-joins me in the expression of our deepest sympathy. My (Our) love and sympathy go out to you in your great sorrow. I (We) share your sorrow for I (we) have lost a dear friend. All love and sympathy to you and yours.

I (We) send you my (our) heartfelt sympathy. To have enjoyed the friendship of your father (husband-brother) I (we) hold one of the greatest privileges of my life (our lives).

My (Our) sincere sympathy goes out to you in your heavy affliction.

My (Our) love and sympathy in your sudden affliction. I am (We are) greatly shocked at the sad news. You have my (our) deepest sympathy.

My (Our) deepest sympathy in your great loss. If there is anything I (we) can do, do not hesitate to let me (us) know.

Congratulation to a school or college graduate

May your future be as successful as have been your school (college) days. Heartiest congratulations upon your graduation. I am (We are) proud of your success. May the future grant you opportunity and the fulfillment of your hopes.

I (We) hear that you have taken class honors. Sincerest congratulations and best wishes.

May your Class Day be favored with sunny skies and your life be full of happiness and success.

Sincerest congratulations upon your graduation.

Congratulations upon your school (college) success, so happily terminated to-day.

I (We) regret that I (we) cannot be with you to-day to see you take your new honors. Sincerest congratulations.

Congratulation to a public man

Heartiest congratulations on your splendid success.

We have just heard of your success. Sincere congratulations

and best wishes for the future.

Heartiest congratulations on your nomination (election).

Your nomination (election) testifies to the esteem in which you are held by your fellow citizens. Heartiest congratulations. Congratulations on your victory, a hard fight, well won by the best man.

Your splendid majority must be a great satisfaction to you. Sincerest congratulations on your election.

Congratulations upon your nomination. You will have the support of the best element in the community and your election should be a foregone conclusion. I wish you every success.

You fought a good fight in a good cause. gratulations on your splendid success.

Heartiest con

Nothing in your career should fill you with greater satisfaction than your successful election. I congratulate you with all my heart.

No man deserves success more than you. You have worked hard for your constituents and they appreciate it. Heartiest congratulations.

Your nomination (election) is received with the greatest enthusiasm by your friends here and by none more than myself. Heartiest congratulations.

I congratulate you upon your new honors won by distinguished services to your fellow citizens.

Your campaign was vigorous and fine. Your victory testifies to the people's confidence in you and your cause. Warmest congratulations.

Congratulations upon your well-won victory and best wishes for your future success.

You deserve your splendid success. Sincerest congratulations. I cannot refrain from expressing my personal appreciation of your eloquent address. Wa mest congratulations.

Your address last night was splendid. What a gift you have. Sincerest congratulations.

Heartiest congratulations on your splendid speech of last night. Everybody is praising it.

CHAPTER XI

THE LAW OF LETTERS-CONTRACT

LETTERS

THERE are forty-eight states in this Union, and each of them has its own laws and courts. In addition we have the Federal Government with its own laws and courts. In one class of cases, the Federal courts follow the state laws which govern the particular occasion; in another class of cases, notably in those involving the interpretation or application of the United States statutes, the Federal courts follow Federal law. There is not even a degree of uniformity governing the state laws, and especially is this true in criminal actions, for crimes are purely statutory creations.

Therefore it is extremely misleading to give any but the vaguest and most elementary suggestions on the law which governs letters. To be clear and specific means inevitably to be misleading. I was talking with a lawyer friend not long since about general text-books on law which might be useful to the layman. He was rather a commercially minded person and he spoke fervently:

"If I wanted to build up a practice and I did not

care how I did it, I should select one hundred well-todo people and see that each of them got a copy of a compendium of business law. Then I should sit back and wait for them to come in—and come in they would, for every mother's son of them would decide that he had a knowledge of the law and cheerfully go ahead getting himself into trouble."

Sharpen up a man's knowledge of the law and he is sure to cut himself. For the law is rarely absolute. Most questions are of mixed fact and law. Were it otherwise, there would be no occasion for juries, for, roughly, juries decide facts. The court decides the application of the law. The layman tends to think that laws are rules, when more often they are only guides. The cheapest and best way to decide points of law is to refer them to counsel for decision. Unless a layman will take the time and the trouble most exhaustively to read works of law and gain something in the nature of a working legal knowledge, he had best take for granted that he knows nothing whatsoever of law and refer all legal matters to counsel.

There are, however, a few principles of general application that may serve, not in the stead of legal knowledge, but to acquaint one with the fact that a legal question may be involved, for legal questions by no means always formally present themselves in barristers' gowns. They spring up casually and unexpectedly.

Take the whole question of contract. A contract

is not of necessity a formal instrument. A contract is a meeting of minds. If I say to a man: "Will you cut my lawn for ten dollars?" and he answers, "Yes," as valid a contract is established as though we had gone to a scrivener and had covered a folio of parchment with "Whereases" and "Know all men by these presents" and "Be it therefore" and had wound up with red seals and ribbons. But of course many legal questions could spring out of this oral agreement. We might dispute as to what was meant by cutting the lawn. And then, again, the time element would enter. Was the agreement that the lawn should be cut the next day, or the next month, or the next year? Contracts do not have to be in writing. All that the writing does is to make the proof of the exact contract easier.

If we have the entirety of a contract within the four corners of a sheet of paper, then we need no further evidence as to the existence of the contract, although we may be in just as hopeless a mess trying to define what the words of the contract mean. If we have not a written contract, we have the bother of introducing oral evidence to show that there was a contract. Most contracts nowadays are formed by the interchange of letters, and the general point to remember is that the acceptance must be in terms of the offer. If X writes saying: "I will sell you twenty tons of coal at fifteen dollars a ton," and Y replies: "I will take thirty tons of coal at thirteen dollars a ton," there is no contract, but merely a