266 rupt; at leasG no shorter term of limitation should hy construction beiplacecJ upon that subdivision. It would be am anomalous result if a fraudulent transfer w;e:re voidablehy the assignee for bankrupt who commitsix months -prior to, ted the ;frl\ud !should; stand acquitted and obtain his discharge under ;' any shorter period Qf My conclusion is that the governed by flubdivision 9, and by no sho.rter limit/lotionthanjhe, six prescribed by section 5l29inana.logous cases, anClthlJ,Uhe demurrer be overruled and the case referred ,back to the register to take proofs upon the specifioations. e.: ,:
I\.i
lIi:te
'
and another.
pou'rt, J). Maine. May, 1881.) L B.umnil"rbtl.....Bu'V¢HBR. " ,' their testified that Qeen engaged in selling butcherll% and farming some, ,and that the firm 'amounted fr'om $2,o,odto $3,000, or thereabouts; per year. Held, " that Vilai'tllat o(b'titohers. 2.,iSiQ.....ri:IhADESi¥rAN. , ;)' , : bankrupt act a butchllrisa tradesmalj.,
to
'lJ. SAliE--BQ9]{S, .)
OF THE BANKRUPT.,
Whex:e ll,re tliadeSII\en an4keep no books of accounts, they are not' entitled to Ii ,d\scbarke under, tlie'bankrupt law. ' . , .' , . f' ' .. . . .
4.
Where the statements'mad'e bY'8uch bankrupt8, at It hearing before the court., \"4ry greatly from' their furmer ones, made. before the register, in that they .are w.'Vorable themselves, held, in view of a change the <jOl1rse of their' case was mea'nwhile, their original statements must be , taken 'to be the mO're"trustworthy, . 'I,
In ]3ankruptcy. Henry L.M,itchell. f9r .gankrupt. . D.lladlock. for ,J.Thedischarge of these bankrupts is opposed on .the that they, tradesmel:)J did not keep prope;rbook,s of a,ccount. These bankrupts are brotqers, who, for ,nearly 2.0 years prior to their petition in resided on :a farm in Verona, in this but Qarried on the farm todistrict. They had/separate gether,andwere also engaged in the business of buying, selling, ltnd slaughtering cattle and .other s,tock. No accounts were kept of their receipts or expenditures.. Each;used from the farm produce. and from
IN RE BASSETT.
sales of stock, ae needed, but no account was kept by either, party of the sums thus appropriated, or of their purchases and Most of theit purchase!; were paid for at the time, either in cash or'by their joint notes, not using any firm names; and at the time of filing their petition to be declared bankrupts they w thus jointly indebted re for over $3,700, nearly the whole of which was for cattle, sheep,and other stock, and they were entirely without assets. It isclaittled that, by reason of their businessl1s butchers, they were tradesmen within the bankrupt act. , The bankrupts were examined before the register. rhesEl exami· nations are the only evidence produced 'against them. Nehemiah,in answer to interrogatory 1, which was, "What business transactions were you engaged 'in during the years 1876 and 1877'1" says: "Buying and' selling cattle, butchering, and farming, some.'; tn reply to second hlterrogator.y, he gives the namesofvariollBparties fl"O,ni whom they purchased stock in 1877, with:the iimounts paid the'm, aggregating $1,257, and admits tl1atthdy also purchased othe'r' stock that year from the same, a,s:well other, parties, butis unlib1e to give the amount of such , J; R.' Bassett, in answer to rogatory 85, says "the amountiM their firm busineggwas$2,OOO to ' $3,000 per year, or thereabouts, for the last two or three years they wei"e together." The firm also bought and sMd c:ittle'on the foot, and were engaged in shipping eggs to J;3oston, and for oneoi two in catching fish in the Penobscot river; near their farm. ' The meat from the animals slaughtered by them was usually sold totbe keepers in Bucbport, and other places in that vicinity. At times considerable quantities were sent to Bost9n for sale, frequentljresuiting in a loss. At the hearing before me the bankrupts Were again examined, and they then insisted they were farmers; that the trading in stock by them, and their business as butchers, were merely casual and occasional the purchases being made for th,e.p.urpose of having the stock consume the, hay product on the farm, and, after by slaughtering and disfattening them, convert them into posing of the product; and that their purchases thus made were only from $500 to $l,OOO.per year, or, to use J. R. Bassett's language, "We were farmers, and once in a while would buy stockancl fatten them to kill." The explanation thus given by them, after the had arisen as to the nature and extent, of their business, is inconsistent with these examinations, and the court must, therefore, rely on their original stateIJ?-ont, as being in all prohabilitythe .most trustworthy;
FEDERAL
especially, confirmed as it is by the amount" of their joint liabilities set forth in their schedules. The case of Cote, 2 Low. 872, is relied upon as requiring the court to hold that these bankrupts are not to be deemed" tradesmen within the meaning of the bankrnpt act. Cote was a farmer, and""""'" . "Several times in each year visited Canada, purchasing horses, cattle; and s.ometimes hay for use on his farm, and partly for sale. His dealings were for cash. There was no evidence that his failure was connected with his buying and selling. There was some conflict as to the amount of his dealings."
