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50 of which he read to me, and which were very interesting. These are as near the facts in the case as I can remember at this time.

John S. McFarland.

Subscribed and sworn to before me, on this the 12th day of January, 1887.

Witness my hand and official seal.

Charles A. Houk,

Clerk of Circuit Court of Cooper County. Mo.

By H. A. Hutchinson.

State of Missouri, County of Cooper, ss.

Be it known that on this 12th day of January, A.D. 1887, personally came before me, the undersigned, clerk of the Circuit Court of Cooper County, in the State of Missouri, R. W. Whitlow and W. G. Pendleton, composing the firm of Whitlow & Pendleton, real estate and loan agents, of the city of Boonville, in said county, who, being by me first duly sworn, on their oaths say: We have known the Rev. W. D. Mahan, of Boonville, Mo., for a period of more than ten years. He came to our office in the fall of 1883 and told us he was going to Rome with a view to collect materials for a book which he intended to write, and that he had not sufficient money to defray the expenses of the trip; at his request we loaned him two hundred dollars. Shortly afterward Mr. Mahan disappeared from Boonville, and it was a considerable while before we again met him here at Boonville, when he informed us he had made the trip to Rome, Italy,