Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/721

 IN EE MICHEL. 709 �order to secure its safety, and not for the parties, and the orders of the court in that respect must be strictly observed, unless modified by the court itself. But the parties consent- ing were a small part only of the parties in interest ; that is, the whole body of creditors for whose protection the order was made. Therefore, so long as the sheriff held the money in violation and contempt of the order of the court, he could give no party to the cause any right to it whatever. So far as the parties in this cause are concerned, who had notice of the facts, they could take no greater right in the money than they -would have been able to take if the order had been obeyed and the money had been deposited in the trust com- pany, subject to the order of the court. Nor did the final order in composition operate of its own force, and without a further order of the court, to place at the disposition of the bankrupts money belonging to their estate held by the sheriff, subject to the order of the court. �A final order in composition is not a final disposition of the proceeding in bankruptcy. The case in bankruptcy is still pending, and the power of the court continues to stay the proceedings of creditors in suits pending against the bankrupts so long as the composition is unpaid, (In re Bagley, 19 N. B. E. 73; McGehee v. Hentz, Id. 139 ;) and a conclusive answer to this claim is that the bankrupts themselves could not, without an order of the court, have possessed themselves of the money and paid it in satisfaction of the lien of this creditor, if he had a valid lien by bis attachment. It is true that the terms of the composition were such that, if the com- position agreement is performed, the lien of an attachment, less than four months old at the time of the commencement of these proceedings, will remain, and this petitioner will be entitled to the money. And, as things stood when the sheriff paid over the money, it is very probable that upon appli- cation to the court the money so subject to the order of the court would have been applied to the payment of the petitioner's claim, Although it would be within the power and discretion of the court to stay petitioner's proceedings until it was ascertained whether the composition agreement ��� �