time of the tender and the highest proved value of the property since the date of such payment. It is contended that, if the diamonds were pledged as a security for a loan, the pledgor would be entitled to redeem the property pledged, regardless of the question of usury. If this be conceded, there was, nevertheless, no harmful error in the charge. If what transpired between the parties amounted to a pledging of the diamonds to secure a debt, the amount fixed for their return or reconveyance was, without any controversy, greater than the amount advanced with legal interest. The plaintiff contended that there was usury, and in making the tender her attorney calculated the rate which he alleged had been previously charged. We think the charge of the court, if erroneous, could not have injured the plaintiff. Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concuring.

GRIGSBY v. RUSSELL.

(Supreme Court of the United States, 1911. 222 U. S. 149. 32 Sup. Ct. 58, 56 L. Ed. 133, 36 L. R. A. [N. S.] 642, Ann. Cas. 1913B, 863.) HOLMES, J. This is a bill of interpleader brought by an insurance company to determine whether a policy of insurance issued to John C. Burchard, now deceased, upon his life, shall be paid to his administrators or to an assignee, the company having turned the amount into court. The material facts are that after he had paid two premiums and a third was overdue, Burchard, being in want and needing money for a surgical operation, asked Dr. Grigsby to buy the policy and sold it to him in consideration of one hundred dollars and Grigsby's undertaking to pay the premiums due or to become due; and that Grigsby had no interest in the life of the assured. The Circuit Court of Appeals in deference to some intimations of this court held the assignment valid only to the extent of the money actually given for it and the premiums. subsequently paid.

* * *

Of course the ground suggested for denying the validity of an assignment to a person having no interest in the life insured is the public policy that refuses to allow insurance to be taken out by such persons in the first place. A contract of insurance upon a life in which the insured has no interest is a pure wager that gives the insured a sinister counter interest in having the life come to an end. And although that counter interest always exists, as early was emphasized for England in the famous case of Wainewright (Janus Weathercock), the chance that in some cases it may prove a sufficient motive for crime is greatly enhanced if the whole world of the unscrupulous are free to bet on what life they choose. The very meaning of an insurable interest is an interest in having the life continue and so one that is opposed to crime. And, what perhaps is more important, the existence of such an interest makes a roughly selected class of persons who by their general relations with the person whose life is insured are less likely than criminals at large to attempt to compass his death.

But when the question arises upon an assignment it is assumed that the objection to the insurance as a wager is out of the case. In the present instance the policy was perfectly good. There was a faint suggestion in argument that it had become void by the failure of Burchard to pay the third premium ad diem, and that when Grigsby paid he was making a new contract. But a condition in a policy that it shall be

void if premiums are not paid when due, means only that it shall be voidable at the option of the company. * * * The company waived the breach, if there was one, and the original contract with Burchard remained on foot. No question as to the character of that contract is before us. It has been performed and the money is in court. But this being so, not only does the objection to wagers disappear, but also the principle of public policy referred to, at least in its most convincing form. The danger that might arise from a general license to all to insure whom they like does not exist. Obviously it is a very different thing from granting such a general license, to allow the holder of a valid insurance upon his own life to transfer it to one whom he, the party most concerned, is not afraid to trust. The law has no universal cynic fear of the temptation opened by a pecuniary benefit accruing upon a death. It shows no prejudice against remainders. after life estates, even by the rule in Shelley's Case, 1 Coke, 104. Indeed, the ground of the objection to life insurance without interest in the earlier English cases was not the temptation to murder but the fact that such wagers came to be regarded as a mischievous kind of gaming.

* * *

On the other hand, life insurance has become in our days one of the best recognized forms of investments and self-compelled saving. So far as reasonable safety permits, it is desirable to give to life policies the ordinary characteristics of property. This is recognized by the Bankruptcy Law, § 70 (U. S. Comp. St. § 9654), which provides that unless the cash surrender value of a policy like the one before us is secured to the trustee within thirty days after it has been stated the policy shall pass to the trustee as assets. Of course the trustee may have no interest in the bankrupt's life. To deny the right to sell except to persons having such an interest is to diminish appreciably the value of the contract in the owner's hands. The collateral difficulty that arose from regarding life insurance as a contract of indemnity only, * long has disappeared. * * And cases in which a person having an interest lends himself to one without any as a cloak to what is in its inception a wager have no similarity to those where an honest contract is sold in good faith.

