Bayard’s Notebook, 88.[*]
Supreme Court of Delaware, Sussex County.
March, 1795.
The defendants offered in evidence a paper containing sundry charges, as a book of accounts under the Act of Assembly [1 Del. Laws 328] which was objected to by the counsel for the plaintiff. The charges were all under the same date about thirty in number and from the ink apparently made at the same time.
Field, one of the defendants, being sworn, said it was all the account he had or had ever made of the charges which were contained; he admitted they were made many months after the transaction and all at the same time.
After the argument, READ, C. J., said that if the question at present made were of the first impression, he should be disposed to think the paper not admissible as a book under the Act of Assembly. But that it was an ancient practice to admit such papers as books. He knew an instance in Pennsylvania under a similar act, of a closet door marked with chalks, being brought into court and admitted as a book of accounts. That the practice being established, the Court did not consider themselves at liberty to depart from it. That the objections to the competency must be made use of against the credit of the book.
Book admitted.
Miller, Wilson and Hall for plaintiff. Ridgely an Bayard for defendants.
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