Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/683

 676 FEDERAL REPORTER.' �plicable merely because it and the amendments were not con- currently enacted. This is the resuit of well-settled princi- ples of construction. �2. That a discharge by operation of an executed composi- tion, and by a special order of the court, is the resuit of dis- tinct proceedings, under different Systems of bankruptcj, and that, therefore, the act alleged in the exception is no bar to an order discharging the bankrupt. �It is scarcely necessary to repeat what bas been already Baid, that the bankrupt law does not provide "distinct Sys- tems" for the discharge of a bankrupt, but only alternative methods of attaining that resuit, in the same bankruptcy pro- ceeding. The present case exemplifies this. If the composi- tion had been adopted, the objects of the act having been effectuated, the bankruptcy proceedings would bave ended at that "stage;" as it failed, they bave gone on regularly, with- out renewal or interruption, to their present "stage." �It is said, however, that anything done at any time, in composition proceedings, cannot be called "any stage in the proceedings resulting in a decree for a discharge, " and hence that improper influence exerted to effect a composition can- not constitute the ground of an objection to a discharge by the court. �The error is in assuming that the collective relation between the bankrupt and a crediter must have reference to Bome matter or thing required to be done as conducive to the bankrupt 's discharge by the court. But this limitation of the effect of the twenty-ninth section of the act does not accord with its terms or its reason. It is broad enough to cover every act of the bankrupt, of the defined character, touching any of the bankruptcy proceedings f rom their beginning, and it is intended to induce good faith on bis part throughout their entire course. The benefits of the law are for those only who pursue them fairly, according to its spirit and in- tent. �But, even in the narrow sense ascribed to the words of the Bection, the conclusion from it is unwarranted. A "compo- eition proceeding " is "a stage in the proceedings resulting in ����