In White . Dixon,' the plaintiff, as riparian owner, sued an iron mining company for fouling the water of the stream by pumping into it polluted water from their pits or shafts by means of drains leading therefrom into the stream. The defence was, in the first place, that if the water was not pumped into the stream in this way it would rise in the shaft until it reached the old levels from which it would flow into the stream. The water, the defendant averred, was the natural drainage water of the ground, not used in any manufacture and uncontaminated by any arti ficial process. And the defendant further pleaded that it was necessary for the working of their mines that the water should be so pumped and discharged. The plaintiff prayed to have his right as riparian owner declared and the defendant enjoined. The report is upon the plaintiff's motion for trial before the Lord Ordinary instead of a trial by jury. The motion was granted on account of "the legal questions of novelty and difficulty in reference to the rights of mineral proprietors to drain their workings." The Lord Justice CLERK thought this was a good reason, because the water complained of was not an "opus manufactum." And Lord NEAVES said: "I do not say that the natural drainage of the ground is not pollution merely because it is not the result of a manufacture, if it be produced or used in an unusual way.” default which would, but' for the act, be deemed to be a nuisance, or otherwise contrary to law; and it appears that the act does not affect private rights and duties, nor does it concern the relation which riparian proprietors bear to one another: Clerk & Lindsell Torts, 312. 12 Sessions Cases, Scotch, 4 Series, 904 (1875). 'The writer has, after diligent search, not been able to find any subsequent report of this case, discussing and deciding it on its merits. The reader may also refer to Elwell v. Crowther, 31 Beavan, 163; Jegon v. Vivian, 6 Ch. Ap., 758; Wright v. Williams, 1 M. & W., 77, where pollution from mine water seems to be considered as under the ordinary rules, though the report only concerns a question of pleading: Wood v.. Waud, 3 Exch., 748. MacSwinney on Mines, 396, says a riparian owner may, by pumping water from his mines into a stream, "alter its quality in a reasonable degree," but "may not sensibly alter its quality." Authority for this somewhat ambiguous statement is wanting, and apperently no other writer is of like opinion. If Justice WOODWARD, in 86 Pa. St., 401, had, in affirming the judgment of the lower court, recited the gen eral rule on the subject of the pollution of streams as followed in Howell v. McCoy' and other cases, referred to the English cases above cited, and Wheatley v. Chrisman,' as applying the general rule to cases of mining and met the argument founded on the public importance of the case by the answer that the public welfare is better maintained by preserving the legal rights of the individual than by subordinating them to antagonistic interests however greatif his opinion had followed this line of thought the subsequent reversal would have been more difficult of accomplishment. But the opinion was founded in great part upon a case which seems, upon careful examination, to have no application-that of Fletcher . Rylands.3 Having now reached a point where an analysis of Rylands . Fletcher is necessary, that analysis, and considerations suggested by it, will form the subject of a second paper. 13 Rawle, 256. 124 Pa. St., 298. '3 H. & C., 774; L. R., 1 Exch., 280, S. C.; L. R.,3 H. L., 330. The Annotations are prepared by the following Editors and Assistants: Hon. George M. Dallas, Editor. Assistants: Ardemus Stewart, Department of CONSTITUTIONal Law. Prof. Christopher G. Tiedeman, Editor. Assistants: Wm. Department of MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. Hon. John F. Dillon, LL.D., Editor. streth. Department of EQUITY. Assistant: Mayne R. Long Richard C. McMurtrie, LL.D., Editor. Assistants Sydney G. Department of TORTS. Melville M. Bigelow, Esq., Editor. Assistants: Berjamin H. DEPARTMENT OF CORPORATIONS. Angelo T. Freedley, Esq., Editor. Assistants: Lewis Lawrence Department of Carriers and TRANSPORTATION COMPANIES. Charles F. Beach, Jr., Esq., Editor. Assistants: Lawrence Godkin, Owen Wister, Victor Leovy, Cyrus E. Woods. Department of ADMIRALTY. Morton P. Henry, Esq., Editor. Assistant: Horace L. Cheyney. Department of COMMERCIAL LAW. Frank P. Prichard, Esq., Editor. Assistants: H. Gordon Mc- Department of Insurance. George Richards, Esq., Editor. Assistants: George Wharton Department of CRIMINAL LAW AND CRIMINAL PRACTICE. Department of PATENT LAW. George Harding, Esq., Editor. Assistant: Hector T. Fenton. Hon. Clement