55 How. Pr. 156 | New York Court of Common Pleas | 1878
Where the indorser resides in a different place from that in which presentment or demand of the note is to be made, personal service of the notice of the dishonor of the note is not required, but notice may be served by mail (Ransom v. Mack, 2 Hill, 590). Such was the case here. The notice was served by giving it to a United States letter carrier in this city, this city being the place where the indorser resides. This was a service by mail. It is provided by the laws of the United States (U. S. Rev. Stat. p. 159, sec. 3980), that every route agent, postal clerk, or other carrier of the mail, shall receive any mail matter presented to him and properly prepaid by postage stamps, and deliver the same for mailing at the next post office at which he arrives, and it is further provided that letter carriers shall be employed for the free delivery of mail matter in every place containing a population of fifty thousand inhabitants (sec. 3865). It is claimed that a letter carrier under this section, is not embraced by the term used in the other section, “ route agent, postal clerk or other carrier of the mail.” The letter carriers are to be employed by the express terms of the 3865th section, for the free delivery of mail matter, and if a letter carrier is under this section to carry mail matter, he is clearly embraced by the words in the preceding section, “ or other carrier of the mail.” The word mail, which, with some changes in the orthography is found in many languages, means, in its original signification, a wallet, sack, budget, trunk or bag, and in connection with the post office, means the carriage of letters, whether applied to the bag into which they are put, the coach or vehicle by means of which they are transported, or any other means employed for their carriage and delivery by public authority. It came originally into use as referring to the valise which postillions or couriers had behind them and in which they carried letters, at an early period, when that was the mode in which letters were carried and delivered; and after the establishment of post offices, post routes and post coaches, it became, as it is now, a general word to express the carriage and delivery of letters by public authority. The carrier in this case carried a bag having two compartments, in one of which letters to be
The judgment, therefore, in my opinion, should be affirmed.
Van Hoesen and Larremore, JJ., concurred.
Judgment affirmed.