Phelan

This appeal is from a judgment upon demurrer to the complaint. The complaint contains averments to the effect that on the fourth day of FTovember} A. D. 1881, plaintiff owned a certain tract of land which was then subject to mortgage liens, then owned by James Phelan. The amount due on said mortgages was $196,-000. The real estate was worth $390,375. The plaintiff and her thirteen children were in indigent circumstances, destitute of available means of support, in great need, and unable to secure an additional loan upon said land or to sell the same, owing to financial stringency then prevailing, and were wholly dependent upon the charity of others. Said Phelan knew of her distressed condi *541 tion, and also that her equity of redemption was worth at least $45,500. Still, designing to take advantage of her distress and necessities, he first offered her $4,000, and then $10,000, and finally $19,000, for her equity of redemption. The offers were successively made on different days, and, in the mean time, said Phelan had her property advertised for sale, under execution, on a decree of foreclosure of said mortgages, and had the sale postponed repeatedly, for the purpose of securing…