Holman v. Continental Life Ins. Co. notes or interest. This case it will be seen may therefore be widely distinguished from the one at bar, in that the policy in terms secures a proportionate part against forfeiture, while here, as we have seen, it is expressly forfeited for nonpayment of interest, with no relief provided. The same distinction may also be made in regard to the cases of Hull, Admr., v. North Western Life Ins. Co., 39 Wis., 406; North Western Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Little, 56 Ind., 504; Ohde v. North Western Life Ins. Co., 40 Iowa, 357; Symonds v. Same, 23 Minn., 491; North Western Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Ross, Admr., 63 Geo., 199; and The same v. Bonner, 36 Ohio St., 51. In all these cases the policies were the same as in the case cited from 4 Mo. App., (supra.) Of all the cases therefore cited in behalf of the plaintiff only two remain which are weighty in the opposing scale. The first and the stronger case is that of Cowles v. The Continental Life Ins. Co., (the present defendant,) decided July 31st, 1855, by the Supreme Court of New Hampshire, reported in New England Reporter, Vol. 1, No. 10, p. 247, where the action was assumpsit on a paid-up policy identi cal in its provisions with the one now in suit and where the defense was the same. It is therefore irreconcilably in conIflict with the positions we have taken. In the brief but forcible opinion delivered by DOE, Ch. J., there is no reference to the authorities. The basis upon which the reasoning rests will fully appear from the following quotation :-" A significant clause of the contract is a conspicuous marginal advertisement describing the writing as a Non-Forfeitable Endowment Policy.' The forfeiture clause qualified by the provision for a 'paid-up' policy does not mean that the reduced paid-up,' 'non-forfeiture' insurance is annually forfeitable for non-payment. The strict construction for which the defendant contends would leave the insured exposed to a danger from which the reduction and conversion of the policy would be generally understood to relieve him; and it is not to be presumed that the document was ingeniously drawn up for the purpose of fraudulently obtaining money by non-forfeiture pretences. All Holman v. Continental Life Ins. Co. parts of the contract taken together can be, and should be, reasonably and liberally understood as designed to accomplish the scheme of non-forfeiture for non-payment which men in general would believe the policy invited them to accept.' The other case is Bruce v. The same, decided February 26th, 1886, by the Supreme Court of Vermont, and reported in The Eastern Reporter, Vol. 4, No. 6, p. 452. This was a bill in chancery to compel the delivery of a paid-up policy and payment of the amount due. The court gave the same construction to the original policy as was given in the New Hampshire case, but certain circulars issued by the company, and the fact, found in the case, that the company regarded the premium notes as given for a loan of money, seem to have been influential with the court. This case however recognizes a distinction, already adverted to, and which we think applicable to the case now under consideration. POWERS, J., in giving the opinion said:"The case at bar is unlike Patch v. Ins. Co., 44 Verm., 481. There the question arose upon the construction of a paid-up policy, issued in place of a former one surrendered, which contained an express stipulation that certain sums of interest should be paid in advance. The action was assumpsit on the paid-up policy, and no question was made whether the paid-up policy was in such form as the insured was entitled to. Such as it was he accepted it, and the action was upon it in the form it was issued and accepted." It is manifest that our argument in some particulars has gone beyond the strict requirements of the present case, and has tended in some measure to show that the form of paid-up policy issued to the plaintiff and accepted by him was in accordance with the original policy; but in view of the adverse construction of the same kind of policy by the courts of New Hampshire and Vermont, and the want of unanimity among the members of this court upon this subject, we think it best to leave that part of the discussion an open question for future consideration should the matter again arise, and to restrict the present decision to the pre Town of Bridgewater v. Town of Roxbury. cise question stated at the opening of our discussion, whether the paid-up policy involved in this suit contains a provision whereby the failure to pay interest has accomplished the forfeiture of the policy. We advise that the answer of the defendant to the complaint is sufficient. In this opinion PARK, C. J., and PARDEE, J., concurred. CARPENTER and GRANGER, Js., dissented. THE TOWN OF BRIDGEWATER vs. THE TOWN OF Hartford District, March T., 1886. PARK, C. J., CARPENTER, PAR- Where the person who made entries which are admissible in evidence is beyond the reach of process or is incompetent to testify, it is the same as if he were dead, and his handwriting may be proved. To make entries upon an account book admissible it is not necessary that Nor that they should be against the interest of the person making them. entry is admissible at whatever time it was made; but in the case of an In a suit for supplies furnished by the plaintiff town to a pauper of the They were also admissible to corroborate the testimony of the selectman. 