Lord Sumner:-

The appellants sued upon a promissory note made by the respondent and he lost in the High Court the decree, which he had recovered at the trial. Curiously enough the main question is, whether he discharged the onus of proving that the note had been lost without his default) so as to entitle him to give secondary evi dence of its contents.

According to the practice, either the original note or a copy of it had to be attached to the plaint. It was stated, both in the plaint and in the list of documents accompanying it, that the note exhibited was the original. This was on 14th Feb ruary, 1917. Next day the plaintiff's plea der received notice from the Court officials that he must amend his list and pay a fur ther process fee. He went to the office to make these defects good and, apparently, had access at least to the list of documents, if not to the other papers.

Thereafter the officials, probably on the same day, served the defendant with the plaint and so gave him the opportunity of learning that the original document had been filed in Court, but what action he took thereon, if any, is matter of conjecture.

On the 1st March, 1917, an application by the plaintiff for atta