§ 1007. Official signatures presumed genuine

"The signature of the officer to any certificate or document hereinbefore mentioned, shall be presumed to be genuine until the contrary is shown." 7

§ 1008. Authentication

It is error, over objections, to permit a party to testify that certain purported copies of lost agreements were true, when they were not certified, nor supported by the oath of the party purporting to have made them.8

Where certified copies of papers filed in a public office are offered in evidence, the certificate should show that they are copies of the original papers, and not of a transcript of them."

"Copies of records and proceedings in the courts of a foreign country may be admitted in evidence, upon being authenticated as follows:

"First. By the official attestation of the clerk or officer in whose custody such records are legally kept; and,

"Second. By the certificate of one of the judges or magistrate of such court, that the person so attesting is the clerk or officer legally intrusted with the custody of such records, and that the signature to his attestation is genuine; and,

"Third. By the official certificate of the officer who has the custody of the principal seal of the government under whose authority the court is held, attested by said seal, stating that such court is duly constituted, specifying the general nature of its jurisdiction, and verifying the seal of the court." 10

A state is not a foreign country, within the meaning of this stat

7 Rev. Laws 1910, § 5113.

8 Kasenberg v. Hartshorn, 30 Okl. 417, 120 P. 956.

⚫ Drumm v. Cessnum, 49 P. 78, 58 Kan. 331.

10 Rev. Laws 1910, § 5098.

A certified copy of foreign judgment sued on held properly authenticated under Rev. St. U. S. § 905 (U. S. Comp. St. § 1519), though no judgment is shown to have been signed by the trial judge and filed in the court. Shufeldt v. Bank of Mound City, 61 Okl. 194, 160 P. 923; Block v. Schafer, 62 Okl. 114, 162 P.

456.

ute providing for the certification of records in courts of a foreign country.11

$ 1010. Translations

"Whenever any written evidence in a cause shall be in a language other than English, a written translation thereof, in the English language, made by a competent translator, and verified by his affidavit, may be read in evidence instead of the original, if such original be competent evidence." 12

Subdivision II.-Private Writings

§ 1011. Church records

"When, by ordinance or custom of any religious society or congregation in this state, a record is required to be kept of marriages, births, baptisms, deaths, or interments, such register shall be admitted as evidence." 13

"Copies of the register referred to in the preceding section, certified by the pastor or other head of any such society or congregation, or by the clerk or other keeper of such register, and verified by his affidavit in writing, shall be received in evidence." 14

§ 1012. Corporate records

The records and minutes of proceedings of a private corporation are not competent evidence to establish a right of the corporation against a stranger, especially in an action to which the corporation is not a party.15

11 Graham v. Troth, 77 P. 92, 69 Kan. 861.

12 Rev. Laws 1910, § 5109.

13 Rev. Laws 1910, § 5107.

14 Rev. Laws 1910, § 5108.

When, by the custom of a religious society, a register of baptisms and burials is kept, and a duly-verified copy of the same is offered in evidence to establish that a child registered as having been buried at a certain time is the same one that was registered as having been baptized at an earlier time, and which shows that the entries of baptism and burial were made in different names, its admission, without further evidence tending to show that they were one and the same person, is error. Meconce v. Mower, 15 P. 155, 37 Kan. 298.

15 Dolan v. Wilkerson, 48 P. 23, 57 Kan. 758.

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§ 1013. Written instruments

A properly acknowledged deed may be given in evidence without further proof, though its execution is denied under oath.16 The mortgage of personal property is one of the evidences of title and may be introduced in support of an allegation of ownership; and the same is true of a certificate of filing given by the register of the United States land office.18

17

One who has an interest in information to be obtained from the public records in any county office has a right to examine such records to the extent of his interest.19

In an action by one tenant to recover a pro rata share from his cotenant of expenses in making improvements, vouchers and receipts for moneys expended are competent evidence.20

Where defendant admits the genuineness of his signature to a note but contends that it has been materially altered after delivery, the note, being regular on its face, is admissible in evidence.21

16 Dyal v. Norton, 47 Okl. 794, 150 P. 703. Rev. Laws 1910, § 1170.

17 Hixon v. Hubbell, 44 P. 222, 4 Okl. 224.

It is not error to admit a deed in evidence, though the certificate of acknowledgment bears date prior to the acknowledgment of the execution of the deed, if from the instrument it appears that it was actually made at the time of its acknowledgment, and the conflict of dates was a clerical error. Mosier v. Momsen, 74 P. 905, 13 Okl. 41.

18 The receipt for the officers' fees for filing a declaratory statement made by a settler on government land, and a certificate of the filing, given by the register and receiver of the United States land office, are admissible in evidence in an action involving the possession of the land filed on to show the good faith and the character of the possession of claimant. Barnhart v. Ford, 21 P. 239, 41 Kan. 341. Testimony that a person has been accepted by the United States land officers as entitled to enter public lands is prima facie proof of such qualification. Id.

