Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/685

 SCHULTZ V. MUT. LIFE INS. CO. OP N. Y. 673 �testimony of a policeman thus taken : "His ordinary drink •was schnapps or brandy. I never saw him drink anything else. In the last year of his life I saw him on different oc- casions drink on the street ont of a bottle. I have often seen him drunk on the street. He staggered about and sometinles fell to the ground. In the moming it was his cus- tom to go to Sommer's tavern, and afterwards he was accus- tomed to visit other taverns. He spent almost the whole day in visiting one tavern after another. * * During the last months of his life he was accustomed to carry a schnapps bottle about with him, from which he drank on his way from one tavern to another. • ♦ i have more often seen him drunk than sober." One tavern keeper thustestified that ho came to his tavern about three or four times a week, remain- ing from two to two and a half hours, and drinking three or four glasses of schnapps, and he had seen him drunk three or four times. Another tavern keeper testified to his drinking schnapps at times in his place. The proofs of death showed that insured had been afflicted for two years with chronic enlargement of the liver, and that death was caused by an apoplectic stroke of the brain, caused by congestion of the blood in the head and abdomen. Medical testimony was introduced to show that these disorders were the results of excessive drinking. �On the part of the plaintiff the evidence of two former acquaintances was submitted to the effect that the habits of insured in America, within their observation, were not differ- ent from those ordinarily prevailing among Germans, and his drinking was not excessive nor specially noticeable in its re- sults. The evidence with regard to his habits in Germany was not contradicted. The court charged, among other things, that it was not necessary for defendant to show that the insured had acquired a habit which did obviously shorten his life or impair his health, but it must show that he "had acquired and did practice the habit of drinking alcoholic liquors to that degree of excess which is well known to be per- nicious to health, and which tends to shorten life;" also, "I do not know that I can say,as I am reqaested to do, as matter �v.6,no.7— 43 ��� �