Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ This is a suit brought by the respondents, cotton brokers, to recover the balance of an account for the purchase and sale of two thousand bales of cotton on the New Orleans Cotton Exchange. At a first trial a verdict was directed for the defendant on the ground that broker's seller's slips coupled with oral evidence that corresponding buyer's slips were executed, or vice versa, were not competent evidence of the transactions, under the United States Cotton Futures Act. ”

“ The telegram read as follows: 'Stop ten seventeen twenty and ten seventeen fifteen'-which is understood to carry a direction to sell one thousand bales at 17.20 cents per pound and one thousand at 17.15. But there was clear and sufficient evidence that such stop orders as they were called were understood to direct not only sale at the price mentioned but, if that could not be got, a sale at the next best possible price. The respondents sold at fourteen cents which was the best that could be done. We think it unnecessary to go into further detail to show that the judgment should be affirmed. ”