Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/725

 IN EE HYNDMA.N. Tl3 �interest be counted on any of the debts after adjudication, and the costs of administration, foreclosure suits, and other like expenses be deducted from the assets, he cannot be discharged. The learned counsel for the ereditors argues with great force that the estate must bear the cost of administra- tion, and that, in. estimating their value, a reasonable sum must be allowed for the costs of realizing on the assets, and that, while interest must stop on unsecured claims, the secured ereditors are entitled to interest till paid. He insists that it is a part" of the contract for security that reasonable costs of foreclosure çhall be fijst paid out of the proceeds, then the debt secured, and only the surplus to the debtor or his assignee. And he produees abundant authority for the proposition that secured ereditors, in an insolvency court, will generally be allowed interest and costs ou their debt to the day of pay- ment. He further insists that the bankrupt is a party to the proceedings, and may, by diligence and careful supervision, hasten the settlement ; and that it is his duty, if he ■wishes a discharge, to see to it that the assets realize in the hands of the assignee a sum sufficient for the purpose. �It seems to me that the whole argument is but another mode of saying that to entitle the bankrupt to a discharge the assets must pay 30 per centum, and not merely be equal in value to that amount, which we have already determined is not the rule we follow. But why should the bankrupt be, by such. construction, made to bear the penalty of possible mismanage- ment of the assets or shrinkage in values, or the deteriorating influences likely to follow litigation between the ereditors as ta their respective rights ? The law strips him of ail his property, commits its care to the ereditors and their assignee or repre- sentative, and he has no control over their action. They may by the best possible management realize the greatest possible results, or they may by mismanagement reduce- the sum for distribution to the lowest possible amount, or entirely con- sume the estate in litigation or eostly administration. They might do this for the very purpose of defeating a discharge. It is impossible to draw the Une between reasonable expend- itures and unreasonable expenditures, and no two cases would ����