One  further  remark  I  have  to  make  before  I  proceed  to  consider  the
language  of  the  statute.  The  Bills  of  Exchange  Act  was  certainly  not
intended  to  be  merely  a  code  of  the  existing  law.     It  is  not  open  to


Ch.  1)  MAKER    AND    ACCEPTOR.  473

question  that  it  was  intended  to  alter,  and  did  alter  it  in  certain  re-
spects. And  I  do  not  think  that  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  any  particu-
lar provision  was  intended  to  be  a  statement  of  the  existing  law,  rather
than  a  substituted  enactment.
Turning  now  to  the  words  of  the  subsection,  I  confess  they  appeal
to  me  to  be  free  from  ambiguity.  "Where  the  payee  is  a  fictitious  or
nonexistent  person"  means,  surely,  according  to  ordinary  canons  of
construction,  in  every  case  where  this  can,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  be  predi-
cated of  the  payee.
