after stating- the case as above, delivered the opinion of the court.
The order of the Circuit Court that the three actions be consolidated for trial, because they appeared to the court to be of like nature and relative to the same question, because it would avoid unnecessary cost and delay, and because it was reasonable to do so, was within the discretionary power of the court, under section'921 of the Revised Statutes, which provides, in substantial accordance with the act of July 22,1813, c. 14, § 3, (3,Stat. 21,) that “when causes of a like nature or relative to the same question are pending before a co^rt of. the United States, or of any Territory, the court may make such orders and rules concerning proceedings therein as may be conformable to the usages of courts for avoiding unnecessary costs or 'delay in the administration of justice, and may consolidate said causes when it appears reasonable to do so.’-J*
The consolidation rule, introduced in England by Lord Mansfield, to avoid ^the expense and delajr attending the trial of a multiplicity of actions upon the same question arising under different policies of insurance, enabled the several insurers to have proceedings stayed in all actions except one, upon undertaking to be bound by the verdict in that one, to admit all facts not meant to be seriously disputed, and not to file a bill in equity or bring a ivrit of error; and ivas considered as a favor to the defendants; and insurers under different policies could not obtain such a rule without the plaintiff’s .consent.
Where the English consolidátíon rule has not been adopted, the American courts, state and federal, have exercised the authority of ordering several actions by one plaintiff against different defendants to be tried together, whenever the defence is the same, and unnecessary delay and expense will be thereby avoided.
Den
v.
Kimble,
4 Halst. (9 N. J. Law) 335; Worley v.
Glentworth,
5 Halst. (10 N. J. Law) 241;
Witherlee
v.
Ocean Ins. Co.,
But although the defendants might lawfully be compelled, at the discretion of the court, to try the cases together, the causes of action remained distinct, and required separate verdicts and judgments; and no defendant could be deprived, without its consent, of any right material to its defence, whether by way of challenge of jurors, or of objection to evidence, to which it would have been entitled if the- cases had been tried separately. Section 819 of the Devised Statutes provides that in all civil.cases
“
each party shall be entitled to three peremptory challenges; and in all cases where there are several defendants or several plaintiffs, the parties on each side shall be deemed a single party for the purposes of all challenges under this section.” Under this provision, defendants sued together upon one cause of action would be entitled to only three peremptory challenges in all. But defendants in different actions cannot be deprived of their several challenges,
There is, however, one question'of evidence so important, so fully argued at the bar, and so likely to arise upon another trial,, that it is proper to express an opinion upon it.
This question is of the admissibility of the letters written by "Walters on the first days of March; 1879, which were offered in' evidence by the defendants, and excluded by the court. ' In order to determine the competency of these letters, it is important 'to' consider the state of the case when they were offered to be read.
The matter chiefly contested at the trial was the death of John W. Hillmon, the insured; and that depended upon the question whether the body found at Crooked Creek’ on the night of March 18, 1879, was his body, or the bodv of one Walters.
Much conflicting evidence had been introduced as to the identity of the body. The plaintiff had also- introduced evidence that Hillmon and one Brown left Wichita in Kansas on or about March 5,1879, and travelled together through Southern Kansas in search of a site for a cattle ranch, and that on the night of March 18, while they were in camp at Crocked Creek, Hillmon was accidentally killed, and that.his body was taken thence and buried. The defendants had introduced evidence, without objection, that Walters left his home and his betrothed in Iowa in March, 1878, and was afterwards in Kansas until March, 1879; that during that time he corresponded regularly with his family and his betrothed; that the last letters received from him were one received by his betrothed on March 3 and postmarked at Wichita March 2, and one received by his sister about March 4 or 5, and dated at Wichita a day or two before; and that he had not been heard from since.
■ The evidence that Walters was at Wichita on or before March 5, and had not been heard from since, together with the evidence to identify as his the body found at Crooked
The position, taken at the bar, that the letters were competent evidence, within the rule stated in
Nicholls v. Webb,
But upon another ground suggested they should have been admitted. A man’s state of mind or feeling can only be manifested to others by countenance, attitude or gesture, or by sounds or words, spoken or written. The nature of the fact to be proved is the same, and evidence of its proper tokens is equally competent to prove it, whether expressed by aspect or conduct, by voice or pen. When the intention to be proved is important only as qualifying an act, its connection with that act must be shown, in order to warrant the admission of declarations of the intention. But whenever the intention is of itself a distinct and material fact in a chain of circumstances, it may be proved by contemporaneous oral or written declarations of the party.
The existence of a particular intention in a certain person at a certain time being a material fact to be proved, evidence that he expressed that intention at that time is as direct evidence of the fact, as his own testimony that he then had that intention would be. After his death there can hardly be any other way of proving it; and while he is still alive, his own memory of his state of mind at a former.time is nó more likely to be clear and true than a bystander’s recollection of what he then said, and is less -trustworthy than letters written by him at the very time and under circumstances precluding a suspicion of misrepresentation.
