Page:Dakota Territory Reports.djvu/26



1. VENUE:. The county to which an action should be sent, on a motion for a change of venue under the Statute of 1862, is in the discretion of the court; vide 58, § 51.

2. WRIT OF ERROR:. It is not necessary to lay a foundation to bring a case into this court, that a motion for a new trial should be made in the court below.

3. CONTRACT:. To make a contract valid the minds of the parties thereto should meet.

4. OFFICER:. An official who has patronage to bestow, should not be influenced in its bestowment by any pecuniary consideration.

5. EVIDENCE:. Books of parties may be corroborative as evidence, or not, but the effect is left to the jury from inspection in connection with other evidence in the case A party is not bound to introduce his book; the opposite party may introduce it, at any rate if there be no objections.

6. ADMISSIONS:. An admission of a party is evidence against him according to its terms and the circumstances under which it is made; but it is not the best evidence. The best evidence is what actually transpired between the parties.

appears that two actions were commenced by the defendant in error in the District Court, in the Second Judicial District, against the plaintiff in error, and by stipulation they were consolidated. A jury trial was had therein, October term, 1866,, C. J., presiding. The defendant in error recovered a verdict. The verdict was set aside and a new trial granted. The plaintiff in error moved to change the place of trial, and desired to have it sent to Bon Homme county. The court ordered it sent to the county of Clay, to which decision of the court, he excepted.

The petition of the plaintiff below set out a long account against the defendant, which had been running several years, amounting to several hundred dollars.

The answer of the defendant claimed that there was a settlement between the parties in September, 1865, of all matters in controversy, and there was then found due from him to the