The defense challenges the validity of the service of summons on Mrs. Miller, who sold tickets over the defendant’s lines and *526collected tlie money for the same, and individually supervised the handling of baggage, on the ground that she was the employee of Iluffstetler and Newton, lessees of the Bus Station, who furnished all the facilities and service to the public necessary and incident to the sale of tickets; and that the moneys collected by her were received in her capacity as an employee of the lessee partnership rather than the defendant, and were turned over by them to the defendant. To put it succinctly, the defense reads into the statute what they contend is necessarily implied,—“any person receiving or collecting money in this state for a corporation (and employed thereby),” .etc., will constitute an agent on wdiom service may be made. To put it more plainly, the defendant contends that the word “for” as used in the statute implies direct employment and not mediate action through the interposition of another employment to which the receiver of the money is accountable.
The statute was intended to facilitate service on a corporation which functions only through its officers and agents; and not only to provide for service near at hand when officers of a corporation, domestic or foreign, may reside at a great distance, but to resolve any doubt as to who might be validly served. Here the setup would defeat the purpose of the statute, if the theory of the appellee is correct, by return to a still greater confusion—to determine what member of the lessee agency to which the bus station and its ticket selling and coach securing activities have been farmed out is a fair target for the sheriff.
The power of the Legislature to establish categories pro hac vice not known to the glossary in that relation, when done in reasonable relevancy to the end sought, is unquestioned. The Secretary of State is, factually, not the agent of any foreign corporation who may be affected by service made upon him; and there need be in fact no factual agency or employment relation between the ticket seller at the bus station and the defendant company in order that she might be declared service agent by statutory definition. The question is only one of construction and statutory intent.
The question is not free from plausibilities pro and con. But we think no harm can come to corporations in like situation with the defendant in giving the statute its more liberal construction as a remedial measure, and we are persuaded that the phraseology justifies this conclusion. Railroad v. Cobb, 190 N. C. 375, 129 S. E. 828; Pardue v. Absher, 174 N. C. 676, 94 S. E. 414; Copland v. Telegraph Co., 136 N. C. 11, 48 S. E. 501.
We hold the service valid, and the judgment to the contrary is reversed. This is without prejudice to the right of the defendant to move to set aside the judgment for excusable neglect, if so advised.
Reversed.