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 The Green Bag

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recognition of signature of mercantile documents;

and that if the debtor

refuse to recognize his signature, it shall be taken as recognized if the debtor, being twice cited to appear, fails to appear and recognize it. The ﬁrst step

in favor of the persons named in them, and that you please to set a day and hour for the act which is requested. The domicile of the said J. D. F. and R. D. W. is in the Hotel Arcadia in this city. Hermosillo, December 12, 1908. (Signed) Joseph Wheless.

therefore is to petition the court to cite the debtor to appear and recognize his signature. This proceeding is natur

ally preliminary to, and is apart from, a suit on the “recognized” document, which suit may be then brought, or at

any later time within the limitation of the cause of action. It may be interesting to quote the brief petition ﬁled for this purpose, ‘which I translate from a certiﬁed copy of the record which lies before me. I may take the occasion to say that

From the foregoing simple escrito (writing), as all pleadings are called, several points of practice appear which

we will notice.

The ﬁrst is the almost

entire want of formalities of pleading, caption, venue, term of court (of which there are none), etc., familiar to common law and code pleadings. It is noticed

that the place of residence of plaintiff and defendant is stated, this so that all future notices,-—of which there are many,-—may be there served, either on

this and all the other pleadings in the case were written, in Spanish, by myself, as I was "my own lawyer" from ﬁrst to

the party, or his duly constituted apoderado or attorney. The most sig

last, and had no local associate.

out of the precise article of the code

PETITION ASKING THE RECOGNITION or

upon which the right claimed is based. This is required in every pleading of either party, and of the judge in his

SIGNATURES

AS

MEANS

PREPARATORY

niﬁcant feature, however, is the setting

TO THE EXECUTIVE ACTION. To the Second judge of First Instame .'— Joseph Wheless, domiciled in the Hotel Arcadia in this city, in my own right, before you, in due form of law, respectfully say: That in order to prepare the executive mercantile action which lies for the recovery of the sum of. . . thousand dollars, Ameri

can gold, which the V. G. Copper Co. owes me, as appears by the 77 notes which I exhibit, which were executed by the said company in favor of the persons mentioned in them, and which, as can be seen, were endorsed to me, I come to petition you, in accordance with articles 325 of the Code of Civil Procedure and 1167 of the Code of Commerce, that you may please to cite Messrs. J. D. F., manager, and R. D. W.,

secretary and treasurer of said V. G. Copper Co., to the end that they may recognize, in the character indicated, the signatures attached to the notes which, with their

written decision on every point; for every decision on every matter arising in the course of the progress of a cause must be in writing, and supported by an exact reference to the articles of law conceived to justify the ruling of the judge, who, in many instances, makes his decisions on his own personal responsibility, civil in damages to the injured party, and penal. Another point, physically “appearing on the face of the record," is the prime matter of costs. Here the Mexican

practice is worthy of all praise and imitation. No bond or deposit for costs goes; the rule is “pay as you go"—— in the invariable form of a ﬁfty-cent revenue stamp pasted on every sheet of paper used in the record,——the

respective translations, are annexed, and also

that they may declare whether they acknow ledge the debts which the said notes express

winning party recovering his expendi tures in the judgment.

Several inci