Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/311

 MACK ». m'daniel. 297 �law and Hs creditors shall treat him în the same manner thata solventmorchantdoing business regularly as merchants usually do would be treated. He cannof repudiate the duties and obligations imposed on him as a debtor and merchant, and at the same time claim the legal rights accorded to a debtor who discharges, or is 'willing or able to discharge, his obligations to his creditors. �While the single fact of insolvency of a merchant is not ground of attachment, there certainly is nothing in the law or Sound public policy to encourage insolvent men to conduct a commercial business where it is obvious that such business can only be carried on at the expense of unsuspecting ôr vic- timized creditors. If an insolvent man will conduct business as a merchant he cannot, on any pretext, remove a material part of his property out of the state without rendering him- self liable to the process of attachment. An insolvent debtor may make a bona fide sale of ail or any portion of his prop- erty within the state, but when he sends a material portion of his property out of the state for sale or on speculation for his own account, he renders himself obnoxious to process under this statute. Insolvent merchants have no greater privileges under this statute than any other insolvent debtor. Every debtor who removes his property or a material part of it out of the state, not leaving enough to satisfy the claims of his creditors, is within the statute, whether he be a merchant, farmer, or lawyer, and whether the property so removed be cotton, cattle, horses, or any other kind of movable property. And the mode in which the debtor acquired the property can make no difference. Nor is the motive for the removal ma- terial. The law does not require that the removal shaU b& made with a fraudulent intent or for a fraudulent purpose. There is nothing unreasonable or harsh in this rule, for aa insolvent man has no legal or moral right to insist on the priv- ilege of putting bis diminished and insuffîcient assets to the hazards of shipment beyond the state, when it was obvious ail risks incident to such action have to be taken and borne by bis creditors. �No general rule of interpretation can be framed applicable ����