Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/245

 NORTHWESTERN MUT. LIFE INS. CO. V, ELLIOTT. 233 �At the time the Insurance was effected with the plaintiff on the life of Moses, he was a poor, illiterate youth of 18 or 20 years of age, without any one specially dependent upon or interested in his life, and without any particular means of making money enough to support himself and pay a yearly cash premium of $104, which he might reasonably expect to do for the next 40 years, and for the benefit of he knew not ■whom. At the same time he had a 10-year endowment policy in the Union Mutual, of Maine, upon which the yearly premium was $217, and which was countersigned and prob- ably delivered at Chicago, Illinois, on August 30, 1869, thus making the yearly premiums -which Moses undertook to pay $324. It is also morally certain that this Insurance upon the life of Moses, although obtained in his own name and apparently for his benefit, waa really procured and carried by the father, and intended for his use and benefit. It appears he was present when the application was made to Gibson, and evidentiy conducted the negotiation, and within a short time after the policy was received, without any consideration or excuse therefor, assignedit to himself, "for his sole use and benefif-^signing the name of the assured to the assignment as if the instrument was his own, and the boy's name had been merely used in the transaction as a convenience or make- believe. �The defendant Jeremiah alleges that on June 24, 1871, Moses Elliott, while assisting his uncle, W. H. Deardoff, with a raft on the Columbia river, a f ew miles below Westport, f ell into the river and was drowned; that noperson witnessedthe circum- stance except said Deardoff, and he reported the fact to {he defendant, who searched for his body but was unable to find it. The plaintiff alleges that this story la a falsehood, devised by the defendant to enable him to fraudulently collect the insurance on Moses' life. �It appears from the evidence that Jeremiah, after procuring the payment of the insurance on Moses' life, in the fall of 1873, went to Jackson çounty, Oregon, where he purchased the real property and sheep mentioned in the bill with a por- tion of said money, and before the close of the year removed ����