Sign

contracts, evidence, isa token of any thing; a note or token given without words. Contracts are express or implied. The express are manifested viva voce, or by writing; the implied are shown by silence, by acts or by stgns. Among all nations and at all times, certain signs have been considered as proof of assent or dissent, for example, the nodding of the head, and the shaking of hands, 2 Bl. Com, 448; silence and inaction, facts and signs are sometimes very strong evidence of cool reflection, when following a question. I ask you to lend me one hundred dollars; without saying a word you put your hand in your pocket, and deliver me the money. I go into a hotel, and I ask the landlord if he can accommodate me and take care of my trunk; without speaking he takes it out of my hands and sends it into his chamber. By this act he doubtless becomes responsible to me as a bailee. At the expiration of a lease, the tenant remains in possession, without any objection from the landlord; this may be fairly interpreted as a sign of a consent that the lease shall be renewed.

13 Serg. & Rawle, 60. ‘TO SIGN.

To write one’s name to an instrument of writing in order to give the effect intended: the name thus written is called a signature. The signature is usually made at the bottom of the instrument, but in wills it has been held that when a testator commenced his will with these words, “I, A B, make this my will,’” Will. on Wills, 49, 50; Chit. Cont. 212; Newl. Contr. 173; Sugd. Vend. 71; 2 Stark. Ev. 605, 613; Rob. on Fr. 121; but this decision is said to be absurd.

1 Bro. Civ. Law, 278, n. 16.

Vide Merl. Répert. mot Signature, for a history of the origin of signatures; and also 4 Cruise Dig. h. t.

32, c. 2, 8.73 et seq.; see, generally, 8 Toull. n. 94-96; 1 Dall. 64.