Question 52.— Your answer to Journal Question No. 413 seems rather equivocal, in that after saying yes, you seem to qualify that by what follows which no one would question, because the ''written evidence" might readily be a certified copy. The vital point is the surrender by the attorney of all evidence of his authority to use another's name, under circumstances in which such evidence of the existence of such authority might easily be destroyed. What if his power to use the name of another were challenged? It seems to me that circumstances might readily arise in which it might be requisite that the power of attorney should be produced by the person using it—if on behalf of the bank as one of its officers all the more so—and his inability to do so might prove exceedingly awkward, if only to prove his bona fides—as in the case of forgery for instance. The paying bank has recourse against the presenting bank in any event, which fully secures them, and in paying the item, I cannot see that they pledge themselves in any way as regards the power of attorney, payment being made because of a right of recourse against the presenting bank, so far as that power is concerned.

Answer.—The answer is not, we think, equivocal, as a certified copy is not "written evidence," but the point you raise is an important one.

We think that where a bank pays an obligation entered into by a customer through an attorney, it is entitled to have lodged with it the evidence of that attorney's authority, unless this evidence is lodged in an office of public record, as for instance a registry office in Ontario, or a notary's office in Quebec.