New Trial—Settlement of -Statement—Construction of Statute Affecting.—Provisions of the statute for the settlement of statements on motions for new trial must lie liberally construed, with a view to promoting the rights of the parties and in the interests of justice. Such statements are ultimately used as a basis for presenting the merits of a case upon! an appeal, the right to which is constitutionally conferred, and no narrow construction should be placed upon a rule of procedure which will defeat that right. i

Id.—Notice op Settlement—Extension op Time—Presentation pob Settlement.—Under section 1054 of the Code of Civil Procedure the court has power to extend the time provided hy subdivision 3 of section 659 of that code within which to give notice of the time for presenting a proposed statement on motion for new trial and, amendments thereto to the judge for settlement, and to extend the time for the settlement of the same for a corresponding period, the only requisite being that when such notice is given, the adverse party must have five days’ notice of the presentation. The power to extend the time for giving such notice is not affected by the fact that at the time the order of extension was made it was impossible, by reason of the lapse of time, for the moving party to have given five days’ notice to his adversary of such presentation within the ten days from the service of the amendments.

Id.—Non-Acceptance op Amendments—Notice op Presentation in Due Time.—Where a party intending to move for a new trial in due time served its proposed statement on the motion, and the adverse party served amendments thereto, a notice by the moving party of the non-acceptance of the amendments which stated that “in due time” it would present them to the judge for settlement, is not to be construed to the effect that the proposed statement and amendments would be presented on actual notice. Properly construed, the notice meant that the moving party intended to pursue the general course required by section 659 of the Code of Civil Procedure, as the result of such non-acceptance, and permitted either a presentation to the judge on actual notice to the adverse party or a delivery to the clerk of the court for the judge.

Negligence—Master and Servant—Sape Wat to Watercloset—Contributory Negligence.—Where an employer operating an extensive machine-shop and an adjoining planing-mill, which latter during working hours was an unsafe place by reason of its being filled with machinery in operation and materials in transit, and through which there was no regular pathway, has provided a safe and secure way to a watercloset at the rear of the planing-mill, for the use of his employees in the machine-shop, which did not lead through the planing-mill, it was the duty of an employee in the machine-shop having knowledge of such safe way to use it in going to or from the watercloset; and if he fails to make such use and is injured while passing through the planing-mill on his return from the closet, he is guilty of contributory negligence, and this is so although the route through the planing-mill was the more convenient.

Id.—Knowledge op Sape Way—Presumption.—In the absence of direct evidence of such employee’s knowledge of the safe way it will be presumed that he did know of it from the facts that he had been an employee in the machine-shop for upwards of twenty years, and that his co-employees, of whom there were about one hundred, never took the route through the planing-mill. But independent of such presumption it was Ms duty to have ascertained whether a safe way had been provided by the employer for the benefit of himself and Ms co-employees.