Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/774

 762 FEDERAL REPORTER. �ered, and was informed that Cohen had never been served with procesB in the suit, and had been kept in ignorance of the proceedings. Mr. Crittenden thereupon dptermined to mote in the nineteenth court that he be substituted as attor- ney for Cohen, a,ud that the judgment be Set aside. The motion was accordingly made on affidavits, alleging in sub- stance what bas been proved in this cause, and narrated in this opinion. The motion was opposed by Mr. Naphtaly, as- sisted by Mr. Sharp, who fumished him with an afBdavit, and gave, him "ail the co-operation in his power that the judg- ment should stand." Mr. Sharp states that his reaBon> or one of his reasons-, for this, was that the rights of other per- sons were concerned, When asked to whom he referred, he replied that he referred to Mr. Lewis. �The motion to set aside the judgment was denied by the court. The «motion to substitute bas never been deeided. On the twenty-sixth day of April, 1878, a voluntary petition in bankruptcy was filed by Cohen and Schoenfeld, under which the firm was adjudicated bankrupt. Mr. Shainwald wa» subsequently appointed assignee, and the present suit was commenced. �No comment is necessary upon the facts related in the foregoing narrative. They exhibit as flagrant a case of gross and deliberatefraud upon creditors as can be well imagined. The fraud derives an additional heinousness from the fact that a court of justice was made the instrument of its perpe- tration by its own ofificers, whose highest professional duty was to demean themselves uprightly before it, and to scrupu- lously abstain from ail attempts to deceive or impose upon it. The court was not only induoed by falsehood and deceit to render judgment for the plaintiff in a collusive suit, brought on fictitious demands, but it was prevented from correcting its error by the strenuous opposition of both the attorneys, supported by their own affidavits. If practices like these are suffered to pass without exposure and rebuke, the legal pro- fession will rapidly decline in public esteem, the authority of the courts will be weakened, and even respect for the law itself, without which free institutions are impossible, will be ��� �