from consenting to the discharge. It would seem that there ought not to be any difficulty or doubt about such a question. It has been settled for a long time. The creditor holds the bond of the bankrupt as an evidence of the bankrupt's indebtedness to him. The only security which the act requires him to surrender, before he proves his claim in order to participate in the dividends of the estate, is a "mortgage or pledge of real or personal property of the bankrupt." See section 5075, U. S. Rev. St. He may retain whatever other security he is fortunate enough to have, and may look to and exhaust all the sources of payment which he holds, until his claim is fully satisfied. Such was the dictum of Lord Chancellor Hardwick, in 1743, in Ex parte Bennett, 2 Atk. 527; and such has been the uniform ruling of the English and American courts in bankruptcy cases from that day to this. Ex parte Parr, 18 Ves. 65; English v. Braley, 2 Bos. & Pul. 62; In re Babcock, 3 Story, 393; In re Cram, 1 N. B. R. 504; In re Dunkerson, 4 Biss. 253; In re Anderson, 12 N. B. R. 502.

The bankrupt is entitled to his discharge.

In re ESTES & CARTER.

(Circuit Court, D. Oregon. December 13, 1880.)

1. FRAUDULENT CONVEYANCE-SUBSEQUENT JUDGMENT-LIEN.-The statute of Oregon concerning fraudulent conveyances provides, among other things, that every conveyance of any estate in lands "made with intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors of their lawful demands, * * ** as against the person so hindered, delayed, or defrauded, shall be void." Held, under this statute, that until the conveyance is set aside a mere equitable right remains in the creditor, which he may or may not enforce, and until he does enforce it the estate is in the grantee, and upon it a judgment creditor acquires no lien by his judgment.-[ED.

In Bankruptcy. Error to the district court.

FIELD, C. J. In July, 1877, Levi Estes and Charles M. Carter, as partners, composing the firm of Estes & Carter,

and as individuals, were adjudged bankrupts by the district court of Oregon.

In May of the previous year, 1876, Estes was the owner of an undivided half interest in certain real property in the city of Portland, in that state; and, being at the time insolvent, he conveyed the same, subject to a mortgage thereon, to one Cole, with intent to hinder, delay, and defraud his creditors. Subsequently to this conveyance several judgments were obtained by different parties against the bankrupts as partners; and one judgment was obtained against Estes individually, all of which were duly docketed in the county where the property was situated, so as to become a lien upon it, if, after the conveyance, it could be subject to the lien of the judgments.

In December, 1879, the conveyance was set aside by the decree of this court in a suit brought by the assignee of the bankrupts; and afterwards the property was sold by him, free from all liens except that of the mortgage mentioned, and the proceeds he now holds for distribution.

Of the claims proved against the estate of the bankrupts, over $8,000 are against Levi Estes individually, of which $836 are in judgment; and over $11,000 are against the bankrupts as partners, of which $4,361 are in judgments. The assets in the hands of the assignee for distribution are about $6,000, all of which have been derived from the separate property of Estes. The question for decision is whether the judgment creditors acquired by their judgments a lien upon the real property of Estes, so as to entitle them to these assets in preference to the other creditors. The district court held that they did not acquire a lien on the property by their judgments, and that the assets must be applied to the payment of the claims against Estes' individual estate, without regard to their asserted liens. The judgment creditors. have, therefore, brought the case to the circuit court on writ of error. The statute of Oregon concerning fraudulent conveyances is similar to that of other states, and is taken substantially from section 5 of 13 Elizabeth. It provides, among other things, that every conveyance of any estate in lands "made with intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors of

their lawful demands, as against the person so hindered, delayed, or defrauded, shall be void." The conveyance in such case, notwithstanding this strong language, is only voidable on the election of the creditor, and is only made void by proceedings to set it aside, or to defeat its operation. It is good as between the parties and passes the estate. If a third party acquire the property from the fraudulent grantee for value without notice, he will hold the property even as against the defrauded creditor. All of which shows that the property after the conveyance cannot, in strictness, be said to belong to the grantor, and as such to fall at once under the lien of judgment recovered against him.

The fraudulent conveyance may be defeated by a direct proceeding to set it aside, or in some states by the judgment creditor proceeding by levy upon and sale of the property, he thus asserting the invalidity of the conveyance as against him under the statute. When this latter proceeding is authorized, it is only from the date of the levy that the creditor's right to the property, as against the fraudulent grantee, can be deemed to attach.

