6.

7.

8.

9.

distance of the road, a sale by the company of specific parcels not exceeding the quantity earned, and lying within the limits specified in the grant, is held to be to that extent an effectual selection.-Ibid.

The arrangement between the Amboy, Lansing & Traverse Bay Railroad Company and the Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw Railroad Company, and the legislation following the same, by which the beneficial interest of the former in the land grant was transferred to the latter, could not operate to affect rights previously acquired by third parties.-Ibid.

The effect of this land grant, and the location of the line of the road, was to take out of the body of the lands subject to sale by the United States, the sections of land covered by the floating grant; and an application to purchase them would give no right to go upon them or to cut the timber.-Ibid.

Whether the land officers of the United States were still charged with the duty of protecting these lands against trespassers or not, they would have no authority as against the railroad company to sell off the timber from these lands, and thus deprive the company of a portion of the benefit intended by the grant.—Ibid. The recitals in a patent are received as evidence of the time when the lands described in it were earned under this grant.Ibid.

10. The patent for lands embraced in this grant is held, as against trespassers, to relate back at least to the time when the lands were earned.-Ibid.

1.

LEGAL TENDER.

See COUNTERFEIT MONEY, 1-3.

LEGISLATIVE POWER.

See MASONIC SOCIETIES, 3; MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS, 1-9.

LEVY.

See EQUITY PLEADING AND PRACTICE, 24; REPLEVIN, 8-11.

LIBEL.

A declaration in an action of libel for the publication of an article that does not mention the plaintiff by name, but refers only to the agent for the sale of the Steinway piano, who had also been previously agent for the sale of both that and the Knabe piano, which contains matter of inducement showing with reasonable certainty that plaintiff was such agent, and the proper innuendoes, is held not open to the objection on demurrer that it fails to show with sufficient certainty, that the article was published of and concerning the plaintiff with reference to his trade and business.- Weiss v. Whittemore, 366.

2.

3.

4.

It would be unnecessary for the declaration to allege that no
other person had been such agent, as no other person would be
presumed, on demurrer, in the absence of any allegation to that
effect, to have been such agent. A declaration is never required
to negative every possible counter implication.—Ibid.

An allegation that the plaintiff had been and was engaged in the
business of such agency, and had thereby acquired great gains
and profits, and that he was, by the publication in question,
greatly injured in his said trade and business, and has lost and
been deprived of divers great gains and profits in his said busi-
ness, which would, but for such publication, have arisen and
accrued to him, etc., is not applicable to an agent on a salary,
but imports an agency in which he derived a part of the profits
or a commission on the sales, and sufficiently indicates the dam-
ages for which a recovery is sought.-Ibid.

The general allegation of the loss of trade is sufficient in ordi-
nary cases of libel, without setting out the names of the custom-
ers driven away or lost; and it may be supported by evidence
of such general loss.-Ibid.

5. Whether, where the dismissal from employment as agent is the
special injury complained of, the words to be libelous must
impute some charge or matter in relation to the plaintiff's busi-
ness, trade or vocation, which if true, would render him un-
worthy of employment:-Quære?—Ibid.

6. But where the substance of the alleged injury is that his income
and profits from the business of an agency have been reduced by
the libel complained of, it is enough to allege a false and mali-
cious publication of language concerning him or his affairs which,
as a necessary or natural and proximate consequence, occasions
such pecuniary loss to him, and that such loss in fact resulted.—
Ibid.

7.

8.

Where the libel complained of is a statement in substance that
the plaintiff, who is now the agent for the sale of the Steinway
piano alone, but had formerly been the agent for the sale of both
that and the Knabe piano, had in every instance while holding
such double agency recommended the Knabe piano as the best,
and advised his customers to buy that as being superior in every
respect to the other and to all others, an allegation that the
Knabe piano was not in fact the best is not essential.—Ibid.
Such a publication by the agents for the sale of the Knabe piano,
after the plaintiff had given it up, in a newspaper of wide circu-
lation in the city where the plaintiff and defendants are both do-
ing business, with the design of placing the plaintiff before the
public, and before customers, in a false, ridiculous and discred-
itable attitude, and of diminishing his sales of the Steinway, and
promoting the sales of the Knabe piano, is libelous, and when
false in fact and malicious, is actionable in itself.—Ibid.

9. Whether or not a verbal slander in the same words would be
actionable without proof of special damage :-Quære?—Ibid.

LICENSE.

See TIMBER, 1-4.

LIENS.

See EQUITY PLEADING AND PRACTICE, 23-26; Replevin, 1.

LIFE ESTATE.

See LACHES, 2.

LOCAL PREJUDICE.

See TRANSFER OF CAUSES, 4, 6.

LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.

See MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS, 1-9.

LOGS.

See CHARGE TO THE JURY, 1; PRACTICE IN SUPREME COURT, 18.

LOSS OF TRADE.

See LIBEL, 4-6.

LUMBER.

See REPLEVIN, 4, 8.

MALICE.

See LIBEL, 8.

MANDAMUS.

The performance of a mere ministerial duty may as well be enforced
when it rests upon an aggregate body like the common council,
as when incumbent upon a single officer.-Board of Park Com.
missioners v. Common Council of Detroit, 228.

See ASSOCIATIONS, 1-4; PARKS, 3.

MARKET VALUE.

See ESTOPPEL, 2.

28 MICH.-75.

MARRIED WOMEN.

1. Under our statute (Comp. L., p. 1478) whatever contracts a mar-
ried woman may lawfully make, may be made "with the like
effect as if she were unmarried;" but she has no general capacity
to contract, and can only make such contracts as relate to her
own property; she cannot become personally liable except on ac-
count of her own matters; and cannot enter into an undertaking
jointly with her husband merely as his surety; and she can never
be held without affirmative proof that the contract is her own,
and within her powers.-West v. Laraway, 464.

2. To sustain a contract made by a married woman, it must appear
to have been made with the intent to bind her sole prop.
erty as well as upon a consideration that would sustain it for
that purpose.-Ibid.

3. Whether or not an agreement to abstain from prosecuting an
estate is such an agreement on behalf of the separate property
of one married woman out of several heirs as would support her
promise to pay the whole :-Quare?—Ibid.

4. But where the only showing of any agreement to abstain from
prosecuting the estate, is not of an agreement made with such
married woman herself or with any one on her behalf, but con-
sisted simply of assurances to her husband that unless she signed
a joint note with him for his debt, proceedings would be taken
against the estate of her father, which was claimed to be held as
surety for the debt, it fails to make out any agreement on behalf
of her separate property.-Ibid.

5. The proposition "that any married woman who joins in a pro-
missory note with her husband for the absolute payment of
money does by that act in all cases create a charge upon such
separate property as she may own, and that the charge thus cre-
ated may be enforced by a legal action and collected by execu-
tion upon the judgment as it could formerly be enforced by de-
cree in equity," considered and held to be unsound.-Ibid.
6. The old doctrine of enforcing in equity the contracts of a mar-
ried woman as charges upon her equitable interests in property
held to her separate use, considered and held to rest upon her
disability to bind herself in personam, or to transfer or charge a
legal estate by her sole act or agreement, and not to be applica-
ble to cases at law arising under our statutes which have re-
moved the very disabilities on which the doctrine was originally
founded; and any attempt to engraft the old rules of equity upon
the new system can only lead to confusion and mischief.-Ibid.
See HUSBAND AND WIFE, 1, 2.

1.

2.

3.

MASONIC SOCIETIES.

A masonic lodge which was in existence before the organization under the statute (Comp. L., ch. 118), of a corporation of the same name, and which had never by any action authorized or recognized the corporation as formed in the same behalf, and where each had been distinct in meetings, officers, property, and other incidents, and not even identical in membership, is held not merged in the corporation.-Mason v. Finch, 282.

An absolute identity of membership would not of itself lead to such merger.-Ibid.

The legislature has no authority, and the statute in question does not attempt it, to compel any person or society to become incorporated without its assent. Nor can any one become a member of any private corporation without taking some steps for that purpose, or any existing association become absorbed or merged. in any new corporation, so as to relinquish its former condition, without some action fully authorizing such a result.-Ibid. 4. The membership of a corporation cannot be increased by joint accessions without some action denoting unanimous consent; and one member of an unincorporated association cannot be made a corporator in a different association or corporation by the action of other members not within the terms of their original compact; and a portion of the members of a masonic chapter therefore cannot, without unanimous consent, or some action of the chapter, or provision of their articles, authorizing it, organize a corporation under the statute which shall swallow up the chapter and thereby acquire title to its property.-Ibid.

5.

Nor could acquiescence in the claims of the corporation that it was identical with the chapter, in the absence of any circumstances creating an estoppel, operate to extinguish the separate existence of the latter; and nothing short of a complete cessation of its action would tend to prove acquiescence in a corporate merger, and any acquiescence by the chapter or its officers would not bind the members except to the same extent as their actual agreement for the same purpose would bind them. An act cannot be ratified by those who could not authorize it.-Ibid.

MASTER AND SERVANT.

See PROHIBITORY LIQUOR Law, 2, 3.

MATERIALITY TO THE RISK.

See INSURANCE, 11.

MATTER OF INDUCEMENT.

See LIBEL, 1.