DISPUTED SALE NOTE

Evening Star, Issue 15293, 19 September 1913, Page 8

DISPUTED SALE NOTE

An unusual case came before /Mr -I. R. Bartholomew, S.M., at Balclutha on Wednesday, involving the question of a difference of 5s 6d a head on a small flock of sheep. The plaintiff was Jane Jervy Roulston. of HiHend, widow (through her son, Mr J. Roulston, who had negotiated the sale of sheep), and the defendants the South Otago Freezing Company, Ltd. The claim was for £22 5s 6d, balance on the price of 81 fat ewes (“boilers") at 10s 6d each, the company having paid £2O ss, at the rate of 5s a head, which, they contended, was the price agreed on. Ah’l). Reid, of Milton, appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr D. Stewart for the company. Quite u number of well-known sheep men were in court who had been subpoenaed as witnesses as to the value of the sheep by the prosecution, but as it turned out they were not called upon. Air Stewart explained that these boilers had been bought at 5s by Air J. Scott, a buyer for the company, and they had the carbon copy of the sale note, but it did not agree with the copy the plaintiff produced. There was no pecuniary advantage to the company or to Air Scott to alter the price, as the company in this case were merely buying for Irvine, and Stevenson, and got the same commission whether the price were 10s 6cl or 5s a head. Counsel called the Court’s attention to the soiled state of the copy of the sale note produced by the plaintiffs counsel, and the fact that the stamp partly covered the price.

After the copy of the sale note produced by plaintiff and the carbon copy in the numbered book of the company’s agent had been carefully scrutinised by Bench and Bar, Mr Reid said that on the face of the evidence produced (the carbon copy of the original sale note, of whose existence he had not known) he could not go further with the case, and accepted a nonsuit. The particulars of the sale in the copy of the sale note produced by the plaintiff had been written in hard pencil, not indelible ink pencil, and the note was soiled and partly defaced, but the price of 10s 6d a head was there; while the carbon, as is the case with pencil of the kind, had given a much clearer copy than the original, and the price appeared as ss, clear and distinct—‘i as plain as a pikestaff,” as Mr Reid (plaintiff’s counsel) admitted. The price was low, but the sheep were old ewes intended for boiling down and pieserving in tins.—‘Free Press.’