But how far and under what circumstances judgments shall be a lien upon property of the debtor fraudulently conveyed to others is a matter of local law. When that is ascertained efficacy will be given to it in the courts of the United States. In some states it is said that a judgment is a lien upon the property of a debtor fraudulently transferred. When that is the case, the position for which the judgment creditors here contend will be maintained; but in Oregon the rule we have stated is the one which prevails, and that is that until the conveyance is set aside a mere equitable right remains in the creditor, which he may or may not enforce, and until he does enforce it the estate is in the grantee, and upon it a judgment creditor acquires no lien by his judgment.

The decree of the district court is therefore affirmed.

NOTE. See In re Ester & Carter, 3 FED. REP. 134.

THE BRIDGEPORT WOOD FINISHING Co. v. HOOPER and another.

(Circuit Court, D. Connecticut. November 27, 1880.)

1. PATENT PROCESS-WOOD FILLER. - The patent granted to James Perry, dated September 11, 1866, does not authorize an infringement of the patent granted to Nathaniel Wheeler, dated January 18, 1876, for a 66 new and useful process for filling the grain and finishing the

surfaces of woods."

2. SAME-CHEMICAL SIMILARITY.-A grant of the exclusive right to use infusorial earth, or silicious marl, as a wood filler, does not also give the right to use quartz, flint, or feldspar, although it be conceded that each of the five articles is, substantially, silica.-[ED.

S. J. Gordon, for plaintiff.

Morris W. Seymour, for defendants.

SHIPMAN, D. J. This is a bill in equity, founded upon the alleged infringement of letters patent dated January 18, 1876, to Nathaniel Wheeler, assignor of the plaintiff, for a “new and useful process for filling the grain and finishing the surfaces of woods."

In the cabinet-maker's art it is necessary that the grain or the pores of the wood upon the surface should be filled with some material in order that the surface may be smooth, resist moisture, and receive a permanent polish. Divers materials and combinations of materials, such as bees-wax, copal, starch, pumice stone, plaster of paris, and various gums have been used, but all proved ineffectual. They absorbed the varnish which was used for polishing, shrank, rolled out, or discolored the wood. What was needed was a non-absorbent, transparent article which would fill the pores and make a permanent, hard, smooth surface.

The process of finishing cabinet work without the use of a filler involved a large expenditure of money and of time. It is described by the patentee as follows:

“I found" (in the Wheeler & Wilson Company's finishing department) "the system or process of finishing to be, first, as the work came from the cabinet maker to give it a heavy coat of oil; to let that dry a week or more; then sand-paper

the work with boiled linseed oil until the gum of the oil, the fiber of the wood, and the sand that came off the sand-paper produced a sort of gummy paste, which, in the process of rubbing, would lodge in the open pores of the wood, and which required much time and hard rubbing to fill the grains passably. This gum being composed of oil required much time to dry; otherwise, if varnished before it was dry, it would shrink in drying, and crack and displace the varnish. This was the process of finishing all the ordinary work. The finer quality of work, known as 'hand-polish finish,' required to be varnished with from three to five coats of what is known as scraping varnish, which, when dry, was scraped off with a cabinet-maker's steel scraper, leaving none of the many coats of varnish on the work, except that in the grains of the word below the surface, after which from three to five coats of polishing varnish were applied; then the work was rubbed down with pumice stone and water, and polished up with rotton stone and the hand; the palm of the hand bringing the polish up. This process is the same as heretofore used by all the piano makers in the country."

The invention, and the difficulties which it was intended to obviate, are thus described in the specification: "Heretofore various materials have been used to fill the grain in processes of finishing woods, such as pulverized marl, clay, flour, chalk, starch, and different gums; but all are found to have objectionable features in use, which my new process is designed to obviate. In some of the substances employed the particles, when powdered, are round or spherical, and without angles, and consequently do not readily adhere to each other and unite with the pores of the wood, and others are wanting in durability, and subject to injurious atmospheric action. I am also aware that various forms of infusorial silicates have been used in mixtures for filling the grain of wood, but these are all very powerful absorbents of liquids, and carry the moisture by the quality of their capillarity into the wood itself, which has to be removed by evaporation before the varnish can be applied to the surface of the wood, and which opens the pores when said moisture is evaporated, and prevents it from being solid