testimony of either party to a suit, and the court will not interfere with a report because one of the parties has testified, unless it is clear that injustice has been done.

Where by the charter of an insurance company, the issuing of a policy creates a lien upon the property insured, it is the duty of the administrator of the assured to remove the lien, by paying the assessments for losses, if there are sufficient assets for that purpose; such lien constituting a legal incumbrance upon the estate.

The presentation to a commissioner on an estate, administered in the insolvent course, of a claim, secured by mortgage, pledge, or lien of greater value than the claim itself, and its rejection by such commissioner, and no appeal taken, only bar the right of such claim to any portion of the general funds in the hands of the administrator for its payment, but do not discharge the lien upon the property mortgaged or otherwise pledged for its security.

Notwithstanding such presentation and rejection without appeal, it is still the duty of the administrator to redeem the property insured by the payment of the assessments against the policy.

An administrator is not authorized by law, to defray the expenses of fencing a private burying place, where the intestate and some of his relatives were interred.

As between the administrator and the heir, a heavy stone, placed by the ancestor in a chimney having no fire-place, without legs, set on brick work, with a short funnel bricked around in the chimney, so as to render it doubtful whether it could be removed without disturbing the brick work, is to be regarded as real estate.

The time and expenses of an administrator in attending probate court, and the fees of counsel necessarily employed there, are part of the just expenses of administration, for which a reasonable compensation is to be allowed the administrator.

An administrator should be charged with the value of personal property belonging to an estate, and lost through his negligence, although it never came into his possession.

June Term, 1856. Merrimack.

FELLOWS v. WYMANN.

Power of partners after dissolution of partnership.

After the dissolution of a partnership, one partner cannot, without authority from the other, endorse a note or bill belonging to the firm, and payable to them or order.

If one partner after dissolution, without consideration, fraudulently release or discharge a promissory note belonging to the partners and payable to them or order, the fraud will not authorize the other partner to endorse the note without recourse in the name of the firm, and if he undertake to endorse it, an action cannot be maintained on it in the name of the endorser.

Where a debtor mortgaged a number of unfinished pruning shears, and the mortgagor afterwards finished the shears, and thereby greatly added to their value : –

Held, that in the absence of fraud, the fact that the shears had been greatly increased in value, would not invalidate the mortgage, and that the mortgagee would hold them against an attachment by another creditor of the mortgagor.

A" gift sale" of books, according to a scheme by which the books are offered for sale at sums above their real value, and by which each purchaser of a book is entitled, in addition thereto, to a gift or prize, to be ascertained after the purchase by a correspondence, unknown to the purchaser, between certain numbers endorsed on the books offered for sale, and the different gifts or prizes proposed, is a lottery within the meaning of the statute against disposing of property by lottery.

TOWNSEND v. BURNHAM.

Parent and child.

In order to charge a parent with supplies, furnished his minor child without his direction, some clear and palpable omission of duty on the part of the parent must be shown.

Á student at Yale College, the son of B., in this State, procured articles of clothing at New Haven, soon after he became of age, and they were credited and charged to him. He had made no purchases of the plaintiff previous to that time, and his father had never permitted him to procure anything of any one on his credit. He supplied him with money while in college, with which to pay his bills, to the amount of $1700; and he never paid any bills at New Haven, except as he gave his son money to pay them; and it did not appear that the plaintiff ever knew or heard of the father.

Held, that the father could not be charged with the price of the goods.

BURNHAM V. STEVENS.

Jurisdiction of Justices of the Peace - Deposition.

A justice of the peace has jurisdiction to summon a person before him, to give a deposition in a case pending in the courts of another State.

If such person, after being duly summoned, neglect to appear and testify, the justice may sentence him to pay a fine and costs, and commit him for non-payment.

No action can be maintained against the justice for such imprisonment, though his proceedings may be irregular, if he does not overstep his jurisdiction.

BOSCAWEN'S PETITION.

Petition for discontinuance of a highway.

In case of repeated applications for the discontinuance of the same highway, the Court of Common Pleas may refuse to commit the same to the road commissioners, unless it appears that there has been some change of circumstances since the last adjudication, which renders the reference proper.

SMITH V. BOSTON, CONCORD & MONTREAL RAILROAD, Trs., AND THE BOSTON & MAINE RAILROAD, TRS.

Liability of these trustees in N H.

·General liability of trustees.

