St. Louis upon a St. Louis bank and made payable to the defendant's order, which check was sent from St. Louis to the defendant at Washington. The last month's salary of $500 was paid in cash to defendant at St. Louis, in the company's office, on March 26, 1903, on which date, with his own consent, he was discharged as the company's attorney, his services being no longer required. The evidence also tended to show that during the whole period of the defendant's employment and service as the company's attorney he relied or counted upon the acceptance of his offer on the eighteenth day of November, 1902, as evidencing an agreement then concluded between him and the company in respect of compensation. He received the letter of November 18, by due course of mail, and does not deny having received the telegram previously sent to him, the same day, on the same subject. Nothing was said or done by him during the whole period of his service as the company's counsel that was inconsistent with the agreement established by the evidence. All that he did, said or wrote was consistent with the idea that he regarded the acceptance at St. Louis, of his offer, as completing the agreement between him and the company. From the time of such acceptance he was entitled, so far as the agreement was concerned, to demand, and he in fact received, the stipulated salary.

In view of the evidence and of all the circumstances, was the jury warranted in finding that the alleged agreement was concluded at St. Louis? Manifestly so, we think. Although this is a criminal prosecution, that question must be determined by the principles recognized in the general law of contracts as to the time when an agreement between parties takes effect and becomes binding upon them. It is to be taken as settled law, both in this country and in England, in cases of contracts between parties distant from each other, but communicating in modes recognized in commercial business, that when an offer is made by one person to another, the minds of the parties meet and a contract is to be deemed concluded, when the offer is accepted in reasonable time, either by tele

gram duly sent in the ordinary way, or by letter duly posted to the proposer, provided either be done before the offer is withdrawn, to the knowledge of or upon notice to the other party. A leading authority on the general subject is Tayloe v. Merchants' Fire Ins. Co., 9 How. 390, 399, 400. It appeared in that case that a fire insurance company made an offer by mail to insure property upon certain terms. The offer was accepted in a letter promptly mailed to the proper address of the company. The inquiry arose as to the time when the contract of insurance was to be deemed completed. This court held that, according to the settled principles of law governing contracts entered into by correspondence between parties distant from each other, the contract became complete when the letter accepting the offered terms was mailed, the offer not having been then withdrawn. The court said: "We are of opinion that an offer under the circumstances stated, prescribing the terms of insurance, is intended, and is to be deemed, a valid undertaking on the part of the company, that they will be bound, according to the terms tendered, if an answer is transmitted in due course of mail, accepting them; and that it cannot be withdrawn, unless the withdrawal reaches the party to whom it is addressed before his letter of reply announcing the acceptance has been transmitted."

In Patrick v. Bowman, 149 U. S. 411, 424, the court, referring to the Tayloe case, again held that when an offer is made and accepted by the posting of a letter of acceptance the contract is complete according to the terms of the offer.

Kent says: "In creating the contract the negotiation may be conducted by letter, as is very common in mercantile transactions; and the contract is complete when the answer containing the acceptance of a distinct proposition is dispatched by mail or otherwise, provided it be done with due diligence, after the receipt of the letter containing the proposal, and before any intimation is received that the offer is withdrawn. Putting the answer by letter in the mail containing the acceptance, and thus placing it beyond the control of the party, is VOL. CCII-25

valid as a constructive notice of acceptance. An offer by letter, or by a special agent, is an authority revocable in itself, but not to be revoked without notice to the party receiving it, and never after it has been executed by an acceptance. There would be no certainty in making contracts through the medium of the mail, if the rule were otherwise." 2 Kent's Com. 477.

