INDORSER, contracts. The person who makes an indorsement.

2. The indorser of a bill of exchange, or other negotiable paper, by his indorsement undertakes to be responsible to the holder for the amount of the bill or note, if the latter shall make a legal demand from the payer, and, in default of payment, give proper notice thereof to the indorser. But the indorser may make his indorsement conditional, which will operate as a transfer of the bill, if the condition be performed; or he may make it qualified, so that he shall not be responsible on non-payment by the payer. Chitty on Bills, 179,180.

3. To make an indorser liable on his indorsement, the instrument must be commercial paper, for the indorsement of a bond or single bill.will not, per se, create a responsibility. 13 Serg. & Rawle, 311. But see Treval v. Fitch, 5 Whart. 325; Hopkins v. Cumberland Valley R. R. Co., 3 Watts & Serg. 410.

4. When there are several indorsers, the. first in point of time is generally, but not always, first-responsible; there may be circumstances which may cast the responsibility, in the first place, as between them, on a subsequent indorsee. 5 Munf. R. 252.

INDUCEMENT, pleading. The statement of matter which is introductory to the principal subject of the declaration or plea, &c., but which is necessary to explain and elucidate it; such matter as is not introductory to or necessary to elucidate the substance or gist of the declaration or plea, &c. nor is collaterally applicable to it, not being inducement but surplusage. Inducement or conveyance, which. are synonymous terms, is in the nature of a preamble to an act of assembly, and leads to the Principal subject of the declaration or plea, &c. the same as that does to the purview or providing clause of the act. For instance, in an action for a nuisance to property in the possession of the plaintiff, the circumstance of his being possessed of the property should be stated as inducement, or byway of introduction to the mention of the nuisance. Lawes, Pl. 66, 67; 1 Chit. Pl. 292; Steph. Pl. 257; 14 Vin. Ab. 405; 20 Id. 845; Bac. Ab. Pleas. &c. I 2.

INDUCEMENT, contracts, evidence. The moving cause of an action.

2. In contracts, the benefit.which the obligor is to receive is the inducement to making them. Vide Cause; Consideration.

3. When a person is charged with a crime, he is sometimes induced to make confessions by the flattery of hope, or the torture of fear. When such confessions are made in consequence of promises or threats by a person in authority, they cannot be received in evidence. In England a distinction has been made between temporal and spiritual inducements; confessions made under the former are not receivable in evidence, while the latter may be admitted. Joy on Conf. ss. 1 and 4.

INDUCLAE LEGALES, Scotch law. The days between the citation of the defendant, and the day of appearance. Bell's Scotch Law Dict. h. t. The days between the test and the return day of the writ.

INDUCTION, eccles. law. The giving a clerk, instituted to a benefice, the actual possession of its temporalties, in the nature of livery of seisin. Ayl. Parerg. 299.

INDUTLGENCE. A favor granted.

2. It is a general rule that where a creditor gives .indulgence, by entering into a binding contract with a principal debtor, by which the surety is or may be damnified, such surety is discharged, because the creditor has put it out of his power to enforce immediate payment; when the surety would have a right to require him to do so. 6 Dow, P. C. 238; 3 Meriv. 272; Bac. Ab. Oblig. D; and see Giving Time.

3. But mere inaction by the creditor, if he do not deprive himself of the right to sue the principal, does not in general discharge the surety. See Forbearance.