; the other, the statement of the passenger contradicted by the ticket. Which should govern? In judicial investigations we appreciate the necessity of an obligation of some kind and the benefit of a cross-examination. At common law parties interested were not competent wit nesses, and even under our statute the witness is not permitted, in certain cases, to testify as to facts which, if true, were equally within the knowledge of the opposite party, and he cannot be procured. Yet here would be an investigation as to the terms of a contract, where no such safeguards could be thrown around it, and where the conductor, at his peril, would have to accept of the mere statement of the interested party. I seriously doubt the practical workings of such a method, except for the purpose of encouraging and developing fraud and falsehood, and I doubt if any system could be devised that would so much tend to the disturbance and annoyance of the travelling public generally. There is but one rule which can safely be tolerated with any decent regard to the rights of railroad companies and passengers generally. As between the conductor and passenger, and the right of the latter to travel, the ticket produced must be conclusive evidence, and he must produce it when called upon, as the evidence of his right to the seat he claims. Where a passenger has purchased a ticket and the conductor does not carry him according to its terms, or, if the company, through the mistake of its agent, has given him the wrong ticket, so that he has been compelled to relinquish his seat, or pay his fare a second time in order to retain it, he would have a remedy against the company for a breach of the contract, but he would have to adopt a declaration differing essentially from the one resorted to in this case. We have not thus far referred to any authorities to sustain the views herein taken. If any are needed, the following, we think, will be found amply sufficient, and we do not consider it necessary Frederick v. The Marquette, Houghton & Ontonagon Railroad Co. to analyze or review them. Co., 56 N. Y. 298; s. c., 15 Am. Rep. 419; Hibbard v. N. Y. & E. R. R., 15 id. 470; Bennett v. N. Y. C. & H. R. R., 5 Hun, 600; Downs v. N. Y. & N. H. R. R., 36 Conn. 287; s. c., 4 Am. Rep. 77; C., B. & Q. R. R. v. Griffin, 68 Ill. 499; Pullman P. C. Co. v. Reed, 75 id. 125; Shelton v. Lake Shore, etc., Ry. Co., 29 Ohio St. 214. I am of opinion that the judgment should be affirmed with costs. Townsend v. N. Y. C. & H. R. R. R. COOLEY, C. J., concurred. GRAVES, J. By mistake the company's ticket agent issued and plaintiff accepted a ticket covering a shorter distance than that bargained and paid for; and having ridden under it the distance which it authorized and refusing to repay for the space beyond, the plaintiff was removed from the cars. This removal may or may not have constituted a cause of action, but it is not the cause of action charged. The declaration sets up that plaintiff's ticket was a proper one for the whole distance, and that he was removed in violation of the right which the ticket made known to the conductor. There was no proof of the case alleged, and I agree therefore in affirming the judgment. CAMPBELL, J. The plaintiff's cause of action in this case was for the failure of the company to carry him to a destination to which he had paid the passage-money, and the immediate occasion for his removal from the cars was that he was given a wrong ticket, and was not furnished with such a one as the conductor was instructed to recognize as entitling him to the complete carriage. His declaration should have been framed on this theory. Had it been so framed I am not prepared to say that he may not have had a right of action for more than the difference in the passage-money. But as he counted on a failure of the conductor to respect a correct ticket, and it appears that the conductor gave him all the rights which the ticket produced called for, there was no cause of action made out under the declaration, and the rule of damages need not be considered. I concur in affirming the judgment. Judgment affirmed. Aldrich v. Smith. ALDRICH V. SMITH. (37 Mich. 468.) Alteration of promissory note. A promissory note having been indorsed by the payee and another, the maker in good faith, but without the knowledge or consent of the indorsers. inserted the name of the second indorser as a payee in the body of the note; held, that this was such an alteration as avoided the note, as to the indorsers, even in the hands of an innocent holder. A SSUMPSIT. The defendant had judgment. The facts are stated in the opinion. Morris & Uhl, for plaintiff, cited the following cases in which unauthorized indorsements did not affect the instrument: Seymour v. Mickey, 15 Ohio St. 515; Josselyn v. Ames, 3 Mass. 274; Nevins v. De Grand, 15 id. 436; Tenney v. Prince, 4 Pick. 385; Austin v. Boyd, 24 id. 64; Riley v. Gerrish, 9 Cush. 104; Mitchell v. Culver, 7 Cow. 336. An alteration by a stranger or by a party adversely interested will not defeat an instrument; there must be fraud by the holder. Fullerton v. Sturges, 4 Ohio St. 529; Worrall v. Gheen, 39 Penn. St: 388; Hunt v. Gray, 35 N. J. 227; Murray v. Graham, 29 Iowa, 520; Collins v. Makepeace, 13 Ind. 448; Henfree v. Bromley, 6 East, 310; Hall v. Fuller, 5 B. & C. 750; Bigelow v. Stilphen, 35 Vt. 521; Van Brunt v. Eoff, 35 Barb. 501; United States v. Spalding, 2 Mas. 478. If an alteration was honestly made, it should not avoid the obligation. Adams v. Frye, 3 Metc. 109. It is not a material alteration to insert the name of the payee where the name is left blank (2 Daniel on Neg. Inst., § 1403; 2 Pars. on Notes and Bills, 570), or to change a contract from several to joint where the remedy is not affected (Eddy v. Bond, 19 Me. 461); or to interline the words " or either of us " in a note made by two. Miller v. Reed, 27 Penn. St. 244. Eggleston & Kleinhans, for defendants. CAMPBELL, J. In this case Aldrich sued Smith as maker, and Aldrich v. Smith. Glue and Hackley as joint indorsers, of two notes which he had discounted for Smith purporting to be payable to the indorsers jointly, but which in fact when indorsed were payable only to the order of William Glue, the first indorser. Smith had requested a discount from Aldrich on Glue's indorsement of his paper for the amount of these two notes some days before this paper was executed, which was declined. He then offered to procure Hackley's indorsement, and plaintiff agreed to make the discount. The parties all lived at Muskegon. On the 22d of December, 1875, Smith drew up and signed these notes payable to Glue's order, and between this and the 25th Glue indorsed them. On the 25th Hackley indorsed them by signing his name under Gluc's with no knowledge of their destination except a supposition that they were to be discounted. On the 25th of December Smith without the knowledge of either indorser inserted. Hackley's name after Glue's in the body of the notes, thus making them payable to the order of Glue and Hackley in the same blank space of the printed notes, which were all in his handwriting, and in this form negotiated them to Aldrich on the 27th of December Smith acted on the supposition that he was only supplying an oversight of Hackley's, and with no dishonest purpose. Neither indorser knew of the change till after the protest of the first note. Upon this the court below held the indorsers discharged. We have been strongly pressed with plaintiff's equities, but we are unable to distinguish this case from any others where the paper sued upon is not the paper which defendants signed. They were not parties personally to any dealing which made it wrongful or negligent conduct not to inform themselves that their contract had not been altered. It was complete when they signed it, and they had no reason to suppose it would be changed. All legal as well as business presumptions are that paper will not be tampered with, and plaintiff is in no worse condition from an honest than from a dishonest alteration made without his knowledge. Every one who takes negotiable paper in any shape whatever trusts to the express or implied assurance of genuineness given by the person from whom he receives it. That is one of the risks of dealing in such paper, and there is no reason whatever why he should be preferred to other persons who have done nothing to mislead him. He is bound to satisfy himself whether he can safely rely on the party with whom he deals, and if he does so without further inquiry, he VOL. XXVI — 68 |