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exceed one-fourth of the total valuation of the aggregate amount of both estates, then such child, or his or her heirs, should receive no part of the estate of the testator.

On June 20, 1881, Thompson Wilcoxon and Cyinde Wilcoxon, his wife, executed a warranty deed conveying the Opera House and Post-office blocks to appellees. Appellant insists that he had no knowledge of the execution of this deed, and he continued to discharge his duties as manager of the affairs of the partnership. Upon the expiration of the lease, June 1, 1884, it was by mutual consent continued from year to year until the death of Thompson Wilcoxon, on December 17, 1887. On December 27, 1887, at a meeting of the heirs of Thompson Wilcoxon, appellant was apprised of the existence of the deed to appellees, and this he claims was his first information in regard to it. On December 30, 1887, Abigail M. Wilcoxon deeded to appellant the 480 acres of land in Stephenson county, reserving to herself a life estate in the same. Appellant continued to manage the opera house and the post-office property until March 1, 1888, when he refused to further act in such capacity, but he continued to occupy an office in the building.

January 24, 1889, appellant filed his bill in the circuit court of Stephenson county to set aside the deed by Thompson Wilcoxon and wife to appellees, dated June 20, 1881, and to annul the codicil to the will of Thompson Wilcoxon, which was executed January 3, 1881, and to set aside the probate thereof. On February 27, 1890, appellees filed the original bill in this suit, praying for a dissolution of the partnership and an accounting of the partnership funds. April 24, 1890, the appellant filed his demurrer to the bill. The case was by consent of parties continued from time to time, pending the determination of the suit of appellant to set aside the deed and the codicil to the will of Thompson Wilcoxon, which cause reached its final determination. in this court adversely to the appellant November 9, 1896. (See Wilcoxon v. Wilcoxon, 165 Ill. 454.) Appellant filed

his answer in this cause August 17, 1897, denying that complainants were entitled to the relief sought. To this answer the appellees filed replication on September 27, 1897. The matter was referred to the master to take and report proofs, with his findings, and to state an account, but before the master filed his report thereon appellees dismissed their bill March 6, 1899. On March 8, 1899, appellant filed his motion to set aside said order of dismissal, which motion was on March 29, 1899, denied by the court. January 29, 1900, the appellant filed his bill in the circuit court setting up the lease and partnership agreement and alleging various grounds of complaint, and praying for relief in the alternative. The prayer of this bill was as follows:

"That an account may be taken of all and every of said co-partnership dealings and transactions, and also an account of all of the moneys received from and paid out on account of said property, said indebtedness and the matters and things mentioned and enumerated in said co-partnership agreement and said lease, under and by virtue of said. agreement and said lease, by the several parties thereto; that said co-partnership may be dissolved; that said defendants may, as to the court shall seem most equitable and appropriate, either be decreed to pay complainant all moneys expended or appropriated by him or on his account for the benefit and improvement of said property and estate and in the erection and completion of said building therein mentioned together with reasonable and adequate compensation for his services and labors rendered and performed under said agreement and said lease, and all damages by him sustained by reason of said fraud and said violation of said agreement and said lease, together with legal interest on said moneys, or that they, said defendants, may be decreed and be declared to hold said property purchased and acquired by virtue of said deed as trustees, for the mutual and equal benefit of all the parties to said co-partnership agreement, and that they pay to complainant a one-fourth part

of the net proceeds of the rents, issues and profits of said property after the payment of all the expenses of managing and caring for said property, and that the complainant be declared to be entitled to a one-fourth interest in said property, and all the benefits, advantages and emoluments arising or growing out of said property, upon his contributing his pro rata share of the purchase money paid for said property and bearing his pro rata share of the expenses arising or growing out of the ownership, management and care of said property, which complainant is ready, willing, able and offers to do; that said defendants may be decreed to pay the complainant whatever may, upon the taking of said account, appear to be due him, complainant being ready and willing and able and offering to pay to the said defendants whatever shall, upon the taking of said account, appear to be due them; complainant offers to do any and all things that may to the court seem meet and just, and prays that pending the disposition and termination of the cause said defendants, and each of them, may be enjoined from selling, transferring, mortgaging or otherwise disposing of or encumbering said property described in said deed or any part thereof, and that the complainant may have such other and further or different relief in the premises as equity may require and to the court shall seem meet."

