This was a claim for Tls. 180 for the] construction of an iron porch, together with labour and materials for the fixing of same at No. 9 Nanyang Road.
Mr. R. E. 8. Gregson appeared for the defendant.
Plaintiff said that there was 1s contract in writing. He had done the work according to the contract (produced), but defendant had declined to pay him. work was finished on October 20.
Mr. Gregson said that there was an His Lordship, delivering judgement, This is an action brought. by the plaintiff to recover Tls. 1,200 as bargain money on account of a contract, which, he alleges, defendant failed to fulfil within the limited period of time. In order to prove his case as alleged he must prove the contract. That L think he has failed to do, He says that he alone contracted through vim, acting a8 interpreter and as compradore to defendant. and that he ordered from defendant a certain amount of tlowr—5,000 bays—to be delivered by the end of May. Now to begin with, what think is the best evidence of what took place is the message which was sent immediately afterwards, presumably at the request of the plaintiff, to the people from whom this floor was going to be bought, and the shipment was to be as prompt as possible, There is ab-solately nothing in this to show that any particular date was fixed for the item in this contract which he had d ry of these 6,000 bags of flour, not seen before he came into Court. He was now instructed to say that Mr, Judah was willing to pay Tls. 180. The reason defendant did not pay before was that he received no application at all from the plaintiff for payment and he had complaints to make about the work which had to be comnpleted by the Shanghai Building Company, but they put ap more solid pillars than those provided for in the cotitract. Defendant, however, would have paid had he seen the plaintiff.
His Lordship said that there would be jadgement for the plaintiff with costs.
Mr. Gregson asked that his client might go into the witness box to contradict the statement that plaintiff had made applications to him for payment and had been refused.
Defendant stated that the work was finished about the end of November and there were great defects. The pillars and I am unable to hold that delivery by the end of June on an order made on April 14 was not reasonable delivery within the terms of the contract. Uniler any cireutustances the business of defendant as importers and exporters and veneral agents is a class of business extremely well known in China, and plaintiff knew perfectly well that he w not buying these goods from the dete dant, but that Mr. Pearson was acting as agent for some one else, and Tal very much doubt whether in fact plaintiff was, as he alleged, the sole person to order these goods. If he was I can see no reason why he should not have come to some arrangement to take up these goods when they ived. What I do think happened he found the goods were not worth taking up, and that remedy did not seem to be one which ould suit his pocket, and, therefore, he did not adopt it, whether he was legally unal from
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.