The present case is by no meanij a parallel one. Here, the whole amount of the joint indebtment of the bankrupts is on account of their purchases of stock, and it is a large sum for this class of debtors to be owing in this district. The business thus transacted by them must have been at least $2,500 per year, which was without doubt six or eight times more than the value of their farm products. Considering, therefore, that by reason of their thus carrying on the butchery and stock business they have thus become so deeply involved, and that if they had not followed this business so extensively they would not have contracted these debts, and that their business was so conducted for the profits which were expected by the bankrupts to be realized therefrom it must be manifest that this had but little connection with their farming operations. The farming was secondary and merely incidental. Their stock trading and butchering occupied the most of their time, involved much larger receipts and disbursements, and was in fact the principal occupation of the bankrupts and the cause of their insolvency. In Boston Daily Advertiser, of May 26, 1881, is found a report of the case of In re Kimball, decided by Lowell, J., Mass. Cir. Court, May 25th. This was a petition for a reversal of a decree of Nelson, J., granting a discharge to the bankrupt. " The bankrupt was a teamster, owning many horses and carts, and engaged for years extensively in this business. When it became slack, he took to supplying certain friends and neighbors with hay and straw. He did this to keep his horses and carts employed, and when he sold at wholesale, he charged only above the cost to pay his usual charges for teaming. He alsu sold sometimes at retail.
It was ruled, in the district court, that he WR$ not a trader under the bankrupt act, and this decision was affirmed by the circuit judge, upon the ground that the business of the bankrupt was that of R teamster, and his dealing in hay and straw, although to a large amount in some years, was, in fact, prosecuted by him in connection with and as a portion of his business as a teamster,. in furnishing
· ANDREWS' t). CROSS,
269
employment for his teams when not otherwise .at wo:.:k. The present case is, therefore, quite different from Kimball's, as the .chief occupation of these bankrupts was in stock trading and slaughtering the cattle, and their farming was, in comparison, of but little moment. In Cote's Case, it is conceded by the court that a butcher ordiuarily would be deemed a tradesman within the bankmpt act; and as it is not claimed that these bankrupts kept any books of account other than small pocket diaries, which afforded no information as to their affairs, the court is, for this cause, compelled to deny them their discharge, without passing upon oth6r objections which are made by the opposing creditor.
ANDREWS
and others v.
CROSS.
(Oircuit Oourt, N. D. New York. June 1,1881.) 1. RE-lBsUE No.4,372-DRIVEN WELLS-VALIDITY. Re-isued letters patent No. 4,372, granted May 9,1871, to Nelson W. for improvement in process in constructing artesian wells, heli}" valid. 2. CLAD!: - CoNSTRUCTION- PROCESS·-NoVEL ELEMENT-NoN-FLoWING WELLNEW PRINCIPLE-FLoWING WELL.
The claim of the patent, to-wit, "the process of· constructing wells by driving or forcing aD instrument Into the ground until it is projected into the water, without removing the earth upwards, as it is in boring, substantially as herein described," held, to be a claim to a process. The novel element in the process consists in driving a tube tightly into the earth, without removing the earth upwards, to serve as a well-pit, and attaching thereto (in a non-flowing well) a pump, so that the process puts ,to practical use the new principle of forcing the water, in the water-bearing strata of the earth, from the earth into a well-pit, by the use of artificial power .applied to create a vacuum in the waterbearing strata ofthe earth, and, at the same time, in the well-pit. In a flowing well, to make the hole by displacement, and insert the tube and have the water flow, develops the process. 3. NON-FLOWING WELL-PROCESS-INFRINGEMENT.
In a non-flowing driven well, the use, to procure water, OJ a pump IS a of the process, and an infringement, although the person using the well and the pump and the process may not be the person who caused the rod to be driven, or the hole to be made, or the tube to be inserted, or the pump to be attached. 4. INVENTOR-SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLE-OMISSION IN SPECIFICATION.
An inventor may be ignorant of the scientific or phyFical principle upon which his process acts, or may think he knows it and yet be uncertain, or he may be confident as to what it is and yet others may think differcntly, and h" may, through accident or design, omit to set it forth in the application: yet if he sets forth 'the process or mode of operation which ends in the result, and the means fol' working out the process and mode of operation, and if in such description the thing is so set forth that it can be reoroduced, such omission will not ":liate the patent.