Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/22

 10 FBDBBAL REVOETEB. �tJie lord justice says : "There is no doubt whatever that if you laave an old firm, and either a new partner ia taken into it or a new firm constituted, and the assets are taken over by the new firm, and the ciistomer, knowing ail ihese things, after- wards goes on and deals with the new firm, you infer aesent on his part from slight circumstances." In In re Family In- dorsement Soc. L. E. 5 Ch. App. 118, speaking of a case very like the present, it was said : " Very slight evidence, indeed, woidd be required to establish that the crediter had taken the liability of the new firm instead of the old." �What, then, are the circumstances in this case tending to show assent by the plaintiff to the novation of the debt sued on ? In the first place, it will be observed that from the time of the publication of this debt as a debt of the new firm of Jay Cooke & Go., the creditor — and the representative of David Eegester was then the creditor authorized to coliect and to discharge the debt — knew that the old firm of Jay Cooke & Co. had dissolved; that Edward Dodge and John W. Sex- ton had retired from the business ; that a new firm had been formed, containing members who were not members of the old firm; and that such new firm had agreed to assume ail the liabilities of the old fijrm. The creditor Is also chargea- ble with knowledge that the purpose of this agreement made by the new firm was to relieve the outgoing parties from their liability for the debts of the old firm. The nature of the agreement itself disclosed that to be its object. �This knowledge on the part of the creditor is not without significance in ascertaining his intention. If it had been the intention of the creditor to maintain intact the then existing liability of the retired partner, such ' an intention would naturally have evoked from the creditor, when he came to deal with the new firm in respect to this debt, some positive expression of a purpose to avoid a substitution of the liability of the new firm in place of the liability of the old. The proofs here fail to show that any expression of such a purpose in any form escaped from this creditor. �The next circumstance deserving attention is the time which elapsed before any attempt was nade to enforee the ��� �