You v. Joan

Belcher, C. C. This is an appeal from a judgment of nonsuit.

The action was brought to recover the sum of five hundred dollars, with interest thereon at the rate of four per cent per month from the fifteenth day of June, 1883, till paid. The complaint alleges that the principal sum was loaned by plaintiff to defendant on the fifteenth day of December, 1882, and that it was then and there agreed between the parties that the money should bear interest at the»rate of four per cent per month, payable monthly, and should be repaid three months after the date of the loan. The answer denies all the allegations of the complaint.

The material facts proved by plaintiff at the trial are as follows:—

[125]The plaintiff was a Chinaman, and kept a pawnbroker’s shop in the city of San Francisco. The defendant was a Chinawoman, and lived in that city. There was a Chinese society in the city, known as Hong Fook Tong. It does not appear how the society was formed, or who were its members, but its business was to receive and loan out money. The plaintiff acted as the agent of the society, or, as one of the witnesses said, “as trustee” ; and “the money of the society was under his control and in his custody.”

In reference to the loan, the plaintiff, after stating that defendant applied to him at his shop for a loan of five hundred dollars, and after stating the conversation that ensued about the security and the rate of interest, testified as follows : “ She asked for the money on December 14, 1882, and I paid it to her on December 15, 1882. I went in company with Chin Suey Tung, and carried the money to her. I wrote out the contract, and when we went up I read it to her. She also got Chin Suey Tung to read it to her. She said: ‘That is the contract.’ She signed the contract there by putting her finger in the ink and touching it to the paper. That is the contract in the book. That is the spot which she made with her finger near her name. There is in this book a contract as to other money which she borrowed from me, signed by her in the same way. After she signed the paper the money was paid to her in gold coin. .... The contract was written in my store, —it was signed at Ah Joan’s house. Ah Joan’s name was written at her house. She brought out an ink-box and a pen,—a Chinese pen. The money belonged to the Hong Fook Tong.”