From the circuit court of Washington county.

Hon. E. W. Williamson, Judge.

Action by the state for use of the board of levee commissioners for the Yazoo aud Mississippi Delta, upon the bond of appellant, C. II. McLeod, tax-collector of Sunflower county, for $4,040.37, taxes collected for said usee and unlawfully withheld. The defendants, McLeod and his sureties, pleaded, among other things, non est factum, contending that the instrument sued upon was not a bond because not signed by McLeod. The facts relative to this contention are as follows : McLeod, having been elected sheriff and ex officio tax-collector, for the purpose of executing his bond as collector of the levee taxes, obtained a printed form and filled up the blank spaces in his own handwriting, inserting his name in two spaces in the body of the instrument intended for the name of the principal obligor. The instrument was presented in this condition to the sureties, who signed it as such, leaving a dotted line above their signatures for that of McLeod. Through inadvertence, McLeod failed to fill out this space with his signature, but delivered the instrument to the board of supervisors, and it was approved as his bond and filed with the chancery clerk. McLeod thereupon took the oath of office as such tax-collector, subscribing his name to the blank form of oath appended to the bond, and entered upon the discharge of the duties of the office.

In view of the opinion of the court, it is not necessary to further state the pleadings or the facts touching other matters in controversy. The sections of the code of 1880 brought into review by the case as presented, are as, follows:

“ § 19. The word bond shall embrace every written undertaking for the payment of money or acknowledgment of being bound for money, conditioned to be void on the performance of any duty or the occurrence of any thing therein expressed and subscribed, and delivered by the party making it, to take effect as his obligation, whether it be sealed or unsealed ; and when a bond is required by law, an undertaking in writing without seal shall be sufficient.”

“ § 994. Any instrument of writing hereafter made and delivered by any private person, without any seal or scroll or other semblance or representation of a seal, shall be operative according to the intent of the maker as expressed in the writing, in the same manner and to as full an extent as if the seal of the maker was thereto affixed.”

“ § 996. The bonds of all public officers, and all bonds in any legal proceeding, shall be valid and obligatory on all the signers, without a seal or representation of a seal, in the same manner as if duly sealed.”

The trial resulted in a peremptory instruction for plaintiff. Judgment accordingly, and defendants appeal.

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