pecifying as it does cheques alone, appears to exclude documents
of both these classes from its operation. With regard to the orders for
payment, inasmuch as the same section which brings them within the crossed
cheques sections expressly provides that they shall not be negotiable, a
banker would probably be protected only in taking them from the specified
payee, though this distinction has been ignored in some recently decided
cases.

[Sidenote: Fraud.]

Where a banker incurs loss through forgery or fraud in circumstances not
covered by statutory protection, his right to relief, if any, must depend
on general principles. He cannot charge his customer with payments made on
a forgery of that customer's signature, on the ground either that he is
presumed to know such signature or that the payment is unauthorized. But if
the customer has accredited the forgery, or, having knowledge or reasonable
ground for belief that it has been committed, has failed to warn the
banker, who has thereby suffered loss or prejudice, the customer will be
held estopped from disputing the banker's right to debit him with the
amount (_Vagliano_ v. _Bank of England_ [1891], A.C. 107; _McKenzie_ v.
_British Linen Co._ 6 A.C. 82; _Ewing_ v. _Dominion Bank_ [1904], A.C.
806). The doctrine of the fictitious person as payee may also exonerate a
banker who has paid an order bill to a wrongful possessor. Payment on a
forgery to an innocent holder is payment under mistake of fact; but the
ordinary right of the payor to recover money so paid is subordinated to the
necessity of safeguarding the characteristics of negotiability. Views
differ as to whether the recovery is precluded only where the opportunity
of giving notice of dishonour is lost or prejudiced by delay in reclaiming
payment, or whether mere possibility of damage is sufficient (cf. _London &
River Plate Bank_ v. _Bank of Liverpool_ [1896], 1 Q.B. 7, and _Imperial
Bank of Canada_ v. _Bank of Hamilton_ [1903], A.C. 49).

Cases have frequently arisen where the carelessness of a customer in
filling up cheques has enabled a person to fraudulently increase the sum
for which such cheques were originally drawn. In _Colonial Bank of
Australasia_ v. _Marshall_ [1906], A.C. 559, the judicial committee of the
privy council held that the affording such facilities for forgery was no
breach of the customer's duty to his banker, and that the latter was not
entitled to debit the customer with more than the or