Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/198

 CKANB P. PENNT. 191 �of any indebtedness from the company to Mrs. Penny ; but the proofs on this point do not admit of any doubt as to the fact that in the years 1875 and 1876 she loaned to the cor- poration, in three several sums, $5,000, the proceeds of the sale of her house in Brooklyn. Deposits in the company's bank account, substantially correspoûding in time and amount with the alleged loans and entries in the books of the corpo- ration, corroborate her testimony to the fact. Slight dis- crepancies between the checks received from the purchaser and the amounts testified to by her as received, and between the actual snms received by her and her affidavit as to the amounts received, are not such differences as ought to bë considered as impeaching her truthfulness. Such mistakes are of frequent occurrence, even vyith the most truthful persons. �It is insisted, however, that the loan stood merely as an open account for money borrowed; that no notes of the com- pany were given for the loans at the times they vrere made ; that shortly before the three suits were commenced a plan was formed between Mr. Penny, who was seeretary and treasurer of the company, and his wife, to obtain for her an unlawful preference over the other creditors; and in pur- euance of this plan, andto facilitate it, he, as treasurer, issued to her the notes sued on, dating them back to the times of the several loans, and making them respectively of the amounts not exceeding $2,000 each, so that they might be within the jurisdiction of the marine court of the city of New York, in whieh court judgment can be obtained in case of default in six days after service of the summons; that in further pursuance of this fraudulent scheme it was arranged that service of the summonses should be made on Mr. Penny, and that the fact of service should be concealed from the other officers of the company, and so that default should be taken secretly and in fraud of the company ; that this plan was carried out and the judgments were so obtained by default, and the executions were issued without any knowledge on the part of the stockholders, creditors or officers of the company, flxoept Mr. Penny. If ail this were proved the company ����