SECT.  I.]  JENKINS  V.  TUCKER.  263

iutention  that  auy  of  the  debts  contracted  by  the  defendant's  wife,  which
the  plaintiff  dischai^ged  after  her  death,  should  have  gone  to  the  jury :  but
as  the  counsel  for  the  defendant  thought  proper  to  demur  to  the  evidence,
the  judgment  on  the  demurrer  must  be  general.  They  ought  at  the  trial
to  have  contended  for  a  verdict ;  they  seem  to  me  to  have  taken  the  wrong
method  for  their  client.
I  think  there  was  a  sufficient  consideration  to  support  this  action  for  tlie
funeral  expenses,  though  there  was  neither  request  nor  assent  on  the  part
of  the  defendant,  for  the  plaintiff  acted  in  discharge  of  a  duty  which  the
defendant  was  under  a  strict  legal  necessity  of  himself  performing,  and
which  common  decency  required  at  his  hands ;  the  money,  therefore,  which
the  plaintiff  paid  on  this  account  was  paid  to  the  use  of  the  defendant.  A
father  also  seems  to  be  the  proper  person  to  interfere  in  giving  directions
for  his  daughter's  funeral,  in  the  absence  of  her  husband.  There  are  many
cases  of  this  sort,  where  a  person  having  paid  money  which  another  was  un-
der a  legal  obligation  to  pay,  though  without  his  knowledge  or  request,  may
maintain  an  action  to  recover  back  the  money  so  paid  ;  such  as  in  the  in-
stance of  goods  being  distrained  by  the  commissioners  of  the  land-tax,  if  a
neighbor  should  redeem  the  goods,  and  pay  the  tax  for  the  owner,  he  might
maintain  an  action  for  the  money  against  the  owner.
