Anheuser-Busch Brewing Ass'n v. Hutmacher

Citations

• 127 Ill. 652
• 4 L.R.A. 575

Syllabus

<p>1. Continuance—absence of witnesses — diligence required. On a second application for a continuance by a defendant corporation, on the ground of the absence of material witnesses, officers of the corporation, the affidavit showed that at a prior day of the same term the defendant had all of the witnesses in court ready to testify, they being non-residents of the State. When so present, no attempt was made to subpoena them or efforts made to take their depositions. The case had been continued once before by the defendant, on account of the absence of the same witnesses: Held, that the application was properly denied, for the want of diligence to subpoena the witnesses or take then-depositions.</p> <p>2. Evidence—telegrams—what regarded as originals. Where the person to whom a telegram is sent takes the risk of its transmission, or is the employer of the telegraph company, the message delivered to the operator is the original, and must be produced as the best evidence; but when the person sending the message takes the initiative, so that the telegraph company is to be regarded as his agent, the original is the message actually delivered at the end of the line, and it is primary evidence of the contents of the message sent.</p> <p>3. Same—cross-examination—whether matter is pertinent thereto. In an action by the plaintiff to recover of the defendant for work, labor and services of the former in superintending the erection of an ice house, and cutting, storing and purchasing ice for the defendant, the plaintiff, while on the stand in. his own behalf, was asked by the defendant as to the defendant’s solvency and his own insolvency during the period which intervened between the accruing of the indebtedness and the commencement of the suit. On the plaintiff’s direct examination no question was put to him involving those subjects: Held, that the defendant was not entitled to put the questions relating to its solvency or the insolvency of the plaintiff, as they were not p