Manufacturer Notes: Indianapolis Glass Works Co.Indianapolis Directories:1870 Indianapolis Glass Works, Kentucky av. nr. river. 1871-72 INDIANAPOLIS GLASS WORKS CO., (V. Butsch, James Dickson, Fred. Ballman, Charles Brinkman, Fred, Ritzenger, James Deschler,) cor Kentucky Av and Sharp. 1872-73 Indianapolis Glass Works Co, cor Kentucky Av and Sharp, Charles Brinkman, sec and treas 1873 Indianapolis Glass Works co, (V Butsch, F Ballman, J. Dickson, C Brinkman, F Ritzinger,) cor Kentucky Ave & Sharpe 1874 INDIANAPOLIS GLASS WORKS CO, cor Kentucky Ave and Sharpe, C Ad Brink Sec. 1875 Indianapolis Glass Works Co, (V Butsch, F Ballman, J. Dickson, C Brinkman, F Ritzinger,) glassware mfgs, cor Sharpe and Kentucky Ave. 1876 Indianapolis Glass Works Co, (Frederick Bollman, Chas Brinkman, Frederick Ritzinger, Christ Ad-Brink) mfg of glassware, s e cor Sharpe and Kentucky Ave. 1877 Indianapolis Glass Works Co, (F Bollman, C Brinkman, F Ritzinger, C Ad Brink), glass mfgs, s e cor Sharpe and Kentucky Ave. _______________________________________________________________________________________ GLASS. In 1869 a company of six German residents was formed to make glassware here. In the fall and winter their building was erected and furnace prepared, and they began blowing bottles, vials and fruit jars, with such entire success that they soon got an order from Philadelphia for $40,000 worth of fruit jars. The -sand was brought at first from the Fall Creek bluffs, near Pendleton, and was a friable sand-stone needing to be "stamped" to be used, but latterly river sand has been -successfully used, and is cheaper. During the past summer they have erected another blowing house, and have just put up an extensive warehouse for the storage of their goods. The works cover nearly a half square on Kentucky avenue and Merrill street.— ................. The establishment of the Indianapolis Glass Works, in February, 1870, was as well a prudent investment for its proprietors as a valuable and needed addition to the productive industry of Indianapolis. For, by reason of the proximity, in abundance and cheapness, of the requisite materials for the manufacture of glass, of the shipping facilities for the manufactured articles, and of the large field of trade naturally and readily supplied from this place, the manufacture of glass can be more profitably engaged in here than at most of the points celebrated for this class of production. The present establishment is owned by Messrs. Butsch & Dickson, F. Ritzinger, Charles Brinkman, and Jos. Deschler. It is an extensive concern, having a capital of $100,000, and employing eighty-one hands. The value of its products last year was $135,000. The range of production is hollow ware—such as druggists' green glassware, various sizes and descriptions of bottles, fruit jars of different patterns, and so forth. This undertaking is only a move in the right direction. It has confirmed by experience what was theoretically apparent before—that the manufacture of glass can be profitably engaged in here in competition with the older and more recognized manufacturing points. With all the conditions of prosperity for manufactures in this field, with the early and large success of the present initial undertaking, it follows that this interest should, and will at an early date, occupy the whole field of glass manufacture. Holloway, W. R.; A Historical And Statistical Sketch of the Railroad City (Indianapolis, Indianapolis Journal, 1870) _______________________________________________________________________________________ Specimens of bottles and jars from the Indianapolis Glass Works Best glassware, Indianapolis Glass Works, Indianapolis.............$25 Sutherland, John; Fourteenth Annual Report of the Indiana State Board of Agriculture 1872 (Indianapolis, R. J. Bright, 1872) _______________________________________________________________________________________ Specimen's of man'f'd glassware, Indianapolis Glass Works Co.,......Merit Heron, Alexander; Twenty-Third Annual Report of the Indiana State Board of Agriculture 1873 (Indianapolis, Sentinel company, 1874) _______________________________________________________________________________________ Messrs. Mattocks & Mason, for appellee; as to the right to amend the pleadings after appeal, cited Grassly v. Adams, 71 H1 . 550; Eev Stat. Chap. 7, § 2. Mcallister, J. This was assumpsit in the Superior Court of Cook county, by appellee, as receiver of the Indianapolis Glass Works Company, against appellant Wurster and one Huttenlocher, the latter not being served, upon two promissory notes alleged to have been executed by said defendants, as co-partners to said Glass Works Company; one at four months, dated July 15, 1873, for $350; the other at two months, for same amount, both at 10 per cent. interest and purporting on their face to have been signed by one C. F. Stiegle, as agent for defendants. Wurster filed the plea of general issue and a plea duly verified denying the execution of the notes. The case was tried by the court without a jury; the finding was for the plaintiff, and his damages were assessed at eleven hundred dollars, on which the court, overruling defendant's motion for a new