Beecher

This is an appeal from a final judgment in favor of the corporation plaintiff, and from an order denying defendant’s motion for a new trial.

On the nineteenth day of November, 1887, the defendant and over sixty other persons entered into a written agreement with each other and one with the other to form a corporation under the name of the “San Joaquin Land and Water Company,” for the purpose of procuring water rights, purchasing and constructing dams, reservoirs, canals, aqueducts, etc.; and to conduct, supply, and sell water, for mining, farming, irrigation, and other purposes; to buy, sell, let, cultivate, and improve lands, etc., in certain named counties of the state of California. The capital stock of the corporation, it was provided, should be one million dollars, divided into ten thousand shares of one hundred dollars per share.

The parties to the agreement each agreed to take the number of shares set opposite his name thereunto subscribed, and to pay twenty per cent of the par value of the shares so subscribed, within five days after the articles of incorporation were filed in the office of the county clerk of the county of San Joaquin, payments to be made to F. M. West,…