THE SUEZ CANAL. 43 from the later list showed that some arrangement must have been come to with his heirs, by which they relinquished their claim to the shares. In itself the contention seems plausible enough. What militated against its acceptance was the fact that the Company were either unable or unwilling to furnish any written evidence from their own books in proof of any such arrangement having either been proposed or accepted. It is obvious, too, that the case of the defendants was seriously impaired by their reluctance to produce in court the two lists of founders, a reluctance which they attempted to justify by the extraordinary plea that the documents in dispute were the property of the Egyptian Government, and could not therefore be produced in a civil law suit The only weighty plea brought forward for the defendants was that the claim of the plaintiffs was barred by prescription, and that, as all the personages engaged in the original transaction were dead, it was impossible to ascertain the facts of the case with any degree of certainty. The Court, however, decided that the plea of prescription was inadmissible, and gave judgment for the plaintiffs in as far as their interest in the founder's share assigned to Khaireddin Pasha was concerned, and for the defendants in respect of their liability for the 250 ordinary shares he might have been entitled to. The Court, which is one of --first instance, also decided that the defendants might (''' appeal against the judgment, but only on condition of [cAjb their producing, within three months, the original list y , ..(