298 CONTEE v. DAWSON.

passes to the tenant for life but the ordinary and proper dividends
of such stock, (w)

It is clear, from the proofs, now adduced, that the trustees them-
selves, with the knowledge and acquiescence of Margaret R.
Clerklee, the tenant for life, considered those accumulations of the
legacy, which they received from the executors, as a part of its
capital; and actually invested them, as such, for the benefit of all,
as well for the tenant for life, as for those in remainder; and that
the late trustee William Dawson, by the expression, 'some interest
since the death of Major Clerk,' had no allusion whatever to any
dividends to which Margaret R. Clerklee, the tenant for life, was
exclusively entitled; but to certain accumulations of interest which
had been received from the executors, and which had been invested
as a part of the capital of the legacy itself. And from the whole
of the proofs, it is now clear, that Margaret R. Clerklee, the late
tenant for life, must have received all the interest or dividends to
which she was in any manner entitled; and that she had received
from those trustees no dividends or interest which had not then
come to their hands for her use, and which they ought now to be
allowed to retain. And consequently, that the sum which the late
trustee William Dawson, specifies as the amount of the proceeds
of the sale of the stock is formed altogether of that in which the
capital of the legacy itself had been regularly invested; and for
the whole amount of which his representative, the defendant Elea-
nor Dawson, is chargeable.

It is objected, by one of the exceptions of the defendant .Elea-
nor Dawson, that if she was liable for interest at all, it could only
be from the death of Margaret R. Clerklee, which happened on
the 23d of November, 1818, and not on the 15th of October of
that year. The only proof in relation to the time of the death of
Margaret R. Clerklee, is that she died in the fall of the year 1818.
The long established rule of the court, in this respect, is, that
where it becomes necessary to determine the price or value of any
thing, and the witnesses differ, to strike an average, and to take
the mean as the true price or value, or where, as in this instance,
it becomes necessary to ascertain the exact date of an event, and
it is only proved to have happened within a certain designated
space of time, that the medium shall be assumed as the true date

(w) Wilson v. Harman, 2 Ves. 673; Hamilton v. Lloyd, 2 Ves. Jun. 416; Paris
9. Paris, 10 Yes. 185; Witts v. Steere, 13 Ves, 363; Clancy's Husb, & Wife, 387.