Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/776

 768 FEDERAL REPORTER. �H, 401, where the insurance wasf 600. and the plaintiff swore to a loBS of $1,000. A referee found that the insured believed himself to have lost $600, but not $1,000, and that bis motive for the falsehood probably was to obtain a epeedy settlement. Two of the three learned judges heid that this was an attempt at fraud nnder a clause exactly like that now in question. With unfeigned respect for the opinion of a very able and learned court, I think they permitted an abhorrence of falsehood to induce them to give to the word "fraud" a meaning beyond its true and legal meaning. I am unable to see that it is a fraud to induce one to pay a just debt by immoral means. False- hood is bad, but ro is injustice, and it is not just to deprive a perjurer of his property merely because he is a perjurer. "It is not indictable, " says Mr. Bishop, "to induce one, by lying representations, to pay a debt he justly owes, because he is not thereby legally injured." Bishop Crim. Law, § 525. That is, because fraud imports an injury, and perjury does not. There must be judgment on the verdict. ���Baetlett, Eeid & Co. v. Teah and others. �{/Jircuit Court, H. D. Arkansas. , 1880.) �MOBTQAGE — SpBCIFIC LiEN — EQUITABLE TiTLE OF GrBAÎITOH. — A fflOrt- �gage, or deed of trust in the nature of a mortgage, creates a specifie lien, and is, in eiïect, a security for a debt, and not an absolute conveyance of the property. The equitable title remains in the grantor, and may be «old or encumbered by him, or aeized and sold by liis creditors, subject to the prior lien of the mortgage or deed of trust. �ASSIGIÎMENT FOK BenBPIT OP CRBDITOHS— AbSOLUTE TITI/E Passed. — A �Toluntary assignment of property by a debtor, foi the beneflt of liis cred- itors, does not operate by way of security for the debts, nor create a lien on the property, but passes the absolute title, legal and equitable, to the assignee, for the purpose of raising a fund to pay debts; and, as against the assignee and those holding under him, the debtor has no estate or interest in the property, legal or equitable, whlch he can con- vey or encumber, or which his creditors can seize, or sell, or establish a lien upon, until the purposes of the trust are satisfled. ��� �