The authorities to the same effect are too numerous to be cited, but we refer particularly to Vassar v. Camp, 11 N. Y. 441, 445; Mactier v. Frith, 6 Wend. 103; Adams v. Lindsell, 1 B. & Ald. 681; Imperial Land Co. of Marseilles, 7 L. R. Ch. App. 587; Household Fire Ins. Co. v. Grant, L. R. 4 Exch. Div. 216, 218; Perry v. Mt. Hope Iron Co., 15 R. I. 380, 381; Wheat v. Cross, 31 Maryland, 99, 103; Averill v. Hedge, 12 Connecticut, 424; Chiles v. Nelson, 7 Dana, 281; Washburn v. Fletcher, 42 Wisconsin, 152; Minnesota Oil Co. v. Collier Lead Co., 4 Dill. 431, 434; Maclay v. Harvey, 32 Am. Rep. 35, 40, note and authorities cited; Levy v. Cohen, 4 Georgia, 1, 13; Falls v. Gaither, 9 Port. 605, 612; 2 Redfield on Law of Railways, 338, 339; Pomeroy on Contracts, 95; 1 Parsons on Contracts, 9th ed. 483; 2 Parsons on Contracts, 257, note; Metcalf on Contracts, 17; Thompson on Law of Electricity, §§ 425–478; Scott and Jarnogin, Law of Telegraphs, § 295 et seq.; Addison on Contracts, 16, 17. Whether the acceptance by the Rialto Company of the defendant's offer is to be regarded as effectively made by the telegram duly sent to him, or only when the letter addressed to him by the Rialto counsel was duly mailed at St. Louis, or in both ways-in any event, the acceptance promptly and adequately occurred on the eighteenth of November, 1902, at St. Louis, on, which day and at which place it is to be deemed that the minds of the parties metthe agreement becoming complete the moment of the acceptance of defendant's offer, without the necessity of formal notice to the company that Burton had received information of its acceptance of his offer.

But this, the defendant insists, is not enough to show that

the alleged offense was committed at St. Louis. Counsel would seem to contend that the physical absence of the accused from St. Louis, when the offer was received by the company and when the agreement was concluded, rendered it impossible that he could have committed the alleged offense at that city. In substance, the contention is that an individual could not, in law or within the meaning of the Constitution, commit a crime within a State in which he is not physically present at the time the crime is committed.

The constitutional requirement is that the crime shall be tried in the State and District where committed, not necessarily in the State or District where the party committing it happened to be at the time. This distinction was brought out and recognized in Palliser's case, 136 U. S. 257, 265. Palliser was indicted in the District Court of the United States for the District of Connecticut for violating certain statutes relating to the disposal of postage stamps and forbidding postmasters not only to dispose of postage stamps in the payment of debts or in the purchase of commodities or to pledge them, but also to sell or dispose of them except for cash. By letter written and mailed at New York and addressed to a postmaster in Connecticut, Palliser made to that officer an offer of contract which could not have been accepted by the latter without violating the above statutes. This court held that the offer in Palliser's letter was a tender of a contract with the intent to induce the postmaster to sell postage stamps for credit in violation of his duty, and that the case, therefore, came within section 5451 of the Revised Statutes, providing that "every person who promises, offers, or gives or causes or procures to be promised, offered or given, any money or other thing of value, or makes or tenders any contract, undertaking, obligation, gratuity or security for the payment of money, or for the delivery or conveyance of anything of value to any officer of the United States, with intent to influence him to commit or aid in committing, or to collude in or allow any fraud, or make opportunity for the commission of any fraud on the United States,

or to induce him to do or omit to do any act in violation of his lawful duty, shall be punished" by fine and imprisonment.

The question arose whether Palliser, who did not go into Connecticut, could be punished in that State for the offense alleged against him. This court, speaking by Mr. Justice Gray, said: "The petitioner relies on those provisions of the Constitution of the United States which declare that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right to be tried by an impartial jury of the State and District wherein the crime shall have been committed. Art. 3, §2; Amendments, art. 6. But the right thereby secured is not a right to be tried in the District where the accused resides, or even in the District in which he is personally at the time of committing the crime, but in the District 'wherein the crime shall have been committed.' When a crime is committed partly in one District and partly in another it must, in order to prevent an absolute failure of justice, be tried in either District, or in that one which the legislature may designate; and Congress has accordingly provided, that 'when any offense against the United States is begun in one judicial District and completed in any other, it shall be deemed to have been committed in either, and may be dealt with, inquired of, tried, determined and punished in either District, in the same manner as if it had been actually and wholly committed therein.' Rev. Stat. § 731." In that case the court said it was universally admitted that when a shot fired in one jurisdiction strikes a person in another jurisdiction, the offender may be tried where the shot takes effect.

If the sending by the defendant to the Rialto Company from Chicago to St. Louis of the offer above referred to was the beginning of negotiations for an agreement in violation of section 1782, the agreement between the parties was completed at the time of the acceptance of the defendant's offer at St. Louis on November 18, 1902. Then the offense was committed, and it was committed, at St. Louis, notwithstanding the defendant was not personally present in Missouri when his offer was accepted and the agreement was completed.