Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/393

 3T8 FEDERAL REPORTER. �fraudaient entries therein, specially with reference to the alleged shipmentB of Beadles, Wood & Co., above referred to. But I fail to find any evidence sufficient to sustain either of these charges. Mr. Haas swears to the correetness of the entries; no one contradicts him; and the opposing ereditora did not procure the testimony of either Harmon or any member of the firm of Beadles, Wood & Co., by •whom they could most easily have proved the falsity of these entries, if fictitious. AU the bankrupts' books and papers legally passed into the custody of their voluntary assignee ; some were con- fessedly lost in subsequent legal proceedings without their fault; and I do not find any evidence of the firm's retention of any of them, or of negligence in keeping or tuming them over. �The eighth objection charges fraudulent payments, gifts, and trans- feis, to the amount of $74,000, to Lagowitz & Co. These payments are alleged to have been made by checks, which were not put in evi- dence, and were proved only by the very imperfect evidence of the stubs of the check-book, which bore on each the word "exchange," or "exch." Mr. Haas testified that they were all given in exchange for checka or cash to the same amount received by Lagowitz & Co. A bundle of such checks of Lagowitz & Co. was produced on the hearing and offered for examination. I find many of them noted on the deposit side of the check-book, extending down to near the time of failure. This charge is not, therefore, sustained. Nor do I find any evidence of any fraudulent payment to Loeb & Co., as further charged in this same objection ; nor that the claims proved by Lagowitz & Co. and by L. Haas are either false or fictitious, as charged by the eleventh objection. �The twelfth objection alleges that the bankrupts did not keep proper books of account, but kept them so carelessly and incorrectly, 80 far as the bulk of their transactions are concerned, that said books are utterly incapable of explaining the manner in which their busi- ness was condncted ; that there is little connection between the cash- book, check-book, and bills-payable book ; that much money was received of which there is to trace, and that the bulk of the payments for bills payable from January 1, 1876, to April, 1876, when they failed, are inexplicable; that no stock-book was kept; that checks were drawn not traceable in the eash-book or elsewhere ; that it is impossible to balance the books, or ascertain from them a true state- ment or record as to what disposition the bankrupts made of their property between January and April, 1876. �The evidence shows that the books were kept by double eutry; ��� �