SUPREME COURT-CIVIL SITTINGS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 91, 16 April 1872, Page 2

SUPREME COURT-CIVIL SITTINGS.

o [Before his Honor Mr. Justice Richmond, and a Common Jury.] This Day. Bank of Otago, (Limited) v. Pike, This was ao action against defendant, as maker of a promissory note, for £668 in favor of George Saxton, who had endorsed it to Jones, M'Glashan, and Co., &f Dunedin, Station Agents, who had in their turn endorsed it to the Bank of Oiago. The defence was that no consideration Lad been given for the note. Mr. Acton Adams, who appeared for the plaintiffs, instructed by Mr. Stewart, of Dunedin, tbe Bank's solicitor, put in the evidence of M'Glashan and of the Bank Manager, which had been taken in Dunedin under commission, also certain letters from ihe defendant, tbe deeds transferring the Tarndale Ruu from Saxton to the defendant, and the " Bank of Otago Act, 1863." He contended that if consideration passed either from M'Glashan to Saxton, or from the Bank to M'Glashan without notice of fraud, the plaintiffs must recover, and that it was incumbent upon the defendant to prove a total want of consideration at all the different stages the note had passed through in order to make a defence, and that absence of consideration at one 6tage was not sufficient. His Honor remarked upon the evil arising from the making by sbeepfarmers of these long dated bills, a practice which bad first arisen in Australia, and could not be foo strongly discouraged here. Mr. H. Adams, for the defendant, made some preliminary objections to the evidence tendered under the commission, and said that if his Honor was against him in the question of law he thought lhe defendant had no good defence against the present plaintiffs. His Honor thereupon directed the jury to find a verdict for the plaintiffs on the issues tendered by them for £668 and interest at 10 per cent, per annum from June 4, 1871.