One of the most inconvenient formalities required by law is a legal tender. The writer had some time ago a personal experience of the difficulties which may arise where this is required, and the following account will tend to show the hardship and even injustice, which might occur to Regal tender, might be prevented from doing toscontract who, having to make £05)
by the attendant difficulties, and lose all rights under his contract.
I should perhaps explain that a legal tender occurs where one party to a contract is required to make payment of a certain sum, on or before a certain day, in cent deration of which payment the other p: at the time fixed, it is obvious that he Fives the other party (who may be glad of the chance) the opportunity of saying, when n little later the money may be forth-"Qh no! you have not complied our contract, I am off the bargain now.
The law requires that the offer of the money be made in cash, current coin, If '2 large sum has to be tendered in England where Bank of England notes are a legal tender the inconvenience is not much felt if it had to be made in gold the inconvenonce at once suggests itself. has to tender about £20,000 in silyl sight of th the party to whom it is offered, tot 60 moving him that, overcome, he incontinently takes it and performs his part of the contract.
As to the business in which I was concerned and out of which arose the necowity of making legal tender, it will be sufficient to aay that a Mr. A. B. had entered into certain contracts with the Annamess Government (recognised by the French Resident) by the terms of which the Annamese Government were to der valuable amining concessions to him in exchange for $100,000 which sum was to be paid before the Slat of August, 1886.
"The time approaching, and the French Protectorate Government being known to be unfavourable to the contract being carried out, it became necessary, in performance' of our part to make an actual protontmout of the money in silver dollars to the Annamese Government, and as some Aoubt existed whether the presentation should be made first at Hanoi or Hué it doomed advisable to tender it first at Hanoi and if the French Government there refused to allow the Annamese to accept it het a similar tender should be made at may be mentioned too, that although French Law guided our acts and although the formalities to be observed in making the tender differed from English law, the general principle was the same, namely that the money had to be presented in the recognised currency of the country, which was, utifortunstely for us, the cumbersome "Mexican Dollar.
The financial arrangements were com-Gated by Mr. A. B. in Hongkong, ard one me morning in the middle of August, Mr. J., gentleman interested in the affair, and Tleft the harbour of Hongkong on board the little steamship Mehta bound for Haiphong together with our $100,000 in "twenty-five boxes, each weighing about ''300lbs, ind with sbout'75 Chinese passengers, "The Dfdlita'had but one cabiri below deck about 6 feet square, and as the thermo-Besides these quasi-professional pirates meter stood at about 88° we preferred to the country was still infested by large sleep on deck. bodies of disbanded soldiers frum the With the recollection of the fate of those Chinese army,.who lived by raids on the' on board the Greyhound unpleasantly villages and on the river. I gradually fresh in our minds, (sh having been seized awakened to the conviction that making a by pirates who had come on board as Hongkong, the captain being murder passengers within a few hours of her Jearing legal tender to the Government of Annam was not accompanied by that sense of perity which has always appeared and thrown overboard and several officers ne of the chief charms of the legal wounded,) we did not omit to keep of us loaded revolvers. xpeoted to arrive in Hanoi al A hundred thousand dollars would be a fire in the morning having left handsome haul on which a moderate-minded late on the previous day. Our pilot inform-gang of pirates could retire from business ed us that he could navigate the river and become small mandarins in their native during the night and we believed and com-villages, resting in honourable comfort for posed ourselves to slumber on a couch the remainder of their days. formed by laying a Cambodia mattress August is one of the months when thing about half an inch thick and destitute typhoons sweep the ser, and the state of all comfort) on the top of the hatch, of the weather in Hongkong immediate-round and about which we all lay, packed ly after the departure of the Aelita, ewuslike sardine ed our friends thereto waste @ quantity about 3 a.m, I was aroused by the of undeserved sympathy upon us, for fact that an awful commotion was going although a typhoon was somewhere in the ward our launch.and that we were neighbourhood we were lucky enough to ata standstill. Mingled with the ox-leave the bad weather behind, and passing cited voices of the Frenchmen of our through the Hainan Straits—fruitful in party were the horrid cries and shouts of teamed down the Gulf of Tong-the Chinese, while amid the turmoil one riving safely at the mouth of could distinguish hurried words of com-were piloted to Haiphong. mand being given, Peering into the night which is by the I made out something! Yea! There they town of Haiphong in its lack I there could be no doubt of it! It was sions, and its a night attack and n crowd of junks were wut of prosperity within 60 yards of us. Oh horror 1. How-presented a marked contrast to the thriving and busy aspect of Hongkong, In the river were to be seen plenty of ships-of-war but fow ships of commerce, and to sleep, and in his gentle and unwatched '1! the impetus caused by the wants of the slumbora had ran us on toa rand-bank by French forces during the, then, Into war the side of the channel. It was awkward with Chins having subsided, there was a enough truly, and one of our party cheered general camp! int of the dulness of trade. us by prophesying that we shouldn't get The French had occupied the place for off for a fortnight and quoted a case in about ten years, yet scarcely a decent point, Fortunately for us the junks along-road was to be found in the Concession, side the village, off which we were and after a good shower of rain one had to aground, were in a state of quiescence, but walk in mud three inches thick. No at-with the knowledge of the little ways of tempt had been made at lighting the town the villagers it was scarcely the particular sor apparently to drain it, there was no water fit to drink, and taken all together spot one would have chosen to spend pleasant day at, and affairs might at any Haiphong was then decidedly undesirable moment hare changed for the worse, Wo 8 place of residence. wore really in avery awkward bredi Our first cate was to charter a steam besides which time was of the gre Jaunch for Hanoi, our second to interview importance to us.
Several of our party
necessary legal documents, precis-verbal the Avocat of the pee and to arrange the ai not look like sleeping again, but some, 0 exid, ko Lord oun. etc., etc., with which we were to be armed they went to hed. Much on making our tender. The afternoon roan hour or two after-following the day of our arrival saw the and find that the launch treasure discharged from the Mehta into had been got off with anchors, and the our steam launch and we were soon en. assistance of the tide, and was again on route for Hanoi, some eighty miles up the liber way.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.