Samuel Freeman Miller

“ Norvell, who was in Europe, nogotiated the sale of this cotton to the plaintiffs, and Mr. Camfield, his partner in St. Louis, forwarded it to Glasgow by way of New York. In doing this, he forwarded it by railroad from St. Louis to the Atlantic coast, and took from the transportation company at St. Louis a bill of lading, describing the bales by their numbers and weights, which amounted to the aggregate number of pounds already stated. In order to obtain these bales for shipment from the warehouse company, Camfield had to produce the notes which were in the possession of the bank. ”

“ There are persons appointed for this special purpose of reweighing cotton for transhipment. It is upon the strength of this reweighing that the transportation company makes out its bill of lading. What was done in the present case was that Camfield induced the clerk, or other officer who made out this bill of lading, to accept his own statement of the weight of the bales, and to give his bill of lading accordingly, without ever having the cotton reweighed, or having any certificate of the reweigher thereto. ”

“ The bill of lading was for a certain number of bales of cotton, which were falsely represented to contain 276,850 pounds, whereas the aggregate weight of these bales, when reweighed at the place of delivery, was only 192,385 pounds. That this bill of lading was false, that it was gotten up by fraud, and that this fraud deceived the plaintiffs, there is no question; nor is there any doubt that the fraud was perpetrated by Norvell, Camfield & Co. ”