that they should charge more than the actual cost. The case finds that the fair average cost when the complainant handles its hay through its warehouse over and above the cost of a through shipment is from $2.00 to $2.50 per car, or approximately one cent per hundred pounds. We think, therefore, that this reconsignment charge ought not to exceed the proportional rate by more than one cent, and that the complainant is entitled to recover whatever it has paid in addition to that sum."

It thus appears that the commission was of the opinion that the shipper could not demand as a matter of right the stopping of the hay for the purposes of treatment or reconsignment unless the same privilege was given to other shippers, and that, in granting this privilege, the railway company could only charge the shipper the actual cost. But this privilege involved to the railway company the cost of hauling to and from the warehouses and the use of the car for some hours, perhaps days. The commission found that $2 or $2.50 per car, or approximately one cent per hundred pounds, was the actual cost to the railway company.

We are unable to concur with the commission. If the stopping for inspection and reloading is of some benefit to the shipper and involves some service by and expense to the railway company, we do not think that the latter is limited to the actual cost of that privilege. It is justified in receiving some compensation in addition thereto. A carrier may be under no obligations to furnish sleeping or other accommodations to its passengers, but if it does so it is not limited in its charges to the mere cost, but may rightfully make a reasonable profit out of that which it does furnish. Especially is this true when, as here, the privilege is in no sense a part of the transportation, but outside thereof. Whether the conclusion of the commission that the carrier is under no obligations to permit the interruption of the transit is right, and whether it is or is not under such obligation, it is entitled to receive some compensation beyond the mere cost for that which it does.

We have been particular to copy the exact language used by the commission, for in another case between the same plaintiff and other railroad companies, involving the charges in a case of reconsignment of hay, decided on December 20 of the same year (St. Louis Hay & Grain Company v. The Illinois Central Railroad Company et al., 11 I. C. C. 486), the commission made an order dismissing the complaint. It is true that the facts are not precisely like those in this case, but at the same time the difference in the conclusions of the commission is such as seem to suggest that perhaps on further examination the commission had come to a different conclusion.

The testimony taken before the commission is not preserved in the record, hence it would be impossible, even if proper with all the testimony before us, to fix the amount which would be a fair and reasonable charge. All we can do is to reverse the judgments of the Circuit Court and Circuit Court of Appeals and remand the case to the former court with instructions to send the matter back to the Commerce Commission for further investigation and report.

Reversed.

UNITED STATES v. NATIONAL EXCHANGE BANK OF PROVIDENCE.

ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT.

No. 90. Argued January 25, 26, 1909.-Decided June 1, 1909.

The United States can recover from a bank presenting pension checks to, and receiving the money therefor from, a sub-treasury, where the names of the payees have been forged; and the right to recover is not conditioned upon either demand or the giving of notice of the discovery of facts which by the operation of the legal warranty were presumably within the knowledge of the bank.

The United States is not chargeable with the knowledge of the signa

tures of the vast numbers of persons entitled to receive pensions, and the exceptional rule as to certain classes of commercial paper that the person having knowledge of the genuine signature of the payee whose signature is forged is negligent in paying on such an indorsement and therefore cannot recover, does not apply to the United States in regard to pension checks. Leather Manufacturers' Bank v. Merchants' National Bank, 128 U. S. 26, approving White v. Continental National Bank, 64 N. Y. 316, followed. Quare and not decided whether government pension checks are not official warrants, but checks, and, as such, subject to the general rules of commercial paper as between private parties.

151 Fed. Rep. 402, reversed.

THIS action was brought by the United States to recover the sum of payments made at the sub-treasury in Boston upon 194 pension checks, the signatures or marks of the persons to whom the checks were payable having been forged. The National Exchange Bank of Boston was originally sole defendant, but in legal effect the National Exchange Bank of Providence was substituted as defendant, and the issues were made up between it and the United States. We shall hereafter refer to that bank as the Exchange Bank.

The cause was tried upon an agreed statement and the material facts may be thus summarized:

Upon receipt of pension vouchers, regular in form and purporting to be executed by the pensioners named therein-but which in fact were forgeries-the United States pension agent at Boston drew the checks in question upon the sub-treasury at Boston, aggregating $6,362.07, in favor of the pensioners named in the vouchers, and transmitted such checks by mail directly to the address of each pensioner as given in the vouchers, in accordance with the provision of § 4765, Rev. Stat. Of the persons named in the checks fifteen had died, and the others were the widows of soldiers who had remarried, and whose right to a pension had ceased, all the names, however, as we have said, having been forged. With but two exceptions the checks were either for $24 or $36.

The checks with the forged indorsements thereon of the

payees were cashed by the Exchange Bank, and immediately indorsed to a national bank in Boston for collection. The checks were presented by the collecting bank at the subtreasury of the United States in Boston. The collecting bank received payment of the same and accounted for such payment to the Exchange Bank.1

In May, 1897, a special examiner of the Pension Bureau was detailed at Providence to investigate the case of one Mooy, a deceased pensioner, in whose name three of the checks here in question, each for $36.00, had been issued and paid in 1896. On June 18, 1897, the examiner reported to the bureau the forgery of the name of the deceased payee, and that it had probably been done by one William A. Munson. December 18, 1897, notice was given to the Exchange Bank by the United States attorney at Providence that the indorsements of Mooy's name to said checks were forged, and that at a proper time reclamation would be made for the money paid to the bank upon the checks. The remaining forgeries were discovered at different times during the months of February, March, April and May, 1898, and in December, 1898, Munson, who was undergoing imprisonment upon a sentence imposed June 22, 1898, for forging a pension check, with which presumably this case is not concerned, admitted that he had forged the signatures of the payees on the checks in suit.

1 The payments were made as follows:

During 1886, 1887 and 1888, five checks, each for $36.00, were paid on account of pension certificate issued in name of Martha Crampton

During 1892.

1893..

1894.

1895.

1896..

1897.

$180 00

$334 80

867 27

1,092 00

1,380 00

1,620 00

888 00

6,182 07

$6.362 07

214 U. S.

Argument for Plaintiff in Error.

On July 22, 1898, the United States attorney at Providence made written demand upon the Exchange Bank to be refunded the sums paid, except as to checks aggregating $351.27, for which no demand for repayment was made other than by the bringing of this action. The bank refusing to repay, this action was commenced on August 27, 1901.

Each of the 194 checks was made the subject of two counts. An indebtedness of the defendant bank to the United States was averred in the first count to have arisen from the fact that a described check had been lawfully issued by a United States pension agent, drawn upon the Assistant Treasurer of the United States, that a signature, purporting to be that of the payee, was thereafter forged upon the check, and that the Exchange Bank indorsed said check and presented it for payment to the Assistant Treasurer, who paid the amount thereof. The second count was the common count for money received by the defendant to the use of the United States. In substance, the defenses interposed in the answer of the bank were that if the facts averred in the declaration were established by the proof, the bank was yet not liable, because the action had not been brought within a reasonable time after the alleged payments of the drafts, nor had prompt notice been given of the discovery of the forgeries. It was also averred that the United States had been negligent in not verifying the signatures of the payees of the checks in suits by comparing them with signatures of the payees in its possession.

Upon the agreed facts the Circuit Court entered judgment against the bank for the full amount claimed with interest. The appellate court, however, reversed this judgment, and remanded the cause with directions to enter judgment for the Exchange Bank (151 Fed. Rep. 402); and this writ of error was thereupon prosecuted.

Mr. Assistant Attorney General Fowler, for plaintiff in error, submitted:

The Government's right of action is not defeated by th VOL. CCXIV-20