54 213 64 309 54 213 65 107 Town of Bridgewater v. Town of Roxbury. The entries made by the physician were not to be excluded on account of his interest as an inhabitant of the defendant town. No controversy with regard to the pauper had then arisen, and it was not reasonable to suppose that the entries were made in anticipation of any benefit to the town. A possibility of a corrupt motive always exists in respect to human acts, but some probability of it ought to appear in order to exclude entries fairly and regularly made. Where a town employs a physician to attend upon a person who is in fact a pauper and is in need of medical attendance, it is not necessary that the pauper should know that the physician is to be paid by the town. And so with any supplies furnished. [Argued March 3d-decided April 10th, 1886.] ACTION to recover for supplies furnished to paupers claimed to belong to the defendant town; brought to the Court of Common Pleas of Litchfield County, and tried to the court before Warner, J. Facts found and judgment rendered for the defendant. Appeal by the plaintiff. The case is fully stated in the opinion. L. D: Brewster and J. H. McMahon, for the appellant. J. Huntington and A. D. Warner, for the appellee. LOOMIS, J. This is a complaint to recover for supplies furnished Esther A. Snyder and her three minor children. The alleged pauper was born in the defendant town in 1853, of parents, Chauncey and Patty Wilmot, who at the time of her birth had their settlement in New Milford. Chauncey Wilmot died in 1858 in the town of Roxbury without having gained a settlement there. Soon after Patty, the mother, with her minor children, moved from the defendant to the plaintiff town and remained there until May, 1860, and then with her children returned to the defendant town, where she lived in a shanty built by her son Daniel for her and her children to occupy, and there remained for about twenty years. Esther A., the pauper in question, was married November 27th, 1871, to LaFayette Snyder, a person of full age, but who had at the time no settlement in any town in this state. Town of Bridgewater v. Town of Roxbury. Upon these facts it was conceded that the pauper in question would take the settlement of her mother, if the latter had gained one by commorancy in the defendant town after the decease of her husband. And it was also conceded that such settlement had been gained by the mother unless prevented by two payments made by the town for medical attendance upon Patty in the years 1865 and 1866. Upon this subject the court finds :-"In 1865, Patty being sick and needing medical aid, Doctor Downs, a physician of Roxbury, informed a selectman of Roxbury that she was sick and that he, the doctor, could no longer attend to her unless the town would pay him. The selectman thereupon directed the doctor to render her medical assistance and charge the same to the town, she being unable to pay the doctor and having no property. Afterwards the doctor, on the 26th day of April, 1865, rendered to her medicine and attendance and charged therefor $1.50 to the town of Roxbury, which was paid to him by the town September 29th, 1865. On the 16th of July, 1866, the doctor rendered a like attendance upon Patty while sick and charged therefor $1.50, which the town paid him in 1867, she having no property." The question whether medical aid was needed and furnished, being a question of fact exclusively for the trial court, has thus been settled. Whether the evidence was of sufficient weight to justify such finding is not a question which this court can review in this proceeding, but the admissibility of the evidence, if objected to, is properly before this court. To prove the facts found by the court the defendant offered as a witness one who was a selectman of the defendant town for the years 1865 and 1866, who testified in substance that he was selectman during those years and that he gave instructions to Dr. Downs to doctor Patty during that time; that the doctor came to him in 1865 or 1866, he thought it was in 1865, and stated that Patty was sick, and that he could no longer attend upon her without pay for further services, and that thereupon he directed the doctor to attend |