accident, cannot, upon principle, make this case an exception to the general rule. If the contrary view should be maintained, it would follow that the declaration of the engineer, if favorable to the company, would have been admissible in its behalf as part of the res geste, without calling him as a witness-a proposition that would find no support in the law of evidence. The cases have gone far enough in the admission of the subsequent declarations of agents as evidence against their principals. These views are fully sustained by adjudications in the highest courts of the States." Contra. "As the declaration was made between ten and thirty minutes after the accident, we may well conclude that it was made in sight of the wrecked train, in the presence of the injured parties, and whilst surrounded by excited passengers. The engineer was the only person from whom the company could have learned of the exact speed of the train at the time. It would seem, therefore, that his declaration, as that of its agent or servant, should have been received." it. "The modern doctrine has relaxed the ancient rule that declarations, to be admissible as part of the res gestæ, must be strictly contemporaneous with the main transaction. It now allows evidence of them when they appear to have been made under the immediate influence of the principal transaction, and are so connected with it as to characterize or explain What time may elapse between the happening of the event and the time of the decla. ration, and the declaration be yet admissible, must depend upon the character of the transaction itself. The admissibility of a declaration, in connection with evidence of the principal fact, as stated by Greenleaf, must be determined by the judge according to the degree of its relation to that fact, and in the exercise of a sound discretion; it being extremely difficult, if not impossible, to bring this class of cases within the limits of a more particular description. The principal points of attention are, he adds, whether the declaration was contemporaneous with the main fact, and so connected with it as to illustrate its character." 1 See ACQUIESCENCE; COMPROMISE; CONFESSION, 2; DECLARATION, 1; DEMURRER; ESTOPPEL; EVIDENCE; PART, 1; SILENCE. 1 Vicksburg & Meridian R. Co. v. O'Brien, 119 U. S. 99, 105-6 (Nov. 1, 1886), cases, Harlan, J.; Bradley, Woods, Matthews, and Gray, JJ., concurring; Waite, C. J., Field, Miller, and Blatchford, JJ., dissenting, - opinion, pp. 107-9, by Field, J., citing, as in point, the declaration of the engineer and the ruling in Hanover R. Co. v. Coyle, 55 Pa. 396, 402 (1867). And see Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Paine, 119 U. S. 560 (1877); N. J. Steamboat Co. v. Brockett, 121 id. 649 (1887). "The true rule is correctly stated by Greenleaf, with its limitations." Darling v. Oswego Falls Manuf. Co., 30 Hun, 279, 280-82 (1883), cases. See further, as to res gestæ, Little Rock, &c. R. Co. v. Leverett, 48 Ark. 338-43 (1886), cases - declaration by injured brakeman; Keyser v. Chicago, &c. R. Co., Sup. Ct. Mich. (1887), casesdeclaration by an engineer: 36 Alb. Law J. 202, 203, cases; Williamson v. Cambridge R. To choose: take, receive, accept. Whence adoption. 1. To make as one's own what formerly was not so; to appropriate: as, to adopt a symbol or design for a trade-mark, q. v. 2. To assent to what affects one's right; to approve, ratify: as, to adopt the unauthorized act of an agent; to adopt a by-law, a charter, a constitution, an amendment. To "adopt" a route for the transportation of the mails is to take the steps necessary to cause the mail to be transported over that route.3 3. To take a stranger into one's family as son and heir; to accept the child of another as one's own child and heir.4 "Adopted child" and "adopted parent" are correlative expressions. "Adopting parent" and (but less frequently) "adopter" are also used. Adoption, in this sense, is regulated by statute in each State. The child becomes in a legal sense the child of the adopted parent. At the same time it remains the child of its natural parents, and is not deprived of the right of inheriting from them, unless expressly so provided by statute.5 In the Roman law adoption was an act by which a person undertook to rear the child of another and appoint such child as his heir. Some special authority of law was necessary to constitute the relation. No right to adopt a child exists at common law. The methods known in modern law are by a decree of a competent court and by indenture. Adoption was unknown to the common law, but was recognized in the civil law from its earliest days. The effect was to make a stranger the son and heir of the adopting person. The stranger entered the family and came under the power of its head; he became as a child, and his children as grandchildren, of the adopter. Under the Spanish law as it existed while Texas was part of Mexico, no person having a legitimate child living could adopt a stranger as co-heir with his child. The statute law of that State has imported the civil law, modified in important respects. It gives the adopted party the position of a child so Co., 144 Mass. 150 (1887) - declaration by conductor of a street car. 1 L. ad-monere, to advise. 2 L. adoptare, to choose. 3 Rhodes v. United States, 1 Dev. 47 (1856). See Vidal v. Commagere, 13 La. An. 157 (1858): Webster. Wagner v. Varner, 50 Iowa, 534 (1879). See, as to inheriting lands in another State or country, Ross v. Ross, 129 Mass. 245-68 (1880), cases. * Ballard v. Ward, 87 Pa. 361 (1879); Shafer v. Eneu, 54 id. 306 (1867), Strong, J.; 8 W. N. C. 14; 10 id. 80.