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and direct instructions." Josephine says of the interview on Madison avenue, before the visit to Shoudy's office: "Mr. Chandler called one morning with my aunt, Mrs. Van Aulen. After that Mr. Chandler took out a paper from his pocket-I think about two sheets-and said he wanted to read us a few lines of what he had jotted down on his way from Chicago-his plan of settlement or proposal. I told him I was too ill to listen to him; I could scarcely sit uphold my head up-but he insisted on my staying; so we listened to him reading it through, and it was very ambiguous; and when he finished, I said, 'Frank, I don't understand that.' It was very ambiguous. Then my sister said, 'Does it mean to divide up what is left?' He said, 'Yes; it means that.' That was all that was said on the subject of business at that interview."

Chandler remained in New York for a week, seeing the sisters almost daily, and, in order to obtain the consent of George, who was then in Europe, made use of the cable, and the following telegrams passed between the parties. As these telegrams constitute an important part of the correspondence they are reproduced in full:

"New York, April 15, 1887. "To Chandler, sixty-three Pierre Charron, Paris.

"Power received. Doubtful value. Have George sign cablegram himself, authorizing settlement equal division father's, brother's estate, including the trusts, and renouncing executorship, if necessary. Mary and I advise settlement before Edward's condition known. None seeking advantages, but peace, equality. No confidence in us; get somebody else.

Chandler, who produced this cablegram, explained the address as meaning his family's apartment in Paris, where Mr. Cowles and Mr. Pomeroy then were, and the contents of the telegram by saying that the settlement was based upon a principle and not upon a result. "I felt that if Edward's estate proved very small the sisters would not settle; if it proved very

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large, the brother would not settle." It is at least doubtful whether the sisters ever saw the telegram. To this telegram the following answer was received:

"Paris, 4, 17, 1887.

"To Frank Chandler, St. James Hotel, New York.

"No litigation. Will allow sisters just rights on arrival thirtieth. Please arrange all other important business. Address American Exchange, London.

"(Signed)

To this he replied as follows:

"To Pomeroy.

66

GEORGE POMEROY."

Dispatch unsatisfactory. You don't understand situation. Return Chicago Tuesday. Henceforth manage your own affairs. FRANK CHANDLER."

(Signed)

On April 19, Pomeroy telegraphed from London to his aunt Mrs. Van Aulen, as follows:

"London, April 19, 1887.

"To Van Aulen, 675 Fifth Avenue, New York.

"I accept proposition to share equally with sisters in father's and Edward's estates, including all trust funds. Legal expenses both sides and Edward's debts to be paid out of joint estate."

Upon the same day the three ladies cabled Mr. Cowles as follows:

"Edwin Cowles, American Exchange, London, Eng.

"Proposition accepted by us, but George must come home immediately. Frank cannot act without him; losing money. "(Signed) JULIA and JOSEPHINE and VAN AULEN.”

Upon the same day Mr. Cowles cabled as follows to Mrs. Van Aulen:

George cables acceptance proposition. I have a duplicate with his signature. He will act good faith. He is, ill, not fit

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to travel alone; cannot he wait till I sail May 7th, wants to finish medical treatment; answer immediately American Exchange, as he leaves morning Germanic.

Upon the same day Julia also telegraphed to Mr. Chandler, who had returned to Chicago, as follows:

"New York, 19.

"To Frank B. Chandler, 110 Dearborn Street, Chicago, Ill. "George accepted terms; he arrives next week; will write you in full."

