Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/125

 KEYSTONE BBIDGB CO. V. BBITTON. 117 �sufScient to pay it, and there is a large balance still due upon it. This suit is brought to eompel payment. �The defendant claims that, in view of the circumstanoes, the true meaning of the statemeut signed by the defendant is that some funds for the payment of the note had been placed in his hands, and that the extent of his obligation thereby assumed was that he should apply to its payment what funds he so had, and that, if the statement means more than that, the undertaking beyond that is without consideration. The orator insists that the statement signifies that funds sufficient for the payment of the note are in his hands, and implies an undertaking that he will apply them to its paj'ment; ail amounting to an obligation to have funds and pay the note at maturity, which could be discharged only by payment of the note, and that evidence of a lack of funds placed in his hands is contrary to his agreement and not admissible. �The entire want of consideration for an agreement may alv^ays, between the original parties to it, be shown, for it would not add to or vary a contract, but show that there was none. As this note was given upon a pre-existing debt of the Illinois & St. Louis Bridge Company, if by the law where made it would not diseharge or afïect the debt, proof of that fact might show a want of consideration as to the defendant, unless there was a new consideration. The proof, howover, shows the delivering up of the bridge on which the debt was due, and this was an ample consideration, in which the defendant participated. �There are many cases in which porsons wha are not parties to notes as written, but become so by putting their names upon them in blank, indieating authority to the holder to fill the blunk, have been permitted to show the intention of the parties; and where persons who bave become parties by sign- ing an undertaking written out in fuU are permitted to show the circumstances under which it was donc to place the trans- action in its true light. Goody. Martin, 95 U. S. 90. This case is not one of the former elass, for it is apparent that the defendant wrote what he intended to sign, and left no blanl to be fiUed. Under the rule as to the latter class the evidenrî ��� �