Mr Brogden, the chief of a partnership of three, had supplied the Metropolitan Railway Company with coals for a number of years.

A key extract from Lord Blackburn's judgment [Lord Blackburn was one of the most distinguished judges of his time] states: I have always believed the law to be this, that when an offer is made to another party, and in that offer there is a request express or implied that he must signify his acceptance by doing some particular thing, then as soon as he does that thing, he is bound.

So again, where, as in the case of Ex parte Harris,[2] a person writes a letter and says, I offer to take an allotment of shares, and he expressly or impliedly says, If you agree with me send an answer by the post, there, as soon as he has sent that answer by the post, and put it out of his control, and done an extraneous act which clenches the matter, and shews beyond all doubt that each side is bound, I agree the contract is perfectly plain and clear.

But when you come to the general proposition which Mr. Justice Brett seems to have laid down, that a simple acceptance in your own mind, without any intimation to the other party, and expressed by a mere private act, such as putting a letter into a drawer, completes a contract, I must say I differ from that.

It appears from the Year Books that as long ago as the time of Edward IV,[3] Chief Justice Brian[4] decided this very point.

That case is referred to in a book which I published a good many years ago, Blackburn on Contracts of Sale,[5] and is there translated.

But it must be clear that the parties have both waived the execution of the formal instrument and have agreed expressly, or as shewn by their conduct, to act on the informal one.