so. There was a mere option to pay at some time in the future if the complainant should be able to do so, and if he should become able it would be optional to pay, or not. Such an agreement would never be barred by lapse of time and there never could be any foreclosure. The right to redeem and the right to foreclose are reciprocal, (Fitch v. Miller, 200 Ill. 170,) but the bill shows that there was no debt which could have been enforced against the land by foreclosure, either by Sly in his lifetime or by defendants since his death. An agreement giving the complainant a mere option to pay when he should be able and desire to do so, with an agreement to re-convey upon such a payment, did not constitute a mortgage, and the averments of the bill, if proved, would not entitle the complainant to any relief. The circuit court was right in sustaining the demurrer and dismissing the bill. The judgment of the Appellate Court is affirmed,

Mr. JUSTICE WILKIN, dissenting.

Judgment affirmed.

LIBBY, MCNEILL & LIBBY

V.

PETER B. COOK.

Opinion filed June 14, 1906-Rehearing denied October 10, 1906.

I. TRIAL-rule as to directing a verdict. If there is no evidence, or but a scintilla of evidence, tending to prove the material averments of the declaration, the jury should be directed to return a verdict for the defendant; but if there is in the record any evidence from which, if it stood alone, the jury could, without acting unreasonably in the eye of the law, find that all the material averments of the declaration have been proven, the case should go to the jury.

2. SAME―same rule applies to motions made at close of plaintiff's evidence and at the close of all the evidence. The same rule as to directing a verdict applies whether the motion for a peremptory instruction is made at the close of the plaintiff's evidence or at the close of all the evidence.

3. SAME-weight of evidence cannot be considered on motion to direct a verdict. Upon a motion to direct a verdict for defendant, where there was no affirmative defense, if there is any evidence in the record which, standing alone, tends to prove the material allegations of the declaration, the motion should be denied, even though the court is of the opinion that a verdict for the plaintiff, if given, must be set aside as against the preponderance of the evidence.

4 SAME-Scintilla of evidence in favor of plaintiff does not justify refusing to direct a verdict. A mere scintilla of evidence in favor of the plaintiff does not justify the court in refusing to direct a verdict for defendant, since that quantum of evidence, alone, does not fairly tend to prove any material averment of the declaration.

5. Master and SERVANT—when master must be held to have notice of defects which an inspection would have revealed. Where a servant calls his foreman's attention to a loose condition of machinery, such as should have led the foreman to make a careful investigation of the mechanism, the master is chargeable with notice of every defect which such investigation would have revealed.

6. SAME―when servant does not assume risk of injury. An oiler employed in an engine room does not assume the risk of injury from the breaking of a metal strap fastening the connecting-rod to the piston-rod of the engine, although he knew an opening had appeared between the strap and the connecting-rod, where the foreman assured him that the strap was worn but was "all right," and where the partial break in the strap could not be discovered without taking off the strap and inspecting it on the inside.

APPEAL from the Branch Appellate Court for the First District;-heard in that court on appeal from the Superior Court of Cook county; the Hon. ARTHUR H. FROST, Judge, presiding.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Branch Appellate Court for the First District affirming a judgment of the superior court of Cook county for the sum of $6000, in a suit brought by appellee, a servant, to recover from appellant, his master, for personal injuries. The following statement of facts is, in large part, that of the Branch Appellate Court:

The injuries complained of were inflicted by the cylinderhead of an engine which gave way or bursted, a piece of it

striking appellee, causing a compound fracture of the left leg between the thigh and knee joint. The accident was apparently caused by the breaking of an appliance called a “strap,” used to connect the piston-rod of the engine with the connecting-rod. The latter was attached to a crank on a large drive-wheel carrying the main belt by which the power was transmitted to the machinery by the engine operator. The breaking of the strap took off resistance from the piston-rod, allowing the latter to be thrown back against the cylinderhead, causing it to burst. The strap, the breaking of which seems to have been the primary cause of the accident, is a solid piece of metal having parallel sides connected by a semicircular end. Its shape is like that of the letter U, with the parallel sides somewhat prolonged. The curved part, referred to as the "throat," is so placed as to play around the boxing or brasses which encircle the pinion on the end of the piston-rod. The strap in this way joins the connectingrod, which drives the large wheel, with the piston-rod, which works rigidly back and forth. The sides of the strap are held firmly to the connecting-rod by a gib and a key inserted in.slots made in the strap and rod. The strap is about one and three-fourths inches through at the center of the curve or throat, about one inch through at the conjunction of the sides with the beginning of the curve, where the fracture occurred, while it is about three inches wide, and the sides are about nine and three-fourths inches in length, forming a substantial and solid piece of metal. Such a strap is made from a solid forged piece of steel or iron by drilling and slotting out the center. It is then filed out and planed off on the inside, and so finished that it fits the rod so tightly that it has to be driven on with a soft hammer. After the accident it was found that the throat or curved part of the strap had broken completely off from the two parallel sides, the fracture occurring at both sides at a point where the curve thickened, leaving the two sides of the strap still attached to the connecting-rod with the gib and key in place.

Prior to the day appellee was injured a slight opening had been observed between the rod and the end of the strap on top of the rod. The following drawing, representing the piece of machinery under discussion, will perhaps aid in arriving at a correct understanding of the manner in which the accident occurred:

The plaintiff was employed as an oiler in the engine room. At the moment of the bursting of the cylinder-head he was passing in such close proximity as to receive the injury complained of.

The declaration contains a single count, and charges that appellant negligently permitted the strap, the breaking of which caused appellee's injury, to become and remain in a defective, improper and unsafe condition, in that it was broken, weakened and otherwise defective and liable to break, and that appellant knew, or by the exercise of ordinary care might have known, this in time to avoid the injury. The defendant interposed the general issue.

F. J. CANTY, E. E. GRAY, and J. C. M. CLow, for appellant.

JAMES C. MCSHANE, for appellee.

Mr. CHIEF JUSTICE SCOTT delivered the opinion of the

court:

At the close of all the evidence the defendant asked an instruction of not guilty. This motion was not sustained, and its denial is assigned as error. The question thus presented has been stated by this court in varying language.

It has been said that such a motion should be allowed "where the evidence, with all the legitimate and natural inferences to be drawn therefrom, is wholly insufficient, if credited, to sustain a verdict for the plaintiff;" (Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Co. v. Richards, 152 Ill. 59;) or where the evidence, "with all the inferences which the jury might justifiably draw therefrom, is not sufficient to support a verdict for the plaintiff, if one should be returned;" (Foster v. Wadsworth-Howland Co. 168 Ill. 514; Foster v. McKeown, 192 id. 339;) and it has been said that such a motion presents the question in this court whether there was evidence "fairly tending to support the verdict;" (Chicago Terminal Railroad Co. v. Kotoski, 199 Ill. 383; Chicago and Alton Railway Co. v. Walker, 217 id. 605;) "whether there was evidence tending to support the verdict;" (Consolidated Fireworks Co. v. Koehl, 206 Ill. 283;) whether "the evidence for the plaintiff below, with the reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom, is sufficient to warrant a verdict for the plaintiff;" (Chicago and Alton Railroad Co. v. Wise, 206 Ill. 453;) whether "the evidence sustaining the cause of the plaintiff below, with the reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom, is sufficient to warrant a verdict for the plaintiff;" (Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Benedix, 206 Ill. 362; Illinois Central Railroad Co. v. Swift, 213 id. 307); and whether there is "in this record any evidence which, with the inferences that the jury may justifiably draw therefrom, is sufficient to support a verdict for plaintiff." Chicago City Railway Co. v. Bennett, 214 Ill. 26.