*

Coming to the authorities in this court, it is true that there are intimations in favor of the result come to by the Circuit Court of Appeals. But the case in which the strongest of them occur was one of the type just referred to, the policy having been taken out for the purpose of allowing a stranger association to pay the premiums and receive the greater part of the benefit, and having been assigned to it at once. * * * On the other hand, it has been decided that a valid policy is not avoided by the cessation of the insurable interest, even as against the insurer, unless so provided by the policy itself. * * * It is at least satisfactory to learn from the decision below that in Tennessee, where this assignment was made, although there has been much division of opinion, the Supreme Court of that State came to the conclusion that we adopt, in an unreported case, Lewis v. Edwards, December 14, 1903. The law in England and the preponderance of decisions in our statė courts are on the same side. *

Decree reversed.

ROHRBACH v. GERMANIA FIRE INS. CO.

(Court of Appeals of New York, 1875. 62 N. Y. 47, 20 Am. Rep. 451.)

FOLGER, J. The general definitions of the phrase "insurable interest," as given in the text-books, are quite vague and not always concordant. See * * * May, Ins. § 76. The last cited author says that an insurable interest sometimes exists where there is not any present property, any jus in re, or jus ad rem, and such a connection must be established between the subject-matter insured, and the party in whose behalf the insurance has been effected, as may be sufficient for deducing the existence of a loss to him, from the occurrence of an injury to it, and that the tendency of modern decisions is to admit to the protection of the contract, whatever act, event or property, bears such relation to the person seeking insurance, as that it can be said with a reasonable degree of probability, to have a bearing upon his prospective pecuniary condition. While on the other hand, the statement is, that the interest must be founded on some legal or equitable title; and if it be inconsistent with the only title which the law can recognize, it will not be deemed an insurable interest. Marsh, Ins., 115.

But the result of a comparison of the text-writers above cited [eleven writers on insurance] is, that there need not be a legal or equitable title to the property insured. If there be a right in or against the property, which some court will enforce upon the property, a right so closely connected with it, and so much dependent for value upon the continued existence of it alone, as that a loss of the property will cause pecuniary damage to the holder of the right against it, he has an insurable interest. Thus a mortgagee of real estate, though he hold also the bond of the mortgagor, has an insurable interest in the buildings; while a judgment creditor of the same mortgagor, his judgment being a lien upon the same real estate and the same buildings, is said not to have an insurable interest in them. The interest of the first is said to be specific, the interest of the latter general. As a general rule the distinction may be sound. But I think it would be difficult to show an appreciable practical difference in the pecuniary result to the two. If the mortgagor and judgment debtor should die, leaving no personal property, and no real estate save that mortgaged, it principally valuable for the buildings upon it, and they should be burned, each must then look to the real estate, the lands alone, for a security for his debt; and if that be insufficient, each must with equal certainty suffer a pecuniary disaster, resulting directly from the fire. What legal reason is there why the one may not, as well as the other, protect himself by a contract of insurance?

* * *

It is not the name of the right which gives or refuses an insurable interest; it is the character of the right. A specific lien gives an insurable interest, because a loss of the particular property is at once. seen to affect disastrously the specific lienor. But when a right to payment of debt exists, which can be satisfied only from a particular piece of property, is there not the same result from the same cause? If I have a debt against another, and he have but one piece of property from which my debt may be made, and he die leaving no personal estate, though in technical language my lien may not be spe

cific upon that real estate, it is true in fact that there is a specific piece of property from which alone I may hope to satisfy my lien, and which is alone legally bound to satisfy it, and I am practically just like one to whom that piece of real property has been specifically pledged for a specific debt. If the latter, for that he may suffer pecuniary loss by the burning of that real property, has such an interest as that he may insure against that burning, I have such an interest also, and I, too, may insure. The probability-nay, the possibility of the payment of the plaintiff's debt out of the property of the deceased debtor-rested entirely upon the contingency of this real estate remaining without serious impairment in value. * * *

In Insurance Co. v. Allen, 43 N. Y. 389-395, 396, 3 Am. Rep. 711, it is said by Allen, J.: "An insurable interest may exist without any estate or interest in the corpus of the thing insured;" "it was enough that" there be a pecuniary interest in the preservation and protection of the property, and that one "might sustain a loss by its destruction." **

SECTION 6.-EFFECT OF ILLEGALITY

BASKET et al. v. MOSS.

(Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1894. 115 N. C. 448, 20 S. E. 733, 48 L. R. A. 842, 44 Am. St. Rep. 463.)

Action to restrain the defendant, W. E. Moss, trustee, from selling certain real estate described in the affidavits.

The affidavit on which the application was founded, after setting forth that the defendant John R. Moss was postmaster at Henderson on September 1, 1893, and that the full term to which he had been appointed expired March 1, 1894, stated:

That on or about September 1, 1893, defendant John R. Moss, represented to the plaintiff, Basket, an old man, easily influenced, that he, Moss, could procure for Basket the appointment of postmaster at Henderson as his successor, and represented further to said Basket that if he would secure to him, said John R. Moss, the sum of $952.50 (which sum was to be evidenced by the bond of said A. M. Basket) by a deed of trust on his (Basket's) real estate, that he, said John R. Moss, would go to Washington City, see President Cleveland and other authorities, resign said office in favor of Basket and surrender the office to him, and secure the appointment of Basket as postmaster in his stead, stating as a further inducement for the execution of said bond and trust deed, that if said Basket should be appointed and hold the office at the expiration of the term of said Moss, Mr. Cleveland would no doubt reappoint him.

That the said Basket, relying on John R. Moss's representations, executed his bond to J. R. Moss for $972.50, and at the same time executed to W. E. Moss, the other defendant, a trust deed on a tract of 125 acres.

That said bond and trust deed were executed without consideration, or upon a consideration which was illegal, and that said bond and trust deed are invalid.

B.& B.Bus.Law-22

That affiant is informed and believes that it was a part of the agreement when said bond and trust deed were executed, that if, upon the visit of John R. Moss to his Excellency, Grover Cleveland, at Washington, he should fail to have said Basket appointed postmaster as aforesaid, the said bond and trust deed should be cancelled and surrendered, the said Basket to pay the actual expenses of Moss.

That no part of the agreement (which affiant claims was invalid so far as the promising the office of postmaster for A. M. Basket is concerned) has been complied with by said Moss.

That defendant has indorsed the trust deed as being paid off and satisfied down to $199.

That, notwithstanding these facts, defendant John R. Moss has caused his codefendant W. E. Moss to advertise the said real property for sale under said invalid deed, to pay the alleged balance of $199 claimed as due on said invalid bond.

The defendant prays for a restraining order, etc.

ute.
* * *

* * *

CLARK, J. The public has a right to some better test of the capacity of their servants than the fact that they possess the means of purchasing their offices. The Code (section 1871) provides, “All bargains, bonds and assurances made or given for the purchase or sale of any office whatsoever, the sale of which is contrary to law, shall be void." Notwithstanding the office is an office under the United States government, if an action were brought in our courts to recover upon a bond or mortgage given for such consideration, our courts would hold it void. Such agreements are void at common law, as well as by statSo also contracts to procure appointment to office are void, or to resign in another's favor. Public offices are public trusts, and should be conferred solely upon considerations of ability, integrity, fidelity and fitness for the position. Agreements for compensation to procure these tend directly and necessarily to lower the character of the appointments to the great detriment of the public. Hence such agreements, of whatever nature, have always been held void as being against public policy. * * * Says Ames, C. J., in Eddy v. Capron, 4 R. I. 394, 67 Am. Dec. 541, "By the theory of our government, appointments to office are presumed to be made solely upon the principle detur digniori, and any practice whereby the bare consideration of money is brought to bear in any form upon such appointments to or resignation of office, conflicts with and degrades this great principle. The services performed under such appointments are paid for by salary or fees, presumed to be adjusted at the point of adequate remuneration only. Any premium paid to obtain office interferes with this adjustment and tempts to peculation, overcharges and frauds in the effort to restore the balance thus disturbed." Resides, the moral sense revolts at traffic to any extent in the bestowal of public office. It is against good morals as well as against the soundest principles of public policy. If public offices can be sold or procured for money, the purchasers will be sure to reimburse themselves by dispensing the functions of their offices for pecuniary consideration. The law wisely guards against the first step in that direction. For that reason, not only the sum agreed to be paid directly to the holder of this office to resign, but the amounts advanced for expenses and compensation of persons to go to Washington to procure the authorities there to accept the resignation of one party and the appointment of the other, are not recoverable. For the same