lii   DEPARTMENT OF FI N A_l'CE—IX UIL1 NCE BRANCH.

when judgment was given in favour of the companies. In the action against the Covenant Mutual the plaintiff has given notice of an appeal to the Divisional Court. The suit against the Mutual Reserve Fund has been abandoned.

(b.) The Alger ease.

In this case, George E. Alger, of the Township of Pickering, aided by one Dr. Francey, in December, 1894, by false and fraudulent representations, procured the issue of a policy for $7,000 by the Equitable Life Assurance Society on the life of his (Alger's) wife who was then in the last stages of consumption. She shortly afterwards died, and the Company becoming aware of the facts of the case, entered a suit for the revocation of the policy, and upon the trial judgment was on the 4th November, 189, given in favour of the company and the policy cancelled) Counsel for Alger consenting thereto.

In March, 1896, Alger was placed on trial at Whitby, Ontario, charged with having conspired with Francey to defraud the company out of $7,000 by false and fraudulent representations as to the health of Mary E. Alger, the wife of the accused. The trial occupied three days and resulted in a verdict of " guilty." The presiding Judge, Mr. Justice Falconbridge, in sentencing the prisoner, addressed him as follows :

" George Elisha Alger, after a fair trial, in which you have had a most brilliant defence, a jury of your countrymen have found you guilty of the charge laid against you. I cannot quarrel with the verdict, and I can hardly see how they could have come to any other conclusion. As I have pointed out, the form of conspiracy of which you have been found guilty is far reaching in its effects. I cannot lose sight of the fact that in doing as you did, you were trafficking in the life of your wife, and I see no reason why the maximum sentence should not be passed upon you. I sentence you to seven years in the Provincial Penitentiary. "

(c.) The Ilyam s case.

In this case two brothers, Dallas T. Hyams and Harry P. Hymns, were charged with the murder of William Wells, on the 16th of January, 1893. The theory of the Crown was that the two brothers caused the life of the deceased to be insured for $36,000, having first leased a warehouse in Toronto, for which they had no actual need, for the purpose of murdering him. The policies were in favour of Martha Wells, a sister of the deceased, to whom Harry P. Hyams was engaged to be married. Wells was found dead in the warehouse, the statement of the accused being that he had been crushed by the accidental falling of an elevator weight. At the time of Wells' death there was little if any suspicion of foul play, and a coroner's jury found that the death was accidental. Subsequently the insurance money was paid over to the beneficiary who shortly thereafter became the wife of Harry P. Hyams. Almost the whole of the insurance money was afterwards handed over by the beneficiary to the accused and applied to their own use. Thus matters stood for about two years after Wells' death, when an attempt on the part of the accused to place about $300,000 insurance upon the life of Mrs. Hyams led to a further investigation into the death of her brother. Mrs. Hyams became alarmed when she learned that so large an amount of insurance on her life had been applied for and, the companies applied to having been placed on their