This is a claim Plaintiff firm were insured against fire with defendant company, and I understand that my decision here will govern the positions of other insurance companies. with whom plaintiff firm were in-red, There was a fire on their premises, They made a claim for the damage against the insurance companies. That claim went to arbiteation and the arbitrator gave his award. The company then refused] to pay on the ground that there was fraud in the claim. The claim, as put in was for the amani 50,000 by a detailed statement of the items, with figures and so forth, in extraordinary detail. It is admitted now that nob one of these details could be traced from the, books. They were asked here a1 Jat the arbitration to explain what Jamount of goods was actually on the premises at the time of the fire. That question they have, throughout, been entirely unable to answer. It seems to me very extra ordinary, knowing the care with which Chinese business firms,—this isa piece-goods firm,—do their: work and keep their books. In view of this, I say, it seems to me extraordinary that they were totally unable to give any estimate at all of the amount of goods on the premises at the time of the fire. They were pressed here, and before the Arbitrator, to give an estimate within Tls. 15,000 and they were totally unable to do 0; from the fire down to now they have never been able to say approximately how much stuff there was on the premises at the time of the fire.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.