The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918. Page: 718

                                
250 FEDERAL REPORTER

Miss., and Kennett, Mo., which it also operated. The plaintiff, who
was a stockholder in the Richmond Company and had formerly been
its general manager, was employed by the defendant as manager of
the two Richmond mills; his office being at Memphis. The operation
of the defendant's Memphis mill, under Schoettelkotte, and of the two
Richmond mills, under the plaintiff, were entirely separate; Schoettel-
kotte as manager of the Memphis mill having nothing whatever to do
with the plaintiff's management of the two Richmond mills.
During the last year of the lease, the plaintiff, at different times,
used large amounts of the defendant's funds, aggregating at least $25,-
000.00, which had been sent to him for carrying on the operations of
the Richmond mills, in the purchase of cotton futures, on margins,
through bucket shops at Memphis. These purchases resulted in heavy
loss. The plaintiff testified, however, that no part of these purchases
were made on his own account; and there was material evidence to
the effect that they were in fact made solely as advances to and on
the account of the Planters' Gin Company, a ginning company which
was under contract, in consideration of advances made, to furnish the
Richmond mills with the cotton seed which it ginned, and were hedges
intended to protect said Gin Company from losses on purchases of
spot cotton. Shortly before the expiration of the lease, the plaintiff
made a disclosure of this loss to the defendant's president. The na-
ture and extent of this disclosure is in dispute; but there was circum-
stantial evidence at least tending to show that the defendant's presi-
dent believed from the disclosure made and other circumstances that
the plaintiff had used the defendant's funds, at least in part, in specu-
lating in cotton on his own account; and that this belief was commu-
nicated to Schoettelkotte through the defendant's auditor and general
manager.
[5-8] The great weight of the evidence further shows that shortly
after this disclosure by the plaintiff, Schoettelkotte, in conversation
with Reynolds and Murphee at Chattanooga and Memphis, respective-
ly, used concerning the plaintiff substantially, if not literally, the lan-
guage set forth in the second and third counts of the declaration,
charging him with shortages, without material variance. While proof
of words different from those alleged, although equivalent or of simi-
lar import, is not sufficient (Dawson v. Holt, 11 Lea [79 Tenn.] 583,
592, 47 Am. Rep. 312; Roberts v. Lamb, 93 Tenn. 343, 345, 27 S. W.
668), it is sufficient if the words proven correspond substantially with
those alleged (Dawson v. Holt, 11 Lea [79 Tenn.] at page 592; Grand
Union Tea Co. v. Lord [4th Circ.] 231 Fed. 390, 393, 145 C. C. A. 384;
Newell, Slander & Libel [3d Ed.]  963, p. 977). And although that
portion of .the charge set forth in the Lhird count relating to the plain-
tiff's supposed confession was not proved substantially in the words
alleged, it was sufficient to prove enough of the language alleged to
constitute a cause of action. Roberts v. Lamb, 93 Tenn. at page 344,
27 S. W. 668; Massee v. Williams (6th Circ.) 207 Fed. 222, 233, 124
C. C. A. 492, and cases cited. The charge of shortage must, under
the pleadings, be taken as admittedly untrue. It was then a question
for the jury whether these charges as made, imputed to the plaintiff,