Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/503

 4.8$ /EDEBAL BEPOBIER. �the Kansas City stock, began to depreciate the value or the goods. He claimed that he could not open the safe to enable the sheriff to examine and schedule the goods. He stated that the goods were of cheap quality and not valuable, and suggested to the sheriff to sell the whole stock in bulk. He several times suggested the same as to the sale of the safe and its contents, and the sheriff thinks he asked him if the safe and contents could not be sold without opening it. This was very strange conduct on the part of a debtor whose goods were about to be sold on execution, and it can only be explained upon the theory that here, as in Pittsburgh, it was intended to sell the goods under the execution for the benefit and advantage of Schwed & Newhouse. If such -was not the case, self-interest would have dic- tated to Newhouse to magnify rather than depreciate the value of the goods, and to use all means in his power to have them sold for the highest possible price. �Moreover, it appears from the testimony that the representations of Newhouse, as to the value and character of the goods, were untrue. After the safe was opened, and the goods came to be examined by an expert, it was found that instead of being of the cheapest kind, and such as peddlers usually sell through the country, as represented by Newhouse, one-third of the goods were solid gold, and nearly all the balance were plated, and that the actual value of the stock, in the opinion of the expert, instead of being very small, and not over $5,0 '0, as represented by Newhouse, was from $15,000 to $16,000, wholesale, and $20,000 to $22,000, retail. It appears further that after the levy Newhouse requested one Schribner, who had been acting as traveling agent for the Kansas City house, to remain in Kansas City, as the business would go on after the sale as before. This request must have been made with the expectation on the part of Newhouse that he, or the firm of Schwed & Newhouse, would be allowed to retain the stock after the sale in the same manner as in the case of the Pittsburgh stock. AU these eircumstances, and others which might be mentioned, lead inevitably to the conclusion that the judgment, execution, and levy in Kansas City were parts of a scheme by which, in connection with like proceedings in Pittsburgh, the two stores of Schwed & New- house were to be sold for the purpose of hindering, delaying, and defrauding creditbrs, and placed in the name of the wife of Schwed. The proceedings in both courts would, in my judgment, be equally void if the purpose had been to sell the Kansas City stock to pay any sum due Heller, and at the same time to transfer, under the form of a judi- cial sale, the Pittsburgh stock to the wife of Schwed, to be held in her ��� �