The Boston and Maine Railroad is a corporation in New Hampshire, amenable to the process and subject to the jurisdiction of her courts, and answerable there for funds collected for the principal defendants in another State, without any express stipulation as to the place of their payment.

The existence of a contingent liability on the part of a trustee for the principal defendant, furnishes no valid ground for the discharge of such trustee.

Nor will the court, after disclosure, order a suit continued to await the result of such contingent liability.

The liability of a trustee is determined by the state of facts, existing at the time of his disclosure and set forth therein.

MELVIN v. FELLOWS.

Notes secured by mortgage- Evidence of identity - Consideration.

The identity of a note secured by mortgage, may be established by evidence other than its correspondence, with the description given in the condition of the mortgage. Parol evidence may be introduced, and the question of identity submitted to the jury.

Where a note for $67.25 was described in a mortgage as for $16.30, that being in fact the balance of principal due upon it at the time the mortgage was executed; an endorsement of $20.95 several months after its date, having reduced it to that sum.

Held, that the mortgagee might prove its identity by other evidence, notwithstanding the variance in the description.

The depositing of money, to the same amount of a promissory note, by the payee thereof, in the hands of a third person, to be subject to the control and disposition of the maker, at his request, is a valuable consideration for the giving of such note, although an understanding exist between the parties that the maker of the note may not appropriate such money to his own use in a certain contingency to be determined by himself.

A mortgage to secure the payment of such note, is not made to secure future advances, within the legal meaning of that phrase.

An indictment under the statute of 1849, prohibiting the unlicensed sale of wine and spirituous liquors, need not contain an averment that the liquors sold were not imported from a foreign country, and sold by the importer thereof in the original casks or packages in which they were imported.

Admitting that statute to be prohibitory; that it is unconstitutional to prohibit the sale of foreign liquors by the importer thereof in the original casks or packages; and that the act is therefore to be understood as subject to a proviso, that its enactments shall not apply to the sale of foreign spirits by the importer thereof, in the original casks or packages in which it was imported; still it is not necessary to negative such implied proviso in the indictment.

It is only where a proviso or exception is so inserted in the enacting clause of a statute as to qualify the enactment, and thus make the negativing it an essential part of the description of the offence, that it is necessary to negative it in an indictment for a violation of the statute.

STATE v. BLAISDELL.

Competency of a convict as a witness after pardon — Averments in an indictment for breach of the license law.

A full pardon, granted after a convict has suffered the entire punishment imposed upon him upon his conviction, removes the common law disability of incompetency as a witness.

Such pardon is properly proved by the production of the charter of pardon itself, under the great seal of the State.

The statute of 1849, does not authorize selectmen to grant licenses for the sale of spirituous liquors separately from wine, and it is therefore sufficient for an indictment under it to negative the existence of a license to the respondent to sell wine and spirituous liquors, that being the only license which could lawfully be granted.

An indictment under this statute need not specify the particular kind or species of liquor sold. It is sufficient that the offence be set forth in the words of the statute, by charging the respondent with selling a certain quantity of spirituous liquor contrary to its provisions, without averring what particular kind of liquor was sold.

June Term, 1856. Hillsborough.

ROBIE AND WIFE v. FLANDERS.

The statute of limitations begins to run against a widow's claim of dower, from the time when her right accrued to commence a writ of dower after demand, and not from the time when she became entitled to dower upon the death of her husband.

If a widow sell her right of dower before assignment, the purchaser may maintain a writ of dower in her name.

WILSON v. Lane.

Attachment Officer's duty.

An officer may attach the goods of a debtor, notwithstanding they are so mixed with the goods of another as to be undistinguish

able.

It is his duty to make reasonable inquiry to ascertain the goods of the debtor. If he is still unable to distinguish them, he may retain the whole until the owner identifies the articles belonging to him, and points them out to the officer and requests him to return them; and he is not liable to any action until these things are done.

It might be otherwise if he refused to deliver them without inquiry, or if he refused to deliver them at any rate.

CROCKETT V. CRAIN.

Rights of separate creditors of partners.

The separate creditors of a partner have a prior claim upon the separate estate of their debtor, for the satisfaction of their debts. Where a partnership creditor attached the separate estate of one of the partners, being an equity of redemption of certain real estate, and before the entry of the action the partner was declared a bankrupt, and his assignee subsequently sold the proper y attached, and applied the avails to the payment of his separate debts, under the order of the District Court: