son dealing with the parties took the appearance for the fact. He must have been misled. But in a very similar case it was ruled, and we think correctly so ruled, that where the holding out is as conspicuous and long-continued as it was in this case, the law presumes that the business world deals with the parties as partners in fact, or as joint traders. It appears that all these boats had been operated for two seasons—1879 and 1880—before making this contract under this name and in this manner; the contract having been made near the close of the season of 1880; that two of them were so operated during the year 1878, and that one of them had been run in this name since 1875. No contract on behalf of these boats was made, so far as the record discloses, in the name of any of the boats or of the persons operating her. On the contrary, it appears that several of such contracts with the plaintiff were made under that name. The decision in Sun Mut. In. Co. v. Kountz Line, 122 U. S. 583, 7 Sup Ct. Rep. 1278, is in point. Four transportation companies having permitted their boats to be placed before the public as being engaged in the same business and as constituting the Kountz line, each company was held liable for the negligence of those placed in charge of one of the boats. The court said: “As there is no evidence of any direct representation by these transportation companies, or any of them, to the shippers of the cargo in question as to their relation in business with each other, or as to their relations, respectively, with the Kountz line corporation, the inquiry in this case must be whether they so conducted themselves with reference to the general public as to induce a shipper acting with reasonable caution to believe that they had formed a combination in the nature of a partnership or were engaged as joint traders under the name of the Kountz line. In our judgment it must be answered in the affirmative. It could not, we think, beanswered otherwise consistently with the inferences which the facts reasonably justify.” See, also, Bostwick v. Champion, 11 Wend. 571; Champion v. Bostwick, 18 Wend, 175.
Objections were made to the reading of the deposition of John C. Barr, taken on behalf of the plaintiff. Whether the court erred in receiving the deposition it is unnecessary to decide, for
