“The latest, clearest, and most conclusive authority upon the question of the sufficiency of the service or delivery of a notice to quit by post probably is the case of Gresham House Estate Co. v. Rossa Grande Gold Mining Co. [1870] W.N. 119 There the defendants, who were sued for rent, contended that they had, before the rent accrued due, terminated their tenancy by a notice to quit enclosed in a letter which they had put into the post correctly addressed to the plaintiffs, and which, if delivered in due course, would have been received in time to determine the tenancy. The plaintiffs called evidence to show the letter had never been received. The learned judge presiding at the trial directed the jury that a notice to quit enclosed in a letter sent through the post was prima facie evidence that it had been received, and left to the jury the question whether it had, in fact, been received or not. The jury found it had been received. On a motion for a new trial on the ground of misdirection, the Court, consisting of Cockburn C.J., Blackburn, Mellor, and Hannen JJ., held that if a letter properly directed, containing a notice to quit, is proved to have been put into the post office, it is presumed that the letter reached its destination at the proper time according to the regular course of business of the post office, and was received by the person to whom it was addressed. That presumption would appear to their Lordships to apply with still greater force to letters which the sender has taken the precaution to register, and is not rebutted, but strengthened, by the fact that a receipt for the letter is produced signed on behalf of the addressee by some person other than the addressee himself.
