Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/917

 IN KE FELTEB. 905 �report should not be confirmed; and the assignee, for the cred- itor to show cause why it should not be reversed, and a hear- ing had by the court upon the evidence taken in the case. As there seemed to be a misundestanding between the re- spective counsel in regard to the oral agreement entered into before the register, — on the one side insisting that it was the intention of the parties that the decision of the register should be final, and the other, that it was to be interlocutory and subject to review by the court, — I deemed it proper to take the latter view and give the parties a rehear- ing upon the testimony. I was moved to this course by sev- eral considerations : �(1) Because the stipulation or agreement was oral, and not reduced to ■writing and signed by the counsel ; (2) because its meaning, as stated by the register, was neither deflnite nor clear ; (3) because the register re- ported in favor of the whole claim as proved, although the evidence was undoubted that at least one of the notes proved against the estate, to-wit, the note of Chase & Locke for $225, and protest fees and interest, for the payment of whioh the bankrupts wpre, secondarily liable, had been paid in full by the makers and ought to have been deducted ; and (4) because of the wide discrepancy whlch appeared upon. the face of the proceedings In bankruptcy between the amount of the proof of claim excepted to and a former proof of claim filed by the said Torrens, as one of the petition- ing creditors, on the third day of July, 1877, against the said bankrupts. �After an examination of the testimony and consideration of the argument of counsel, I have reacbed the conclusion that I am not warranted in reversing the decision of the register, except as to the amount of the Chase & Locke note. There were, doubtless, circumstances of suspicion growing out of the dealings of the crediter and the bankrupts sufS- cient to justify the assignee in petitioning to have the claim expunged. One of these was the mutilation by the bankrupts of their books of account, which embraced the record of the dealings of the parties. If there had been evidence in any- wise Connecting the crediter with the fact Of this mutilation, or with a knowledge of it, I should have been most reluctant to recognize the justice and truth of bis claim; but the weight of the testimony fails to fasten upon him the cpspon- sibility of the act, or any connivance with the guilty parties who perpetrated it. ��� �