Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/84

 70 FEDERAL REPORTER. �composition was set aside. Out of the proceeds of the stock Thomas Pomeroy claims to be paid his wages. To the regis, ter's report against the allowance of the daim, Pomeroy haa filed exceptions. The register makes a very strong, and per- haps unanswerahie, argument to show that as the claim did not exist at the time the petition in bankruptcy was filed, it is not provable as an ordinary debt against the estate of the bankrupt. But if this be so, there is only the stronger reason for giving the claim a preference; otherwise a most meritori- ous claimant will receive nothing out of the bankrupt's estate. The register concedes the hardship of rejecting the claim in toto, but he was unable to see any way for the relief of the claimant, especially in view of the decision in In re Bright- man, 18 B. E. 566. But that case, I think, is readily dis- tinguîshable from the present one. There the claim was for the priee of goods sold to the bankrupts while they were doing business during the continuance of a composition which was afterwards set aside. " These new goods had been disposed of by the bankrupts, and there was nothing to show for them. The vendors, nevertheless, claimed to be paid out qf the bank- rupts' original assets, in fuU and in preference to the old creditors. The point actually decided was that they were not entitled to such preference. Judge Lowell, in remarking upon the absence of the elements to constitute an estoppel against the old creditors, said : "None of the assets were acquired in the new trade." �But here the labor of the claimant has gone into the assets of the bankrupt, and this with the implied consent of the general creditors. Shall they, then, keep the fruits of his labor without rendering any equivalent therefor? The cred- itors voluntarily left the assets in Wells' hands, and it must be presumed that they intended that he should operate his glass-works. Perhaps it would be going too far to say that they held him out as capable of contraeting debts generally; but, to the extent of the wages of labor necessaryto carry on his business, I think the creditors must be held to have given him a license to contract tlebts and charge the assets with the payment of such wages. ����