St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-03-28
.RAKING IN The EMBERS
Of the Defunet Madison Insurance
Company
IN THE WEIGH LIBEL CAS-
The Secretary's Testimony and Several
Legal Tits Occupy the
Day.

The counsel in the Vilas-Welch libel
case used up the entire forenoon yester-
day in arguing the dispositions of Seth
Bartlett and Beuel E. Hutchinson. The
court finally decided that the deposit
tions were not competent evidence and
rejected them. The deposition of Seth
Bartlett consisted of about ten pages
OF closely written manuscript and re-
lated to the suit which Seth Bartlett,
one. of the polcy-holders, brought
against the company for the sum of S1S,
which was the amount he paid the COM
pany for insurance. 1t was to the effect
that during the progress of the suit,
Villas met him on the street one day and
told him that unless he dismissed the
suit they would ruin him. as they had
plenty of money and would cause him
endless litigation, and that finally
he settled the whole matter in
consideration of 800 paid him and
similar amount paid his attorney.
The deposition of Beuel E. Hutchin-
sin, was in regard to the destruction of
the records of the insurance company.
During the discussion in regard to the
admission of this deposition. the fact
cropped out that HutchinfOn was in the
city, and it was agreed that he should
be sent for to appear in court at 2
o'clock.
SECRETARY OF THE COMPANY.
When court convened after the noon
recess, he was put on the witness stand.
His testimony was as follows: 81 was
secretary of the Madison Mutual In
surance company from 1874 until the
winding up of its affairs. A record of
the directors meetings was kept, but do
not know what became of it, but
suppose that it was destroyed. We
destroyed about five or six wagon
loads of books and papers. We took
them to the paper mill. There was
large number of records burned. This
happened in June, 1881, after the affairs
of the company had been wound up.
All the directors were cOgniZant of the
destruction of these records. Prior to
1877 there were eighteen directors of the
Madison Mutual Insurance company,
but after the guaranty fund was
created the number was reduced
to seven. The seven directors
of the guaranty fund of 100000 were
Brown, Atwood, Proudfoot, Villas, Dud-
ley, Fox and myself. These directors,
subscribers to this fund, and subscribed
the following amounts: Brown, $4,000;
Villas, $4,000; Fox, $1,000; ProudfOOt,
$4,000; Dudley, $1,000, and myself
5000. There were two assessments
made, one for 25 per cent in 1871, and
one of so per cent in 1875. This surplus
was divided among the policy holders
and the subscribers to the guaranty
fund at the time the affairs of the COM
pany were wound up. l can't now give
the name of
A SINGLE POLICY HOLDER
who was paid from this surplus"
He was asked to state what he knew
about certain bill which was intro
duced in the legislature at the time he
was member, for closing up the affairs
of the company. This question called
out an argument, the prosecution OBJ
jecting vigorously to this matter being
opened up. The court sustained the
objection, and the witness was then
turned over to the prosecution for cross
in February, 1880, the directors
concluded they would wind up
the affairs of the company
and that they then insured all Outstand-
ing risks in the Westminster Insurance
company, of New York, He said the
subscriptions to the guaranty fund of
100000 were all paid over to him, and
that the subscriptions consisted of notes
and township bonds, and that the whole
amounts were worth their face value.
This guaranty fund was created in May,
1880. ''Before this fund was created tine
affairs of the company had been in bad
shape, and we were forced to make an
assessment of 25 per cent first, and then
a second assessment of 80 per cent was
made. AS the affairs of the company
DID NOT IMPROVE,
the guaranty fund was created. The
financial condition of the company kept
growing worse, and 1t was then decided
to wind up the affairs of the company.
We turned over to the Westchester
company only such papers and records
as related to the reinsurance of the pol
icies, and destroyed the rest. The
books turned over to the Westchester
company did not contain any reference
10 the assessments or the amount of
money collected, the amount of liza
bilities or the account of the Gre
alton of the guaranty fund, or
who were the members or what
they paid" On re-crOss examination
he admitted that the amount paid on
the so per cent assessment was about
$4,000, and that he paid $4,000 for the
reinsurance of the policies. He said
the cash assets at the time of the crea-
-tion of the guaranty fund were
1922, 26O.35. The premium notes
amounted to $5O,454.90, and there
was due, but uncOllected, $4,000.
''We made no report of the financial
condition of the company to the insur-
ance commissioner after January, 1870.
except report of the reinsurance in the
Westchester company. No final report
showing the financial status OF the COM
pany at the time of the winding up of
asked to give detailed statement of
what was done with the money in the
surplus fund at the time of the wind-up.
This caused quite lengthy argument
from the counsel, which lasted until
tirna for adinurnmpnt