Connolly

Ejectment; judgment for plaintiff; defendant appeals.

Both parties claim through one Chapman. The defendant claims to be in possession under a contract of purchase from Chapman made in November, 1875. This contract provided that defendant should pay for the property the sum of one thousand dollars, as follows: $100 cash on the execution of said instrument; *643 $750 in sixty monthly installments of $12.50 each, payable on the first day of each month, and $150 on the first day of November, 1880. Of this sum he paid only $437.50. His last money payment was in 1877, and there was allowed him for a deficiency in fencing a credit of $25 in 1879. These facts are established by the findings, which are sustained by the evidence. The burden was clearly upon the defendant to sustain the allegations of his equitable defense, and having failed to do so, the finding was properly against him. (Leviston v. Ryan, 75 Cal. 294 ; Speegle v. Leese, 51 Cal. 415 .) In 1879 he removed with his family to the Sandwich Islands, where he remained until 1887, when he returned to California, and after several months’ sojourn in different places, reentered upon the land.

The plaintiff claims under a deed…