TOTAL ABSTINENCE — In Grand Lodge A. O. U. W. et al v. Belcham, Supreme Court of Illinois, 33 N. E. Rep. 886, an applicant for insurance, in answer to the question to what extent he used alcoholic stimulants, answered, None." Held, that proof of a single use of liquor was not sufficient to prove the answer untrue, but that it would be necessary, for that purpose, to prove a habit or custom of using such stimulants. The court said : — "It is said in the argument of counsel, ' We insist that his answer " None, "as to intoxicants, meant none at all, — to no extent whatever ' We do not think this is a correct view of the language used. The language embodied in the application must receive a reasonable construction, — one within the contemplation of the parties at the time the contract of insurance was consummated. What was the purpose of requiring the insured tosíate in the application to what extent he used alcoholic stimulants, tobacco, and opium? But one object can be perceived, and that was to guard against the risk which might arise from insuring the life of one who was in the habit of using the articles, or either of them, to such an extent as to imperil the health and life of the individual. If a man drank a glass of liquor, or smoked a pipe of opium or a cigar, once a month. it is too plain to admit of argument that such a use could not endanger the life of the person, and that such a use was not within the contemplation of the parties when the contract of insurance was entered into by the parties. It may be that the language of the question and answer in regard to the use of alcoholic stimulants, if given a strict and technical construction, might be interpreted that the insured did not use alcoholic liquors at all. But in our opinion, an insurance company, propounding a question of that character, should not be allowed to indulge in a strict and technical construction, but, on the other hand, the language should receive a fair and reasonable construc tion, — a construction which would imply more than an occasional use. There should be, to some extent at least, a habit or custom. This is the well-established rule in Van Valkcnburgh v. Insurance Co., 70 N. Y. 606, and we think it is the correct one."
If one says that he does not use intoxicants "to any extent," this in popular parlance does not indi cate that he is a total abstinent, but only that he does not use them to any considerable extent.
FLATTERING PHOTOGRAPHS. — In connection with recent remarks in this magazine on the unreliability
of photographs ("Practical Tests in Evidence"), it is instructive to consider a case now pending on appeal in the Supreme Court of New York, — Harter v. Town of Moravia,;— an action for personal inju ries sustained by driving into a dangerous mud-hole of long standing (or lying) in the middle of a high way. To show that it was not much of a hole and not dangerous, the defendant put in evidence a pho tograph of the locality, which makes it a very harm less place to all appearances, and indeed does not disclose any depression at all. Witnesses however swore that it was from ten to fifteen fuet long, four to eight feet wide, and eight to twenty-four inches deep. Justice Rumsey charged the jury as follows in re spect to photographs : — "In regard to photographs, it is very true that in cer tain respects a photograph tells the precise and absolute truth, but yet it will be for you to consider exactly to what extent a photograph precisely delineates the partic ular thing upon which the camera is pointed. When you look at a thing with your eye, as Mr Ackerman said, by long practice you have gotten into the habit of correcting the variation of the lens of the eye, so that the things which you see through your eye give you an accurate picture The lens of a camera cannot do that. It is like the eye of a baby All of you have seen a little chiM reach for the moon, utterly unable to distinguish how far off it is, or anything about it. The photographic lens К a thing of the same kind; it is a mere inanimate piece of glass, through which the light goes, and which puts upon the negative what goes through, but it does not faithfully put upon the negative precisely the relative situation or condition of (he things at which it is pointed. So when you conic to examine these photographs, of course you must examine them in view of the condition of affairs as Mr Ackerman said it was, ami judge how accurately the photograph has reproduced the thing which the camera was pointed upon, and which is presented here. I call your attention in that regard, also, to the fact that it is the testimony of the photographer that the space there, which is six or eight inches across, represents twenty-three feet, as he said, and the space three or four inches long represents one hundred and fifty feet, not byway of throw ing any doubt upon the accuracy of the picture, but simply by way of giving you some suggestion as to how you should consider that picture when you come to examine it, in view of the testimony which has been given in this case."
The trial resulted in я verdict for the plaintiff in spite of the photograph.
