Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/581

UNIiED STATES V, GEISWOLD. 567 �in the possession and control of the property, and tak°3 the rents and profits as his own and as though there had been no real change of ownership. �The explanation offered by the defendants is yague, indefinite, and improbable, and, in essential particulars, full of palpable and inex- plicable contradictions, and leaves no room to doubt that from the beginning to the end the transaction was, at least, a contrivance to hinder, delay, and defraud the existing creditors of William C. Gris- wold, and that having gotten a discharge in bankruptcy from the debts due them, he furnished the money, $10,962.63, to procure the conveyance from the executors of Ohester Adams to his wife, in trust for himself, thinking, probably, that it was still safer in her name than in his own. �Griswold bas been for many years extensively engaged in the mer- cantile and manufacturing business, from which it may be reason- ably inferred that he was in the habit of keeping ordinary books of account. Yet he has not dared, or been able to show, or offered to show, a single charge, entry, or memorandum relating to this trans- action, or any part of it. Upon his first examination he was silent conceming this gift of $50,000 to his wife, but said substantially and positively that he never had any bonds to give her. If true, had he forgotten that in 1865 he gave his wife a third of his fortune, although he got it back within a year? Certainly not. He then said that the consideration for the conveyance to J. M. A. was only about $11,000, and that the conveyance to C. A. was upon exactiy the same consideration from the latter to the former. In Griswold's affidavit of March 25, 1879, we first hear of this munificent and extraordinary gift from a man in active business to his wife, for no reason whatever but the pure pleasure of giving. But of what "stocks and bonds" it consisted, what their number and denomination, when and where payable and with what interest, when and where obtained and with whom deposited, is not even hinted at. Indeed, this oon- venient and serviceable gift cornes upon the scene with as little note of preparation or air of probabiiity as if it were a story taken from the Arabian Nights. �But, according to this statement, within a year he got back all these stocks and bonds to enable him to carry on his business "more successf ully, " while his wife states in her affidavit that he became embarrassed and "ffequently borrowed" of her, and in her answer, that he borrowed "many thousand dollars" of her "to assist him i)i «xtricating himself from his financial embarrassmenta." But upou ��� �