Sec 635

"We have no right, in construing an ancient document, containing words whose meaning time has changed, to give such words a meaning which, though correct now, would not have been correct at the time of their selection by the parties.6 - "Every grant shall be expounded as the intent was at the time of the grant; as if I grant an annuity to J. S. until he be promoted to a competent benefice, and at the time of the grant he was but a mean person, and afterwards is made an archdeacon, yet if I offer him a competent benefice, according to his estate at the time of the grant, the annuity doth cease."7 - An illustration already noticed is to be found in a Pennsylvania case, in 1873, in which the question rose whether the term "Gottes-dienst," used in a contract made fifty years previously between two churches, included a Sunday school. The contract was executed by an Evangelical Lutheran congregation, and a German Reformed congregation, for the purpose of erecting a church edifice, the edifice to be used only for "Gottesdienst." The question was whether this edifice could be used for a Sunday school. The court held it could not, since Sunday schools were not in existence in that neighborhood at the time of the formation of the contract.1 "It is the duty of courts," so it is said by the court, "to interpret the language of written instruments; but in doing this they always follow the meaning attributed to the terms by those whose custom it is to use them. Therefore, when a contract is capable of two different interpretations, that which the parties themselves have always put upon it, and acted upon, especially as here, for a long series of years, a court will follow, because it is the true intent and meaning of the parties which are to be sought for in the language they use. However right it may be to view the Sunday school as a most useful institution in instructing youth in the knowledge and worship of God, and their duties to mankind, this praiseworthy view cannot change a written contract..These congregations never so understood or acted upon their agreement of union."2 - A contract to convey property at a certain place means ordinarily property owned by the promisor at that place at the time of the contract.3 sec 636. It is elsewhere seen4 that it is not admissible unless in cases where mutual mistake is shown, to prove by parol that a contract has a meaning repugnant to its terms. Latent ambiguities can be cleared by parol; but unless the document is shown clearly and plainly to be in contravention of what the parties at the time meant, or unless one party is clearly and plainly shown to have been defrauded by the other, a meaning cannot to be forced into it in opposition to its text. The same rule is applied to the definition of words. A latent obscurity in a word may be explained. But there being no obscurity, and no common mistake, and no fraud, evidence is inadmissible to show that the word was used by one of the parties in a sense peculiar to himself.1

Cyphers and abbreviations may be explained by experts.

The sense intended at the time must be adopted.

1 Infra, sec 662.

2 Jackson V. Farlow, 75 Ind. 123; Hall V. Williams, 13 Minn. 260; Sha-fer V. Mining Co., 4 Cal. 294.

3 Wh. on EV. sec 939, 972; Kell V. Charmer, 23 BeaV. 195; Sweet V. Lee, 3 M. & G. 452; Daintree V. Hutchinson, 10 M. & W. 87; Fenderson V. Owen, 54 Me. 372; Stone V. Hubbard, 7 Cush. 565; Hite V. State, 9 Yerg. 357. As to blanks, see supra, sec 204.

4 Wh. on By. sec 926; Eden V. Blake, 13 M. & W. 614; Lochett V. Nicklin, 2.

Ex. B. 93; Amonett V. Montague, 63 Mo. 201.

5 Beach V. R. R., 37 N. Y. 457.

6 Hutchinson V. Bowker, 5 M. & W. 535; Smith V. Wilson, 3 B. & Ad. 728; Rawlins V. Jenkins, 4 Q. B. 49; Millard V. Bailey, L. R. 1 Eq. 382; Met-calf V. Taylor, 36 Me. 28; Adams V. Frothingham, 3 Mass. 360; Livingston V. Ten Broeck, 16 Johns. 23; Denny V. Manhattan Co., 2 Hill, N. Y. 220; Slater V. Cave, 3 Oh. St. 80.

7 Wray, C. J., Cro. Eliz. 360, cited Story on Cont. sec 805.

But not to override writing.

1 Gass' App. 73 Penn. St. 39.

2 See Littlefield V. Winslow, 19 Me. 394; Robinson V. Fisk, 25 Me. 401; Philbrook V. Ins. Co., 37 Me. 137. In Hatch V. Douglas, 48 Conn. 116, it was held that where a party uses a technical term which has a clearly defined meaning in the business to which it relates, and the other party, giving it that meaning, acts upon it, the former cannot be permitted, to the prejudice of the latter, to say that he used it in a different sense.

3 Hurley V. Brown, 98 Mass. 545. As to conflict between intention and words see supra, sec 174.

4 Supra, sec 202 et seq.; infra, sec 660 et seq.