530
THE GREEN BAG
irrigation,1 and circulating library,2 corpora tions as well as common carriers,3 mercan tile4 and advertising 6 agencies, social clubs,6 and corporations engaged in buying and selling bonds,7 stocks and other securities not within the meaning of the section. While on the other hand sanatorium,8 boarding stable," bridge 10 and boat building,11 and ice 12 companies, and a laundry which worked principally for manufacturers u have by other courts been held to be within its wording. The result is that many classes of corporations who ought to be subject to involuntary bankruptcy now escape, and grave doubt and difference of opinion exists as to its application to many others. The meaning of the words printing, pub lishing, and manufacturing is tolerably clear, and the decisions with regard to them reach a satisfactory result. It is "trading or mercantile" that has caused the trouble. As Judge Lowell in one of the earlier cases remarked,14 the two words are for all intents and purposes synonymous and mean probably nothing more than the word "trader" did as used in the early English bankruptcy statutes. This latter expres sion was found to be such an unhappy one that to put at rest further doubts as to its meaning the English Parliament in 1825, 114 Am. B. R. 370. Southern Texas. "9 Am. B. R. 568. 7th C. C. A. Northern Illinois. 3 7 Am. B. R. 707 Eastern Pennysylvania 10 Am. B. R. 424. Massachusetts. Affirmed 11 Am. B. R. 205. 1st C. C. A.
- 16 Am. B. R. 67. 3 C. C. A. overruling 13
Am. B. R. 725 New Jersey. 3 13 Am. B. R. 325. Northern Illinois.
- 7 Am. B. R. 670. Northern Georgia.
7 9 Am. B. R. 129 7th C. C. A. (Northern Illinois.) "2 Am. B. R. 408. Southern California.
- 5 Am. B. R. 763. Southern N. Y.
10 11 Am. B. R. 643. Western N. Y. "11 Am. B. R. 640. 2d. C. C. A. (Eastern N. Y.) 12 14 Am. B. R. 448. Middle Pennsylvania. 13 13 Am. B. R. 97. Northern N. Y. 14 10 Am. B. R. 424. Mass.
when they passed a new bankruptcy act, undertook to make a list of the trades which it embraced.1 It would seem that our courts, however, cannot properly read into the Bankruptcy Act of 1898 the wording of the English Act of 1825, but must take the word in its ordinary historical meaning.3 This it seems is a person, in this connec tion a corporation, which buys and sells tangible property. It is obvious, then, that the statute in its application to corpo rations, at least, falls far short of what its makers intended 3 and what the needs of business require. 113 Am. B. R. 403 6th C. C. A. (Northern Ohio.) 1 Act 6. Geo. IV. C. 16 — 1825. Sect. II. And be it enacted, that all bankers, brokers and persons using the trade or profession of a scrivener, receiving other men's monies or estates into their trust or custody, and persons insuring ships or their freight, or other matters, against perils of the sea, Warehousemen, Wharf ingers, Packers, builders, Carpenters, shipwrights. Victuallers, keepers of inns, taverns, hotels or Coffee Houses, Dyers, printers, Bleachers, fullers, Calenderers, Cattle or sheep salesmen, and all per sons using the trade of Merchandize by way of Bargaining, Exchange, Bartering, Commission, Consignment or otherwise, in gross or by retail; and all persons, who, either for themselves, or as agents or factors for others, seek their living by buying and selling, or by buying and letting for hire, or by the Workmanship of Goods or Com modities, shall be deemed traders liable to become bankrupt: Provided that no farmer, grazier, common labourer or workman for hire. Receiver General of the Taxes, or member of or subscriber to any incorporated, commercial or trading Com panies established by Charters or by Act of Parlia ment, shall be deemed, as such, a trader liable by virtue of this Act to become Bankrupt. 3 See Article — Bankruptcy, A Commercial Regulation. 15 HarvardLaw Review 829atp. 842, where Senator William Lindsay of Kentucky is quoted as follows: "This measure is the most thoroughly analyzed piece of proposed legislation I have ever examined. Every conceivable con tingency seems to have been thought out and care fully provided for. It is my judgment, that if enacted it will be a conspicuous example of matured legislation and remain for all time as an example of how laws should be prepared before being placed upon the statute books."