B. Penrose, Editor. Assistants: Alfred Roland Department of MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. Hon. Marshall D. Ewell, LL.D., Editor. Assistants: Thomas Department of WILLS, EXECUTORS AND ADMINISTRATORS. Department of TRUSTS AND COMBINATIONS IN RESTRAINT H. La Barre Jayne, Esq., Editor. Assistants: George S. Patterson, Where G owes C, and M owes G, C demands payment of G. G gives him an order on M. C agrees to release G provided M accepts order. M accepts order and pays $45 thereon, and promises to pay balance at future time. M is released as G's debtor and becomes the debtor of C. M thereby accepts C as his creditor in place of G. M, at request of G, agrees to pay to C money that he owes by con. tract to G. Such contract is not within the Statute of Frauds, requiring the promise to pay the debt of another to be in writing. M simply pays his own debt to a different person than the one he originally agreed to pay it to. He is paying his own debt, not the debt of another. OPINION. SYLLABUS BY THE COURT. SULLIVAN, J. Miller was owing Gates, Gates was owing Casey, and Miller simply agreed to pay the sum of $315 due from him to Gates, to Casey, or, in other words, he had agreed to accept Casey as his creditor instead of Gates. Miller did not, under said agreement, agree to pay the "debt of another," within the meaning of that term as used in the Statute of Frauds, but simply agreed to pay the debt owing by himself to appellant instead of to Gates. In Barringer v. Warden,' the Court, in referring to the Statute of Frauds, said "that the statute requires the promise to pay the debt of another to be in writing expressing the consideration; but this requirement has no reference to the promise by A to pay money that he owes by contract with B, to C. This is his debt, and the mere direction in which he pays it does not alter the character of the contract from the 112 Cal., 311. original obligation. There is no difference between a debtor promising to pay his creditor directly so much money which he owes him, or promising his creditor to pay a third person the same sum, by an agreement between the three. The promisor is paying his own debt and his own obligation, and not assuming another's.. . . So, in the case at bar, Gates consented to such arrangement and gave Casey an order on the respondent. Casey assented to the arrangement by accepting the order; Miller assented by agreeing to pay the order." WHAT PROMISES TO PAY THE DEBT OF ANOTHER ARE WITHIN THE STATUTE OF Frauds. This recent case is a welcome one in its field, for by its clear language it helps to lessen the confusion which some less deliberate opinions in the long line of decisions on this subject have occasioned. The cases which have turned on the question whether a man is paying his own debt or another's are numerous, the decisions often conflicting, and the grounds on which the same conclusions are based, various. The answer to the question is usually found by applying a test to the circumstances of each particu lar case. But, unfortunately, the authorities differ as to what that test should be. Sometimes it is the nature of the promise itself; if the promisor derives actual benefit from, or furthers his own interest by his promise, notwithstanding that he thereby discharges the debt of a third person, the first attribute prevails over the second, -and his is a promise to pay his own debt, not within the Statute of Frauds, and need not be in writing. In some cases the fact of the third person continuing to be liable after the promise is made is supposed to be the proper criterion. The existence of a consideration received by the promisor, the nature of such consideration, and the fact of its being expressed in writing, or not, are other examples of what has influenced the courts. The two classes of promises in this connection are conveniently, if not always accurately, distinguished by the terms “original” and "collateral." The former is thus defined by the Court in Nugent v. Wolfe, 111 Pa., 480: "When the leading object of the promisor is to subserve some interest or purpose of his own, notwithstanding the effect is to pay or discharge the debt of another, his promise is not within the Statute of Frauds" and need not be in writing. "Collateral promises, where the object of the promisor is to become surety or guarantor of another's debt, or to obtain the release of the person or property of the debtor, or other forbearance or benefit to him, are within the Statute of Frauds and not valid unless in writing." In the following cases the decisions appear to have been based principally on the nature of the promise itself. Barringer v. Warden, 12 Cal., 311 (1859). A owed money by con |