The relief prayed for in said cause was denied and the bill dismissed by the court on the ground of laches. The ruling of the circuit court in this regard was affirmed in this court on October 25, 1902. (See Wilcoxon v. Wilcoxon, 199 Ill. 244.) On December 26, 1902, at the instance of the appellant a writ of error issued from the Appellate Court for the Second District to review the order of the court dismissing the original bill herein on March 6, 1899, on motion of appellees and without the consent of the appellant. On October 23, 1903, the Appellate Court reversed the decree and remanded the cause for further proceedings, and on December 7, 1903, the cause was re

docketed in the circuit court. (See Wilcoxon v. Wilcoxon, 111 Ill. App. 90.) Thereupon appellant filed an amended answer and a cross-bill, to which a demurrer was afterwards sustained. On April 30, 1904, he filed an amended cross-bill, in which the relief prayed for is identical with that prayed for in his bill of January 29, 1900, except that instead of praying for an injunction, as in that bill, he prays for the appointment of a receiver. A comparison of the allegations of the bill of January 29, 1900, with those in appellant's amended cross-bill herein, shows that in all essential particulars they are identical in substance, in meaning and in language, except wherein the amended cross-bill recites legal proceedings which had not occurred at the time the bill was filed, January 29, 1900. On June 6, 1904, appellees filed a general and special demurrer to the amended cross-bill, which demurrer was sustained on June 29, 1904, and the amended cross-bill was dismissed for the want of equity. On December 7, 1904, appellees, by leave of the court, filed a supplemental bill, in which they show the filing by appellant of his bill of January 29, 1900, and the proceedings thereon, resulting in its dismissal and the affirmance by this court of the said decree of dismissal. show the writ of error proceedings in the Appellate Court to review the order of the circuit court in dismissing the original bill herein, and the re-docketing of this cause in the circuit court in pursuance of the remanding order of the Appellate Court. In fact, this supplemental bill shows substantially all the litigation between the parties hereto, up to the time of the filing of the amended cross-bill and its dismissal upon demurrer. Appellees allege in their said supplemental bill that the proceedings had on appellant's bill of January 29, 1900, in Wilcoxon v. Wilcoxon, 199 Ill. 244, amounted to an adjudication of the matter herein, and that the dismissal of the appellant's amended cross-bill was, in effect, an adjudication also. Appellees prayed that appellant be denied the relief or either alternative asked for in his

They

amended answer, and prayed for a dismissal of their original bill herein. Appellant answered said supplemental bill, denying that either of said proceedings amounted to an adjudication, and also questioned appellees' right to maintain the supplemental bill. A replication was filed to the answer and the issues as made up were referred to the master, who found the facts substantially as above stated, and who recommended, as conclusions of law, that the supplemental bill should be sustained. Appellees and appellant both objected to the master's report, and the objections were overruled and the court dismissed the original bill for want of equity, at appellant's costs.

The principal error insisted on by appellant in this court is, that the court erred in sustaining the supplemental bill and in dismissing the original bill and the amended crossbill of appellant.

H. T. WILCOXON, for appellant.

J. A. CRAIN, for appellees.

Mr. JUSTICE VICKERS delivered the opinion of the court:

This case is between the same parties and involves substantially the same matters that were litigated and determined in the case of Wilcoxon v. Wilcoxon, 199 Ill. 244. In that case Thomas Wilcoxon, appellant herein, filed an original bill against appellees herein, seeking to have himself adjudged the owner of a one-fourth interest in the Opera House block and the Post-office block, on the ground that appellees and appellant were partners at the time the title was conveyed to appellees by their father, and that the title so taken by appellees should be held to inure to the benefit of the four partners, or, in the alternative, appellant prayed that the court should decree that the taking of the deed in appellees' names, and their failure to record the same or otherwise give notice to appellant of such convey

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