She also wrote him a letter of same date, enclosing copies of the telegrams from Cowles and George P. Pomeroy and the replies to them. About the 30th of April Mr. Chandler returned from Chicago to New York, and went a day or two afterwards to Morristown, where he met George P. Pomeroy, who in the meantime had returned from Europe, and the sisters. They went directly to the office of Mr. Halsey, an attorney at that place, where the agreement was signed. At the same time the will of Edward Pomeroy was admitted and proved. George P. Pomeroy renounced the executorship, and Mr. Chandler qualified as administrator with the will annexed. In the interview at Mr. Halsey's office something seems to have been said to the effect that the trust funds could not be touched. But it seems to have been only an incidental remark, not assented to by Mr. Chandler, probably not heard by him, as he was deaf, and not made the subject of discussion. That evening there was a meeting of the parties at their house in Morristown, when the agreement was read, its contents explained by Mr. Chandler, and, as the sisters now claim, the agreement with regard to the back charges and trust fund was first called to their attention. The interview was evidently a stormy one, the sisters threatening to repudiate the agreement, and insisting that they were dividing up what was left; that if he ever attempted to force this he could only do it by law through the courts; and that they did not know it was in the agreement or anything about it. Mr. Chandler insisted

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that, as they had signed it, they were bound by it. He claims, however, that the only dispute was with regard to the interest and the method of making an accounting, and it is proven that the following memorandum was made and handed to him that evening or soon after:

"To F. R. Chandler.

"SIR: In figuring interest on the accounts in accordance with the agreement of April 13th, 1887, it is understood that interest shall be figured to May 1, 1887, and all sums that come between the 1st and 15th of any month shall be called to the first of that month, and between the 15th and 30th of any month, then to the 1st of the following month."

This was signed by George P. Pomeroy and the sisters. Conceding that the sisters had not read the agreement or demanded that it be read to them before they signed it, as they were bound to do, and that their counsel, Mr. Shoudy, had not informed them of its terms as fully as he might have done, it is difficult to see how, in view of the telegrams between the parties in New York and those in Europe, and their own letters, they could have understood that the trust funds were not included, if they understood the force of language. Not only did George's telegram, a copy of which Julia enclosed in her letter of April 19 to Mr. Chandler, expressly mention "all trust funds," but it was also mentioned in the original telegram from Chandler to Mr. Cowles of April 13, of which she probably knew the contents, and her reference to it in her two letters from Newport of April 6 and April 13, puts it beyond controversy that the propriety of including the trust funds was made a matter of discussion. Their conduct subsequent to the agreement tends strongly to show their acquiescence in it. On the 9th of May they executed a power of attorney to Chandler to settle and dismiss their suits in Missouri and to take charge of their property there. Upon the same day they executed a bond reciting their authorization to him to make a distribution of the estate of Edward Pomeroy, and to pay it to the legatees and devisees named in

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his will, and agreed to indemnify him against any debts which should be recovered against the estate. On the following day Mrs. Morrison writes to her aunt, Mrs. Buckingham, expressing her pleasure at the settlement of their troubles, "since we have signed an agreement to wipe out all wills and divide what is left, share and share alike. Frank will charge us with all our personal expenses since father's death, which is perfectly proper, but he only proposes to charge George with what he received from the trust fund left him by father, and not one cent of all the surplus he got out of mother and of you for mother's effects."

During the summer an active correspondence was carried on between Mr. Chandler and the two sisters with relation to the settlement of the estates upon the basis of their agreement, in which repeated allusion was made to the trust fund and to an equal division of the income of the same, and no suggestion on the part of either party that they were not understood to be included. Julia repeatedly expressed her pleasure that the settlement had been effected, and at the manner in which Mr. Chandler was proceeding to wind up the estates. Not only this, but the parties proceeded so far in the execution of the settlement that the two ladies turned over to the plaintiff securities to the amount of $109,153.33, to which were added the estate of Edward Pomeroy, ($190,000,) that of George Pomeroy, ($119,000,) and the insurance upon the life of Edward in the amount of $8000, and a dividend declared in securities of $73,896.67 to each of the defendants, in addition to a cash dividend of $54,000 to each. The defendants also received from Mr. Chandler two-thirds of the income collected July 1, 1887, from the life insurance and trust company on the $30,000 trust fund of George P. Pomeroy, i.e. that proportion dating from May 1, according to the agreement of settlement. They also paid over to him one-third of the income for the same period of their own trust fund of $100,000. Indeed, their relations seem to have been of the most friendly description until the death of George in November. When the contents of his will were made known this controversy arose.