NOTES OF RECENT CASES

must be presumed to have presented to the public the product of its creative powers, though it may have had no intention of making such a gift. TRUSTS. (Notice — Payment of Premiums by Checks of Municipal Corporation.) Mass. — In City of Newburyport v. Fidelity Mut. Life Ins. Co., 84 N. E. Rep. 11 1, it appears that the city treasurer paid life insurance premiums with checks bearing the name of the city and signed by himself as treasurer, and it is held that the city was entitled to recover the amount of the checks from the insurance company. The checks were on their face the checks of the city, and the court very properly points out that the insurance company must have known this, and further that they were delivered in payment of the individual debt of the treasurer. After a reference to Rev. Laws, c. 73' § 73. providing that to constitute notice of an infirmity in a negotiable instrument or defect in the title of the person negotiating it, the person to whom it is negotiated must have had actual knowledge of the infirmity or defect, or knowl edge of such facts that his action in taking the instrument amounted to bad faith, the court concludes that the knowledge of the agent of the insurance company that the treasurer was using the funds of the city for individual purposes was imputable to the company. In adverting to the question of ratification by the city of the act of its officer, it is stated that the facts were not known, and further that the negligence of the auditing officers of the city in not sooner discovering that

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the treasurer had used the city's funds in pay ment of premiums was not available as a defense in the action by the city to recover the funds so misappropriated. Wills. (Construction.) Va. Sup. Ct. App.— A testatrix, by a clause of her will, provided for the cancellation and surrender by her executor to the obligors of all notes, bonds or other evi dences of debt belonging to her and remaining unpaid at the date of her death from whomsoever due. Later, she executed a codicil revoking this clause and provided in lieu thereof a direction that any note or other evidence of indebtedness remaining unpaid at the date of death from cer tain specified individuals including B. should be cancelled and surrendered by her executor to the obligors in full satisfaction thereof. At her death, testatrix held the obligations vof all the persons named in the codicil except B. who was not indebted to her but was indebted to another en an unmatured obligation secured by a mort gage on her farm. In Brown v. Gibson's Exe cutor, 59 S. E. Rep. 384, the court had to decide whether or not it was the duty of the executor to purchase the debt due from B. and cancel it under the terms of the will and codicil. The court held that although B. was one of the specified individuals mentioned in the codicil to the will whose obligations should be cancelled by the executor, the codicil did not create an obligation on the part of the executor to purchase her debt, which was not then due, from the holder, a third person, and cancel the same.