Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/437

 JUDSON V. THE COURIER CO. 423 �him insolvent, and had not preesed him for payment. Shortly after, October 16, 1877, McCune, the president of the Company, received from Queen a letter of that date from Hillsboro, Illinois, stating that he had been compelled to give to E. D. Calvin, bis superintendent, andothers of his leading employes, a chattel mortgage on biscircus property for $13,000; that he hoped MeCune would not join them in legal proeeedings, and assuring him that h'e would be paid. This mortgage was executed at Shelbyville, Illinois, on October 15, 1877, and was given to secure six promissory notes to Calvin and his asso- ciates, amounting together to $13,046.71, payable in 60 days. The mortgage was recorded in Shelby county, Illinois, October 15th, and at St. Louis October 23d. The letter to McCune did not have the effect intended, as McCune immediately went west, whither the circus was traveling, and arrived at St. Louis about the same tiine with the circus, shortly after the twentieth of October. In Queen's ab- sence McCune immediaitely caused suit to be brought against him by the present defendant in St. Louis, and all the circus property to be attached by the sheriff. �Shortly thereafter he learned that on the ninth of October Queen had executed at Indianapolis, Indiana, a bill of sale of all the circus and menagerie property to James How, of Brooklyn, New York, and that How had given back an agreement of the same date to resell the same property to Queen upon payment of six notes, amounting to- gether to $35,000. The evidence showed that this transaction was designed as security for an old debt of $25,000, and for $10,000 additional, which Queeir hoped to get from How to siip^ly his present needs, but which How afterwards declined to fumish, The agree- ment of resale provided that' Queen was to maintain and exhibit the show as before, which he accordingly did. This transaction, I hold, had the effect only of an unrecorded mortgage. �By assignment, dated October 17, 1877, How assigned all his claim to Eobert C. Deniger, of New York, who seems to have held some- what confidential relations with both How and Queen, and Deniger was now in St. Louis. The season for exhibitions was at its close; it was necessary to provide winter quarters for the animais, and Bome $3,300 was owing for wages to the minor employes of the cir- cus. To pay these wages, and to remove and provide for the menag- erie over winter, about $10,000 was required. �Under these circumstances, Detiiger elaiming to be the owner of the property by yirtue of the bill of sale to How, and Calvin and the defendant elaiming liens by the subsequent mortgage and attach- ��� �