trial, gave judgment, and defendant took an appeal to this court. The evidence and rulings of the court are preserved by bill of exceptions. The plainest principles of justice require that the judgment in this case should be reversed. It appears upon the face of the two notes in question that the name of the defendants was signed by one C. F. Stiegle, and it appears by the un ontradicted evidence that Stiegle not only had no authority to sign the defendants' name to them, but the execution of them was obtained by fraud on the part of the collecting agent of said corporation, the Indianapolis Glass Works Company, the payee, who, when the defendants were out of town, went to the house of Stiegle in the evening and asked the old man to sign them. Upon Stiegle refusing and saying he had no authority, said agent then overcame his resistance by representing that he had arranged the evening before with Wurster and Huttenlocher that he, Stiegle, might sign the notes for them. That statement was false, and is so shown by uncontradicted testimony, as well as the representation made to Stiegle to induce him to execute the notes, when he was in no respect authorized to do so. The execution having been obtained in that way, those notes were no better in law or in fact than if that agent of the Glass Works Company had deliberately forged the names of Wurster & Huttenlocher to them at Indianapolis. But, as is quite too common with such agents, the attempt was made to infuse validity into these notes by testimony of admissions and recognition on the part of Wurster, with a View of showing that he ratified the act of Stiegle. We have carefully read this record. All such alleged admissions are denied by Wurster; and besides, it does not appear that the notes themselves were exhibited to him. He had given other notes to the same party which he did not dispute, some of which were outstanding at the time of the alleged admissions. In such case, where the particular notes whose execution was in question were not shown to the alleged maker, evidence of admissions claimed to apply to them is not sufficient to even go to the jury. Glazier v. Streamer, 57 111. 91, and cases there cited. It would seem upon principle that where the execution of the note is obtained by fraud and circumvention, under such circumstances as that it would be void in the hands even of a bona fide assignee, the ratification which would render it valid and operative could be little less than some act amounting to a re-issuance of it by the maker, or to an estoppel in pais, because it was ab initio void. "At the common law there is a distinction between the ratification of acts which are void and the ratification of acts which are voidable. In the former case the ratification is inoperative for any purpose whatever; in the latter full validity is given to the acts." Story,on Agency, Sec. 240. "A con Wureter T. Reitzinger. firmation of a void thing avails nothing." Comyn's Dig. Confirmation, D. 1. In Brook v. Hook, L. R. 6 Exch. 79, the plaintiff was the payee of a note to which defendant's name as maker had been forged. The defendant, after the making and before the maturity of the note, gave plaintiff a writing in respect to it by which he purported to hold himself responsible on the note; but it appearing that defendant's name had been forged, the court held the ratification inoperative. We do not mean to be understood as assuming that the obtaining the execution by the party himself of a note by fraud and circumvention would amount to a forgery, but it is a clear case where the note is void ab initio: though we can perceive no reason why it is not forgery, if one, assuming without authority to be the agent of another, should maliciously or fraudulently sign the latter's name to a bill or note and utter it as genuine. If so why would it not be forgery if the agent of the payee should fraudulently procure an innocent agent, known not to have any authority, to execute a note in the name of an alleged principal? But even conceding that the notes in question were virtually forgeries, as tho evidence in this record stands, yet the doctrine of the common law, as administered in England, has been so far departed from by many American courts, and especially the Supreme Court of this State, as that a person may ratify even a clear forgery of his name. Livings v. Wiler, 32 111. 387; Goodspeed v. Cutler, 75 111. 534; Paul v. Berry, 78 111. 158. For authorities in other States, see cases in note 2, p. 49, Ewell's Evans on Agency. The notes sued on having been shown to be void, by uncontradicted testimony, the burden rested upon plaintiff, occupying the position of the payee, to prove that Wurster, after full knowledge of all the material circumstances connected with the making of them, deliberately ratified Stiegle's acts. This he failed to do, and the judgment of the court below must be reversed and the cause remanded. Reversed and remanded. Bradwell, James B.; Reports of the Decisions of the Appellate Courts of the State of Illinois (Chicago, Chicago Legal News Co, 1880) _______________________________________________________________________________________ Go To North American Soda & Beers Home |