The unlucky steamer, after undergoing extensive repairs in the Shanghai dock,^ffally was able to resume navigation in January 1997, but a few months later struck a rock in the neighbourhood of Ichang and was sunk. Subsequently salvage was undertaken and eventually the ship was refloated and towed to Ichang.
During this period of four years the ship, although entered in the Italian registry, changed hands several times due to' the losses suffered by its several owners, who in turn purchasea and were then unable to pay the price. Besides the transfer of property, it transpired during the proceedings that not less than four mortgages had to be taken on the ship at some time or other and that all these mortgages were still outstanding.
At the beginning of 1939 the plaintiffs, Messrs. Fah Doong, obtained an order from the Italian Consular Court restraining the registered owner, Mr. G. F. Righini, from effecting further transfer of the ship, and two months later the proceedings were started to recover from him the amount of $39,000 which the plaintiffs claimed from Mr. Righini, stating that he owed this sum under the acknowledgment of dêbt signed in the year 1986. The defendant, who was represented at the hearing by Dr. A. Albini, contended that the document on which the claim was alleged to be based was fictitious and obtained under duress. He further argued that, even assuming the genuineness of the document in question, still the same contained a clearly definite obligation which would entitle the plaintiffs to recovery.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.