The letters in question were competent, not as narratives of
The rule applicable to this case has been thus stated by this court: “ Wherever the bodily or mental feelings of an individual are material to be proved, the usual expressions of such feelings are' original and competent evidence. Those expressions are the natural reflexes of what it might be impossible to show by other testimony. If there be such other testimony, this may be necessary to set the facts thus developed in their true light, and to give them their proper effect. As independent explanatory or corroborative evidence, it is often indispensable to the due administration of justice. Such declarations are regarded as verbal acts, and are as competent as any other testimony, when relevant to -the issue. Their truth or falsity is’an inquiry for the jury.”
Insurance Co.
v. Mosley,
In accordance with this rule, a bankrupt’s declarations, oral or by letter, at or before the time of leaving or staying away from home, as to his reason for going abroad, have always been held by the English courts to be competent, in an action by his assignees against a creditor, as evidence that his departure was with intent to de,fraud his creditors, and therefore an act of bankruptcy. Bateman v. Bailey, 5 T. R. 512; Rawson v. Haigh, 9 J. B. Moore, 217; S. C. 2 Bing. 99; Smith v. Cra mer, 1 Scott, 541; S. C. 1 Bing. N. C. 585.
The highest courts of New Hampshire and Massachúsetts have held declarations of a servant, at the time of leaving his master’s service, to be competent evidence, in actions between third persons, of hisc,reasons for doing so.
Hadley
v.
Carter,
In actions for criminal conversation, letters by the. wife to her husband or to third persons are competent to show her affection towards her husband, and her reasons for living apart from him, if written before any misconduct on her part, and if there is no ground to suspect collusion.
Trelawney v.
Coleman, 2 Stark. 191, and 1 B. & Ald. 90;
Willis
v. Bernard, 5 Car.
&
P. 342, and 1 Moore & Scott, 584;
S. C.
8 Bing; 376; 1 Greenl. Ev. § 102. So letters from a husband to a third .person, showing his state of feeling, affection and sympathy for his wife, have been held by this court to be competent evidence, bearing on the validity of the marriage, when the legitiihacy of their children is in issue.
Gaines
v.
Relf,
Even in the probate of wills, which are required by laiw to be in writing, executed and attested in prescribed forms,'' yet where the validity of a will is questioned for want' of nhentail capacity or by reason of fraud and undue influence, or wbej’b the will is lost and it becomes necessary to prove its contents, written or oral.evidence of declarations of the testator before the date of the will has been admitted, in Massachusetts an!$ in England, to show his real intention as to the disposition qi his property, although there has been a difference of opinion' as to the admissibility, for such purposes, of his subsequent' declarations.
Shailer
v. Bumstead,
In
Shailer
v. Bumstead, upon the competency of'.evidence offered to show that á will propounded for probate “ Ivas not the act of one. possessed of testamentary capacity, or ^as
In Sugden v. St. Leonards, which arose upon the probate of the lost will of Lord Chancellor St. Leonards, the English Court of Appeal was unanimous in holding oral as well as written declarations made by the testator before the date of the will to be admissible in evidence. Lord Chief Justice Oockburn said : “ I entertain no doubt that prior instructions, or a draft authenticated by the testator, or verbal declarations of what he was about to do, though of course not conclusive evidence, are yet legally admissible as secondary evidence of the contents of a lost will.” 1 P. I). 226. Sir George Jessel, M. K., said : “ It is not strictly evidence of the contents of the instrument, it is simply evidence of the intention of the person who afterwards executes the instrument. It is simply evidence of probability — no doubt of - a high degree of probability in some cases, and of a low degree of probability in others. The cogency of the evidence depends very much on the nearness in point of time of the declaration of intention to the périod of the execution of the instrument.” 1 P. D. 242. Lord Justice Mellish said: “ The declarations which are made before the will are not, I apprehend, to be taken as evidence of the contents of the will whict is subsequently ma,de — they obviously do not prove it; and'wherever it is material to prove the state of a person’s mind, or what was passing in it, and what were his intentions, there you may prove what he said, because that is the only means by which you can find out what his intentions were.” 1 P. D. 251..
Upon principle and authority, therefore, we are of opinion that the two letters were competent evidence of the intention of Walters at the time of writing .them,- which was a material
As the verdicts and "judgments were several, the writ of error sued out by the defendants jointly was superfluous, and may be dismissed without costs ; and upon each of the writs of error sued out by the defendants severally the order will be
Judgment reversed, and ease remanded to the Circuit Court, with directions to set aside the verdict and to order a new tHal.