1. Witnesses @=>148 — Beneficiary can testify to conversation with insured in suit against company.

Rev. Codes Mont. § 7891, cl. 4, as amended by Laws 1913, c. 41, making incompetent as witnesses parties to an action against any person or corporation as to the facts of direct transactions or oral communications between the proposed witness and the deceased, does not exclude the testimony of the beneficiary under an insurance policy, in an action to recover the amount of the policy, to a conversation with the insured before his death.

2. Witnesses (§=3192 — Statute excluding “communications” of wife refers only to confidential communications.

Rev. Codes Mont. § 7892, forbidding testimony by a wife without her husband’s consent as to any communication made by one to the other during the marriage, though not limited expressly to confidential communications, should be construed as applying only to such communications, since there is no public policy excluding such testimony further than necessary to guard the marital relation.

[Ed. Note. — For other definitions, see Words and Phrases, First and Second Series, Communications.]

3. Witnesses <^>192 — Communications by husband testified to by wife held not “confidential communications.”

In an action on a life insurance policy brought by the wife of insured, in which the defense was suicide, testimony by the wife to conversations with her husband shortly before and immediately after the shooting, showing that the husband was not contemplating suicide and that the shooting was accidental, are not “confidential communications” and were not inadmissible under Rev. Codes Mont. § 7892.

[Ed. Note. — For other definitions, see Words and Phrases, First and Second Series, Confidential Communication.]

4. Insurance <§=^659(2) — Evidence shewing state of mind heM admissible to rebut defense of suicide. „ . .,

„ . ., In an action on a life insurance policy, where the defense was suicide, evidence by a friend of insured as to the statements of insured showing absence of motive to commit suicide, and showing a reason for the purchase of the gun with which the wounds were inflicted, was admissible to rebut the defense.

5. Evidence ¿§=473 — Testimony that a person appeared ignorant of operation of gun held not an opinion.

In an action on a life insurance policy, where the defense was suicide, testimony by a witness who had sold to insured the gun with which the fatal Injury was inflicted, and who stated that insured did not know how t.o operate the pistol and related in detail the instructions he gave insured, that insured appeared to be wholly ignorant as to the operation of the gun, was not an expression of opinion, but merely an abbreviated way of relating the facts as he elsewhere had stated them.