such new name to extend its road from Pontiac to Lake Michigan. There was nothing in this opposed to the Constitution either in letter or spirit. And this answers a further objection that the Act of 1855 created a new corporation in violation of article xv, § 1 of the Constitution. We do not so understand it. III. It is further contended that an Act approved February 10, 1859, under which the railroad company is supposed to have been re-organized after the sales on foreclosure, was without validity for that purpose for the two reasons-first, that it was without validity when passed; and second, that it has since by implication been repealed. The Act is entitled "An Act in relation to mortgages against preferred stock in, and the delivery of goods by, railway companies." Here it is said are two or more objects expressed, and therefore the act is invalid under the Constitution, art. iv, § 20. This is a somewhat technical objection, and we are not disposed to consider it after this great lapse of time. But it may be proper to remark that the Act did not bring together subjects totally foreign to each other. The whole Act concerned railways; and if it can be considered a technical disregard of the Constitution, it was probably inadvertent. The repeal of the Act is supposed to have been accomplished either by the amendment of the General Railroad Law by an Act passed in 1872 (Sess. L., p. 83), or by the general revision of that law in 1873 (Pub. Acts, p. 496), both of which covered the same general subject. But we do not agree in this. Those acts must be understood to refer to companies organized under the General Railroad Law, while the Act of 1859 evidently had other companies in view. It speaks of railway companies-a term not made use of in the general law, but which the company succeeding the Detroit & Pontiac had taken as a part of its new name. It is suggested rather than urged that the Legislature had no constitutional power to pass the Act of February 10, 1859, as applicable to chartered corporations, because the effect was to create new corporations with the old chartered powers. But the purpose of the act was to permit the creditors of chartered corporations to enforce their demands by a sale and transfer of the franchises; and this would be impossible if the sale were of itself to operate as a destruction of the franchises. The Act merely gave a remedy for the enforcement of debts; and as franchises were to be sold for the satisfaction of debts, it provided a method whereby they might be kept alive. We have now considered the questions raised, so far as seems necessary to a determination of the main question whether the defendants are guilty of the usurpation charged upon them, and are clearly of opinion that they are not. It may be proper to refer to the case of Cook v. Detroit, Grand Ilaven & Milwaukee Railway Co. 43 Mich. 345, in which the validity of that corporation was indirectly recognized, though importance is not attached to it except as a part of the public history of the company. The demurrer is overruled, and judgment must be entered for respondents. The other Justices concurred. 55 108 76 416 55 108 S20NW 813 HERMAN FREIBERG AND CHRIST. ROTHWEILER V. LORENZO Banks-Delay in presenting cheque for payment. A cheque for a small sum was given late in the afternoon at a lumber camp twenty miles from the place where the bank was, to a merchant whose place of business was twenty-seven miles by rail in another direction and who had to be there on the following day which was Saturday. On Monday he left the cheque at the local bank for collection but the other bank failed early that day. Held, that the delay in presenting the cheque for payment was not such as would release the debt for which it was given. Error to Osceola. (Judkins, J.) Oct. 8.-Oct. 15. ASSUMPSIT. Defendant brings error. Affirmed. R. Cooper and C. M. Beardsley for appellants. Laches is a question of law where the facts are undisputed: Mohawk Bank v. Broderick 13 Wend. 133; Walsh v. Dart 23 Wis. 335; Gilmore v. Wilbur 12 Pick. 124; Holbrook v. Burt 22 Pick. 555; Aymar v Beers 7 Cow. 709; Gough v. Staats 13 Wend. 552; giving a cheque is an absolute appropriation of money in the banker's hands and the maker cannot withdraw the amount after giving the cheque: Chapman v. White 2 Seld. 412; Conroy v. Warren 3 Johns. Ĉas. 264; Morrison v. Bailey 5 Ohio St. 13; Hoyt v Seeley 18 Conn. 353; a cheque should be presented on the day it is received, or the next day, when the parties live in the same place; and sent by mail if they live in different places: Smith v. Janes 20 Wend. 192; Mohawk Bank v. Broderick 10 Wend. 308; Jones v. Heliger 36 Wis. 153; Cork v. Bacon 45 Wis. 192; Chitty on Bills (10th ed.) §§ 386, 387, 513; Darnall v. Morehouse 45 N. Y. 64; Morse on Banking (2d ed.) 280–6. Holden & Withey for appellees. SHERWOOD, J. The