COMMERCIAL LAW.
By EDWARD C. REYNOLDS, ESQ.
III.—AGENCY.
Agency is one of the most common relations of individual to individual. It is a delegation of power that few can avoid, in a greater or less degree of importance. The wife who purchases goods for household purposes in her husband’s name, is acting purely as his agent; and the clerk who sells the articles to her acts, in the transaction, as agent for the merchant in whose employment he is.
The legal maxim, Qui facit per alium, facit per se, which we will make read here, “What one does by another he does himself,” is the essential idea of agency; that is, it places on sure foundation the question of responsibility, at least, as to where it belongs. This is the whole doctrine so far as responsibility or liability is concerned.
That it is particularly necessary in business life to have this delegation of power, and this centralization of responsibility, needs no explanation. The publisher of this magazine could be a publisher only in imagination without it, for he would have no influence in his own sanctum, except with himself; and we should feel no security in dealing with a company with no recognized and responsible manager.
We have to deal with a fixed fact. Agency exists. The owners of magnificent stores, the stockholders in the railroad and steamship lines are all indebted to an army of agents whose active brains and eager efforts keep cars and steamers in motion, purchase and sell goods, and keep the accounts of the business world in proper balance.