. Where, however, an offer has been accepted and the acceptance posted, the acceptance cannot be re voked. The acceptance might have gone by mail and the revocation by telegraph. The telegram may have arrived first, and the offerer known of the revocation before he knew of the acceptance, and he may thus have suffered no prejudice. He can hold the offeree to his original acceptance. Pollock, commenting on this rule, says: This is a startling consequence at first sight, but the hard ship is less than it seems, for a party wishing to reserve his freedom of action as long as possible will still have two ways of doing so: he may make his acceptance in writing expressly subject to revocation by telegraph, or he may abstain from answering by letter at all, and only telegraph his final deci sion.
While the revocation of an offer must be made be fore it has been accepted and must be received before the acceptance is posted or telegraphed, apparently the offer is revoked by the death or insanity of either party.
3. Offer to the public.—An offer may be made to the public in general. That is, it need not be made to an ascertained person. But it will be binding where it is accepted by an ascertained person. Thus a shop keeper who exposes a certain silk in his window with a price affixed, will be bound to sell the silk at that price to anyone who on the strength of what he has seen in the window wishes to buy. The hotel keeper and the common carrier make a continuing offer to the public, and unless they have exceptional reasons for refusing to receive a certain person, they are bound to receive all comers, at least up to their capacity.
If a reward is offered thru the newspapers for the capture of a fugitive or the finding of lost property, the reward will be due to the person who with knowl edge of the offer captures the fugitive or finds the property. A person who had no knowledge of such an offer could not claim the reward if before know ing of it he gave the desired information. But if, without knowledge of the offer of a reward at the time a person finds lost property, before handing it over he learns of the offer, then he can claim the reward.
Pollock refers to an interesting English case de cided in 1893. A company called the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company advertised an offer to pay £100 to any one who contracted influenza after using its smoke balls according to directions. The plaintiff, one Car lill, read the advertisement and so induced bought a smoke ball and used it according to directions. Un fortunately for him, or rather for the company, he contracted influenza after using the remedy, and it was held in his favor that there was a valid contract arising out of an offer and an acceptance.
An offer by public advertisement may, it appears, be revoked by an advertisement equally public. The Supreme Court of the United States has so and even as against a person who afterwards acts on the proposal/not knowing that it has been revoked, "for he should have known that it could be revoked in the manner in which it was made." Sir Frederick Pol
lock says of this decision: In other words, the proposal is treated as subject to a tacit condition that it may be revoked by an announcement made by the same means. This may be a convenient rule, and may perhaps be supported as a fair inference of fact from the habits of the newspaper-reading part of mankind: yet it seems a rather strong piece of judicial legislation.= 4. the English law provinces, as in England and in the United States, a contract is valid only if it is based upon a valuable consideration. It may be valid, however, in those jurisdictions where sealing is necessary, if made by a deed or writing un der seal, when the contract is said to be valid without consideration.
What may be consideration is well defined in an English case; s "either some 'right, interest, profit, or benefit accruing to the one party, or some forbearance, detriment, loss, or responsibility, given, suffered, or undertaken by the other." The party who accepts the consideration may or may not get any apparent benefit. It is sufficient if he accepts it. By some act or forbearance, or the promise thereof, A buys the promise of B, and B's promise is thereby made en forceable. A mere moral obligation will not support a promise, and cannot be enforced. In this view of the law, therefore, a promise to contribute money to charity is not a contract at all, at least under the Eng lish law.' The civil law of Quebec distinguishes "cause or con sideration" from "consideration" as we have just been viewing it. In Quebec it is said that if the contract has an object, it may be enforced, tho the promise was given without consideration. By object is meant "what is due." Thus if A lends a book to B, the object of the loan is the book—what is due; the cause of the borrower's obligation—i.e., why there is a debt on his part—is his receipt of the book. The cause is the immediate end of the parties—that which impels every buyer, every seller, every lender and giver. This "immediate end" in the case of the seller is the price; in the case of the buyer it is the legal obliga tion of the seller to give him delivery and warranty; in the case of the giver (and here the theory is strained) it is the desire of the giver to give. The word "consideration" is used rather as an equivalent for "cause." In actual practice, however. "consideration" is used almost exclusively. It is impossible to pursue the theoretical difference any further in this book; to do so would perplex the layman. But a word further may be said to show that there is a real distinc tion.