Viscount Haldane:—

This is an appeal on questions of fact from a judgment of the High Court of Bombay, reversing the judgment of the First Subordinate Judge of Poona, who tried the case. The principal issue is whether a promissory note for Rs. 15,000, on which the appellant brought an action against the respondent, was a forgery. A good deal of the oral evidence was taken, not by the trial Judge, but before another Judge who acted for him. The case is, therefore, not one in which a Court of appeal has the full assistance of the impressions of a Judge who in trying the case has seen all the witnesses in the box. The High Court and this Board have had to weigh the evidence as recorded for themselves, with the aid of the views of the trial Judge on those occasions on which the witnesses were examined and cross-examined before him.

The appellant was a furniture dealer and money-lender at Poona. The respondent was a bookmaker on the turf, who also owned a fibre factory. The latter had frequent occasion to borrow money, and he borrowed from time to time from the Appellant among others. Between the Diwali day in November 1906, with which the native financial year commenced, and the 5th Nove