19 Boylan v. Warren, 18 P. 174, 39 Kan. 301, 7 Am. St. Rep. 551.

20 Uncle Sam Oil Co. v. Richards, 60 Okl, 63, 158 P. 1187.

21 Cavitt v. Robertson, 142 P. 299, 42 Okl. 619.

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§ 1014.

Recitals in deeds and mortgages

Recitals of heirship in a deed are not binding against strangers to the instrument; 22 but they are admissible as to the parties to the instrument.23

Where a deed misdescribes the tract intended to be conveyed, and the grantors execute a second deed to correct the description of the first, both instruments are admissible to show the ownership of the land.24

Admission in evidence of the chattel mortgage alleged to cover the property sued for in replevin is error where the description, aided by inquiry suggested by the mortgage, does not show that such property was embraced in the mortgage.25

An application for a loan, signed in blank by the mortgagor, and delivered to an agent with the instruction to copy the statements contained in an application to another company, and which is afterwards so filled up by such agent, is an original instrument, and admissible in evidence without producing the application from which the statements were copied.20

§ 1015. Account books

"Entries in books of account may be admitted in evidence, when it is made to appear by the oath of the person who made the entries, that such entries are correct, and were made at or near the time of the transaction to which they relate, or upon proof of the handwriting of the person who made the entries, in case of his

22 Dyer v. Marriott, 131 P. 1185, 89 Kan. 515, 45 L. R. A. (N. S.) 93, Ann. Cas. 1915A, 93; Kelley v. McBlain, 22 P. 994, 42 Kan. 764.

In an action to recover an undivided half interest in an allotment inherited by E., since deceased, raising the issue of whether plaintiff and one B., alleged aunts of E., were half-sisters and the daughters of the same mother, a deed and an order approving it, reciting that B. was the sole heir of E., were incompetent to establish heirship. Lauderdale v. O'Neill (Okl.) 177 P. 113.

23 Where parents and their children unite in a deed conveying lands belonging to the estate of a deceased member of the family, a statement that the persons joining in the deed are heirs of decedent is admissible as evidence of the identity of a sister of decedent joining in the conveyance as an heir under a surname different from her maiden name. King v. Hyatt, 32 P. 1105, 51 Kan. 504, 37 Am. St. Rep. 304: King v. Hyatt, 34 P. 461, 51 Kan. 516. 24 Arn v. Matthews, 18 P. 65, 39 Kan. 272.

25 Eoff v. Lair (Okl.) 156 P. 185.

20 Farmers' State Bank v. Pennsylvania Inv. Co., 38 P. 477, 54 Kan. 386.

death or absence from the county, or upon proof that the same were made in the usual course of business." 27

The admissibility of accounts is to be determined from their appearance and character, the employment and education of the one who kept them, and the manner in which other similar accounts were entered in the book.28

Books of account, consisting of entries made at or near the time of the transactions from reports of salesmen in the form of written memoranda, are "books of original entry" and admissible in evidence as such.29

A book kept by defendant in his business may be introduced against him, whatever the book may be called, and though it may in fact be a "mere blotter." 30

The original passbook containing the original notice of deposits, and the original checks signed by the customer on which the deposits were withdrawn, are competent evidence of the facts disclosed.31

27 Rev. Laws 1910, § 5114; Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. of California v. O'Neil, 130 P. 270, 36 Okl. 792.

In an action by a building contractor for damages for breach of contract by the owner, the contractor's books of original entries are admissible and competent evidence to prove the work done and material furnished and value thereof. First Nat. Bldg. Co. v. Vandenberg, 119 P. 224, 29 Okl. 583.

In an action for conversion of cattle sold, there was no error in excluding testimony of the bookkeeper showing entries made from the scale tickets delivered to him by the defendants' employé at the stockyards some days after the delivery of the cattle. Drumm-Flato Commission Co. v. Edmisson, 87 P. 311, 17 Okl. 344, judgment affirmed 28 S. Ct. 367, 208 U. S. 534, 52 L. Ed. 606. An entry on the account books of an agent of a payment to him for his principal is competent evidence of the fact as against the payor, or where it is shown that the entry was made at the time of the occurrence. Hastie v. Burrage, 77 P. 268, 69 Kan. 560.

The fact that a corporation made certain payments may be shown by its books, though it is not a party to the action. Richolson v. Ferguson, 124 P. 360, 87 Kan. 411, 40 L. R. A. (N. S.) 855.

Where one in charge of the credits of a company testifies that certain entries on its books were made under his supervision, though not in his presence, and that the entries were made in the regular course of business, they are admissible. Robertson v. Ridenour-Baker Grocery Co., 163 P. 655, 100 Kan. 133.

28 Holden v. Spier, 70 P. 348, 65 Kan. 412.

29 Navarre v. Honea, 139 P. 310, 41 Okl. 480.

30 Beyle v. Reid, 1 P. 264, 31 Kan. 113.

31 Security State Bank v. Fussell, 129 P. 746, 36 Okl. 527.