Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/30

 .22 TSDBBAL BBPOBTBB. �• ■ �requested of the near relatives of the infant the appointment of a new guardian. His reasons were his age and growing infirmities, and his own business cares and perplexities; and the appointment was asked for and made ic accordauce with his request. The reasons were yalid and sufficienli, and the circumstances made it proper that the new guirdian should be appointed in Alabama, and I eannot doubt that if the defendant's testator had applied to the surrogate's court, of Eichmond county, for leave to resign his trust and to transfer the ward's estate to the duly appointed guardian in Alabama, his petition would have been granted. What would thus bave been approved as just and right if asked for, can now be justified as done for the bene&t of the ward. �Therefore, in any accounting to be had, the defendant's testator should be credited with his cash payment to the new guardian of $808.70. But beyond this the transaction re- ferred to as a settlement with and release of the defendant's testator by the new guardian neither purported to be, nor could, if so understood and intended by the parties, be a re- lease of the former guardian of his liability to account for the residue of the infant's estate with which he was charge- able. The new trustee merely gave a receipt for sundry eecurities, mostly worthless, which the defendant's testator tumed over to him. They were the remains of the invest- ments which had been made of the ward's property. But the original investments being in bank stock had been not suoh as the ward was, when of age, bound to accept, and by the changes of value eflfeoted by the war; and by the reinvest- ments made in consequence of the war and during the war the result was that the rest of the fund consisted of bonds of Bouthem cities and southern railroads, of little value. �It is too plain for argument, it seems to me, that a new guardian has no power to accept a transfer of such proper- lies as a full discharge of the former guardian's liability to account for and make good the moneys originally received. Buch an act would be a gross abuse of his trust by the new guardian. No court would authorize or justify it, and cer- tainly a guardian has no power, by virtue of his appointment. ��� �