Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/700

 683 FEDERAL REJPOKTER. �faith or collusion on his part being averred by the parties seeking to set aside the sale, and the fact appearing that he actually paid the priee bid, whieh is not alleged to have been inadequate. The allegation that Jordan Mott's'interest in the lands was worth $500,000 is not and cannot, consistently with other averments of the petition, be construed as an alle- gation that the iaterest of the assignee was of greater value than the priee paid. �It is claimed, however, that on the facts alleged in the petition the order of the court under which the sale was made was void on several grounds, and also that the sale was not made in conformity with the order, if that was valid. �The first objection to the order is that the court in the order of sale did not appoint the time of sale. The ninth section of the bankrupt act provided that ail sales should be "at such times and in such manner as should be ordered and appointed by the court in bankruptcy," It is argued that congress intended that the court should fix the day and hour at which the sale should take place. Such has not been the practical construction put upon the statute by the court, and in the many orders of sale made under that law none are referred to in which the day and hour of the sale were fixed by the court. The making of an order directing the assignee to sell, is ordering the time of sale within the meaning of the statute. The order amounts to a direction that the sale should be made at once, with reasonable diligence, and this is a practical and sufficient complianee with the statute. The further objection — that the assignee, by adjourning the sale from the time first fixed, appointed the time of the sale, instead of the court, as required by the statute — is answered by the same suggestions. It is suggested, indeed, in the argument, that there is no sufficient evidence that the sale was regularly adjourned to the eleventh of September, when it was actually made. It does, however, appear that such an adjournment was advertised in the newspaperas havingbeen made by the assignee. This, together with the general pre- sumption that a public officer does his duty, is, I think, suf - ��� �