and discount to an extent that was wholly unjustifiable. My visit to New York, however, was a very profitable one to myself. The Charter Oak Life Insurance Company and several of the banks to whom Allen's mortgages and bills receivable had been negotiated from time to time, including $100,000 of bonds of the Des Moines Gas Company, placed in my hands their collections, and I think that the securities that I brought home with me amounted to one half million dollars, and in the suit and foreclosure of these collaterals the firm of Nourse & Kauffman made very handsome profits. The litigation lasted a number of years and a final result was not obtained until the decision of the supreme court of the United States at the April term, 1882. The opinion is reported in United States Supreme Court Reports, Volume 105, page 100. After this decision was made we filed a claim of the Charter Oak Life Insurance Company against the bankrupt estate as a general creditor. In the meantime the Charter Oak Life Insurance Company itself had gone into bankruptcy. We had some doubt as to whether our claim would be allowed as we had insisted on a preference that the court had decided was fraudulent. Mr. J. S. Polk and Mr. Bisbee, of Chicago, finally bought the claim of the Charter Oak Life Insurance Company against the bankrupt estate, and had no difficulty in having it allowed by Mr. Sherman, the assignee. These men also bought large and valuable portions of the real estate from Mr. Sherman, the assignee, and received a conveyance accordingly. The estate paid to the general creditors only, as we were advised, about fifteen cents on the dollar. Another interesting feature of the transaction was that Mr. Allen claimed the benefit of the homestead law of Iowa and claimed the fine residence on Terrace Hill with forty acres of land as exempt from his debts. The homestead law of Iowa, however, only exempted a homestead in favor of a resident of the state. Mr. Allen had been for a number of years a resident of Chicago, had purchased a home there, and had paid out $31,000 on the purchase. We also proved that he had voted as a citizen of Chicago, I think at the city, county, and state elections, and that he had offered the property on Terrace Hill for sale and had caused a number of articles to be published in the city papers claiming the property to be worth $100,000. A compromise, however, was made by the assignee in bankruptcy by which Mr. Allen was allowed the buildings and a limited amount of ground, and Mr. F. M. Hubbell purchased the same for $40,000. This $40,000 did him no good, for within a year or two he lost it in another grain speculation on the board of trade in Chicago. In the meantime his wife, who was a daughter of Captain F. R. West, had become insane and imagined that her husband's creditors were pursuing her because of their losses, and she died within a few months after losing her reason. Mr. Allen a few years afterwards removed to