[bowman] fundamental PROCESSES IN HISTORICAL SCIENCE 531 



even outside of the bank's funds. Though the $1,800 was paid in 

 cash and without witnesses, he had not felt the need of asking a speci- 

 fic receipt, partly because Jones had also entrusted to him the signed 

 note of $2,500 without cash or receipt, and also because at the same 

 interview he paid an account of $150 for goods from the merchant's 

 store, and he wrote on the bill before it was receipted by Jones, 'As 

 a settlement in full of all claims.' 



Jones admitted that he met Smith alone at the time and place 

 stated, and that he then receipted the bill in the form described and 

 as produced in court; but he denied that he had then or at any other 

 time received $1,800 in cash or otherwise on account of the note. The 

 form in which the bill was receipted was understood by him to refer 

 only to claims in connection with the store. 



Brown confirmed the banker's statement that he required Mrs. 

 Smith's endorsement before he would advance money on the note, 

 and also concerning the payment in currency. He had wished to 

 give Smith a cheque for the $2,500, but Smith, without explaining why, 

 had asked and received the amount from him in bank-notes. 



At the trial it was shown that in the days immediately following 



the date of the receipted store bill, Jones gave $1,775 to a former 



business partner, as a final settlement of their business connection." 



(No. 1): "Such a payment made just at this juncture and corresponding 

 so closely with the amount which Smith claimed to have given to Jones at their 

 interview alone, seems to give considerable probability to the banker's account 

 of that meeting." 



(Part 2): "The merchant's business, however, was of such ex- 

 tent that he could make a payment of this amount at almost any time 

 by diverting to this one purpose his cash receipts for several days, 

 including especially a Saturday. Among certain papers produced by 

 him in support of his case, there was one dated near the beginning of a 

 year. In this date the year was written over another year, which was 

 erased and not noticeable in ordinary reading. The erased year, 

 when examined under a glass, was found to be the year subsequent 

 to the superimposed year, and not the year previous, as is ordinarily 

 the case in such errors made naturally at the beginning of a new year." 



(No. 2) : "This would indicate that the merchant either tampered with the 

 paper, or fabricated it entirely to suit his case; and a case resting on such garbled 

 evidence probably had a poor foundation in fact." 



(Part 3) : "The merchant's case did not rest at all on this paper, 

 or even on the group of papers, of which it was but one. These papers 

 together related only to an incidental and unimportant feature. Con- 

 cerning the crucial interview where Smith and Jones were together 

 alone and in which Smith maintained that he made a payment of 

 $1,800, no specific evidence of importance was brought by either side 



