delivered the opinion of the court.
This is а chancery proceeding for the adjustment of partnership accounts and dealings between the parties, growing out of their relations as alleged joint owners of the TSteamboat Cora. The answer denies the alleged joint ownership, and that is thе first question for consideration.
1. In the spring and summer of 1864, as the case shows, the steamboat in question was built in Cincinnati, under the supervision оf the defendant. In the progress of the work, negotiations were had between the parties looking to a combination of сapital in prosecuting the enterprise. These negotiations resulted in an arrangement by which the plaintiff and his then partner advanced to the defendant the sum of $2000 for investment in the boat. The defendant received and receipted for the money fоr that purpose, as his receipt read in evidence clearly shows. There is no dispute about these facts, and it is apрarent from the case that the money was in fact invested in the boat enterprise. It appears also that the defendаnt recognized the plaintiff’s interest in the boat after its completion, and after it had been in service long enough to make vеry considerable profits. From all the evidence bearing upon this issue it satisfactorily appears that the plaintiff was interested in the boat, and a joint owner of it in conjunction with the defendant. Various technical
2. A number of questions arise upon the accоunting.- The boat was ultimately sunk and became a total loss. The petition avers, and the averment.is not denied, that she was insured at the time for $20,000, and that $16.,000 of the insurance money was collected by the.defendant. The defendant admits the collection but denies his аccountability, and upon the assumed ground that the insurance was taken out upon his interest (he claiming to be the sole owner) and “in his own name,” and not for account of whom.it might concern.- .If-the facts assumed appeared in the record, the legal, quеstions arising thereon would deserve careful consideration. . • Rut the record discloses no such facts-. Nothing 'of the kind is averred in the pleadings. The insurance papers were not given in evidence, and there was no.proof of their contents beyond thе fact of the amounts-insured. In the absence of evidence, no presumption arises that- the insurance was alone in the name-of one of- the owners, or that it was not in the names of both, or on account of whom it might concern. The circumstancе that the defendant was the sole manager of the boat and its affairs proves nothing on this point. .The. state of the pleadings аnd proofs.indicates that this line of defense was an afterthought. In my .opinion, the insurance money was properly- included in the account. . .
■ 8. In order to show the receipts and disbursements on account of the boat, the defendant offered in evidence a memorandum or condensed statement made up from the books of the St. Louis National Bank, showing aggregates of depоsits with that institution, and of the amounts checked out. The defendant testified that all the receipts of the boat, after she commenced running,
The “synopsis” was not the best evidence of the facts proposed to be proved by it, and it was properly excluded. The books themselves should have been produced, as furnishing the best evidence of their contents, аnd as showing the transactions entered in them fully and in detail. A mere synoptical exhibit of the "contents of the books is not a very satisfаctory mode of stating an important account which run through many months and involved eighty odd thousand dollars.
4. The account stated by thе court, however, needs correction in'two particulars. Otherwise it appears to be fair and just. (¡2) The court states the сost of the boat at $22,500, apparently upon the ground that the plaintiff admitted that to have been its cost. The admission is good as far as it goes, but it has no tendency to show that" the beat did not cost much more than the sum named. The defendant was the only witness who рretended to have any actual knowledge of the .cost of the boat. He was fully informed on that subject, and had every raеaus of knowledge. He swears positively that the cost of construction was $35,600 cash, and reiterates the statement, and is not contradicted. As he is the only witness having definite information in relation to the matter, and as he stands unim-peached, his testimony-must be takеn as establishing the fact asserted. The account, as stated by the court, must therefore be modified by substituting in place of the $22,500 the sum оf .$35,600 as expressing the true amount expended in the construction of the boat. (5) The court finds that only $2000 was paid by the defendant to thе plaintiff on account of the latter’s interest in the boat. The plaintiff’s witness, Brewster, testifies that $2500 was paid on that, account, аnd there is nothing to countervail that statement. • Brewster, as clerk of the boat, and upon the defendant’s order, paid the monеy .to the plaintiff, and was therefore in a position to know and state correctly the amount paid.