Duncan

Plaintiff brought this action in the ordinary form of an action in claim and delivery to recover of defendant the possession of certain goods and chattels, or the value thereof, if possession could not be had, and damages for the detention thereof. The goods are alleged in the complaint to be of the value of $1,000 and are set forth in detail. They consist of household furniture, furnishings and fittings of a dwelling-house, the enumeration of which occupies about fourteen folios of closely printed matter in the transcript. The answer consists of a denial of the material allegations of the complaint.

The trial was before a jury, and resulted in a verdict for the return of the entire property sued for, and if a return thereof be not made, for the sum of $1,000, the value thereof. Judgment was entered in accordance with the verdict. The case is before this court upon defendant’s appeal from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

The plaintiff is the wife of B. B. Duncan, to whom she was married in 1887, but at the time this action was brought she was living separate and apart from him. There is a conflict in the evidence as to whether she had deserted him or he her. On the…