Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/192

 18C FEDEBAI» EEPOETBR. �one, and if the value of the property held under the àttacH- ments and executions "were of no greater value than the amount of the earlier executions, and was at the time understood by the debtors- and these defendants to be of no greater value than that amount, there would be great force in the argument, and it would be necessary to examine •with care the propositions of fact and of law on which it is based. The property at the sheriff 's sale brought but little more than the amount of those earlier executions, The net prûceeds were less than that amount. But I am satisfied by the testimony that the property was in fact worth more than eni>ugh to satisfy those executions, and must bave been so consïdered both by the debtors and by these defendants. In their answers, which were, of course, after the sale, the de- fendants say that the value of the goods did not exceed $2,600. They sold for $1,571.34, exclusive of some sewing machines, which appear to have been classed as fixtures. They say nothing of the value of the fixtures, which ,including the sewing machines, sold for $692.27. It may very properly be assumed that the defendants would not, in their answers, give values at aU above what they understood the property to be worth at the time of the offers for judgment, The testi- timony of the witnesses also shows that the value of the goods eonsiderably ' exceeded what they brought ; and, al- though they were goods whose value, as understood by the parties, ought, perhaps, to be considered as subject to diminu- tion by the effect of a forced sale at auction under execution, yet, even making ail due allowance for this consideration, I am satisfied that the parties understood and supposed ihat they would bring more than enough to satisfy the earlier exe- cutions, and that an intent to give and receive a preference over the creditors generally was at least part of the purpose with which the offers of judgment were made, and therefore that the plaintiff is entitled to recover. Although the de- fendants and the bankrupts would have been competent wit- nesses on the question of the actual intent with which the offers were made and received, they were not examined ou ����