Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/301

 GRAY V. NATIONAL STEAM-SSlP CO. 2^0 �parties •Weie distinct corporations, and that the obligation of the second company to pay the plaintiff's judgment arose out of an agreement by it, which accompanied thetransfer of the property, alleged to have occurired about the time the execu- tion was issued, to pay the debtB and liabilities of the first company, The bill in this case goes upon the view that there were two separate corporations, and a transfer of the prop- erty by the one to the other after the return of the execution, and not at all upon the ground that the one became the other, or that there was any identity of the tvro, or any continuance of the one under the name of the other, although the officers" and the officiais of the one became those of the other when the latter was formed. The faot of the entry on the registry, as to each ship, on the nineteerith of April, 1869, that tho ownership of it had been altered to the Steam-ship Company from the Navigation Company by the board's order of April 17, 1869, and that from the former date the former company was the registered owner, bas no bearing on the iights of the parties to this suit as respects the subjeot-matter of it. Whether the- board had any right, lirider the facts before it, to authorize the new registry is immaterial. It seems quite probable, from the papers, that the thing was done by mis- take. The secretary of the Steam-ship Company stated in his letter that the steamers were registered in the name of the Navigation Company, and that that company had been reconetituted under the name of the Steam-ship Company, and was in process of liquidation, and he requested that the steamers might be transferred to the Steam-ship Company. The meaning of the statement was that by the reconstitution the steamers had become the property of the Steam-ship Com- pany. This was a fact. The reconstitution was by the agreement of August 16, 1867, and acts done under it; and thereby, and by the delivery over of the steamers, they had become the property of the new company. The request merely was that the registry might be changed from the name of the old company to the name of the new company. With this letter were presented the certificates of the incorporation of the new company and of its change of name. The agree- v.7,no.3— 19 ��� �