Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/48

 34 FEDERAL REPORTER. �chan(3is6 accouut, and ûo relief is asked because of the alle- gation of coercion of the wife. It might afford her a ground for relief, and she is made a defendant, as are her children ; for what purpose it does not appear, unless to enable them to file a cross-bill to recover their alleged dower and home- stead rights. But no relief is asked against them ; tbey bave not appeared, and no process bas brought them here. The case must, therefore, be determined alone as between the plaintiff and the defendant, Fargason. �Mr. Spence, in treating of this and the kindred maxim that "he who asks equitymust c?oequity,"gives some curions illus- trations of its application in anoient times, when the chan- cellor, as a condition precedent tp giving the plaintiff relief, would require him to ask pardon of the defendant, to withdraw slanderous words, to be dutiful to bis parent or uncle, and in one case to publicly on bis knees ask forgiveness of the defend- ant ; ail required because of some depraved conduct by the plaintiff. But even in these cases the wrong redressed was to the defendant and not a third party, and Mr. Spence says they are cited, not as precedents, but curiosities of the law. 1 Spence Eq. Jur. 424, and note. �The cases cited by the learned counsel for the defendant ail show that the plaintiff was seeking advantage of or relief from the bad conduct with which he was himself, charged. Creath v. Sims, 5 How. 192; Wheeler v. Sage, 1 Wall. 527; Bleakeley's Appeal, 66 Pa. St. 191. �The case of Wheeler v. Sage, supra, so much relied on in argument, was a case where the plaintiffs had been disap- pointed in expected profits of a fraudulent transaction by the desertion of their confederate, whose greed induced him to take the whole for himself. Eelief was refused, so far as the doctrine now under consideration was applied, because, to have given them relief would bave been to sanction the nefarious transaction in the court. No such resuit will ensua in this case. �Demurrer overruled. ����