plaintiffs in this case were merchant tailors and lived in Reed City. The defendants were engaged in lumbering business and lived in Missaukee county, and had their lumber camp about twenty miles northeast of Cadillac. Reed City is about twenty-seven miles south of Cadillac, on the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad. On the first day of November, the defendant Moore, being at the lumber camp, gave to the plaintiff Roth weiler the defendant's check on Rice & Messmore's Bank at Cadillac for $66, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Rothweiler immediately thereafter went to the Cadillac bank, arriving about 6 o'clock in the evening, and after the bank had closed for the day; and being unable to present the check before the opening of the bank next morning, tried to obtain the money of parties in Cadillac, during the evening, on the check, but was unable to do so; not, however, from any distrust of the bank's ability to pay, it being in good repute. Rothweiler had been absent from his business at his home in Reed City, about a week, and having pressing engagements at home, was obliged to leave Cadillac at 6 o'clock next morning, and before the opening of the bank, and did So. The next day was Sunday, and on Monday morning he placed the check in Loase's Bank, at Reed City, for collection, and on the following day was informed the check had been presented and payment refused; that the bank at Cadillac had failed on Monday, about 10 o'clock. The defendants had $2500 on deposit in the Cadillac bank from the time the check was drawn up to the time of its failure. The defendants claim there was such negligence and delay on the part of plaintiffs in presenting the check as to relieve them from liability on account of the failure of the bank. On the trial the plaintiffs obtained a verdict in their favor, and had judgment. The circuit judge submitted the question of negligence in the presentation of the check, to the jury. There was testimony offered tending to excuse the delay, and the case was therefore properly submitted to the jury upon that point, and the defendants' first, third and fourth exceptions were not well taken. The defendants' second request was substantially given to the jury; at least, so much thereof as was needful for their proper consideration of the question presented. The charge of the court was full and well considered, and presents the law applicable to the case correctly. In this case the check was given in a rural district, twenty miles distant from the place of payment, and not in time to reach the bank before it closed that day. Pressing business of plaintiffs prevented the holder from presenting it the following day, and the next day was Sunday, and on Monday morning he placed it in the local bank for collection. We think the delay shown, under the circumstances disclosed in the record, not unreasonable. In cases where the parties to a check are doing business in the same city where the bank is located, the time within which the holder should present the instrument for payment seems to be very well settled, but in a case like the present the presentation must be made within a reasonable time, taking all the circumstances in consideration, and when no more time is taken than is fairly required in the usual and ordinary course of business, special inconvenience and special circumstances considered, the holder, in case of failure of the bank upon which the check is drawn, before presentation, should not be held to suffer the loss. Phonix Ins. Co. v. Allen 11 Mich. 501; Nutting v. Burked 48 Mich. 241. Ejectment-Tax-title-Tenant-in-common-Limitations. 1. Ejectment for land held under a tax deed is barred after ten years' adverse possession. How. Stat. § 8698. This will apply to a claim under a tax deed that conveys an undivided half of the premises, but does not specify which half; it is only necessary that the claim be consistent with the face of the deed; and the deed need not be good. 2. A tenant-in-common who has entered upon a portion of the premises is not thereby precluded from claiming the whole, since he is not barred from buying the remainder of the title. 3. The State is bound by statutes of limitation, and can give no title by selling, after twenty years, an old tax bid for premises that have meanwhile been held adversely long enough to bar ejectment for them. Error to Berrien. (A. J. Smith, J.) EJECTMENT. Plaintiff brings error. Oct. 8.-Oct. 15. 135 3572 Clapp & Bridgman for appellant. David Bacon and O. W. Coolidge for appellee. CAMPBELL, J. Chamberlain brought ejectment for an undivided half of certain lands which defendant is admitted to have held under a tax title valid against the other half. Chamberlain's title was deduced from a tax deed which he claims to have covered the other half, executed to George |
