to William M. Bulkley, as trustee, specifically providing in the assignment for the payment of certain preferred creditors, but reserving the right to at any time within thirty days pay off the preferred creditors and resume the assets and business. The attachment in New York was made after this assignment, but before the lapse of the thirty days reservation, and without notice, either actual or constructive, of the assignment. Thereafter, and long after the referee in the New York corporation proceedings had made his report to the court and the decree of the court had been entered, Bulkley, as assignee, filed a motion in court to have the decree amended by substituting his name, as trustee, in front of the name of the Mecham Arms Company, as the person entitled to receive the dividends under the decree of the court. On behalf of the attaching creditors, Mr. Kerr opposed this motion on the grounds: (1) that the motion should be made to have the matter referred back to the referee, and a motion made before him for substitution and a correction of his report, so that the right to receive the money as between the referee and attaching creditors could be duly litigated; (2) that the assignment was with preferences, and therefore void as against a creditor in New York pursuing the ordinary remedies by attachment in the New York courts against property located in that state; (3) that the assignment was made with reservation of the right to pay off the preferred creditors within thirty days and resume the assets and business of the corporation; (4) that the thirty days had not elapsed when the attachment was levied, and that the title to the property of the corporation was not vested in the assignee at the time the attachment was levied; (5) that the rights of the attaching creditors were superior to the right of the assignee; and that the legal question was one which must be heard and determined by the referee in bankruptcy, and that he must designate in his report the persons entitled to receive the dividends that might be paid. The contention of the assignee was that the title to the property, it being personalty, followed the person of the owner, and passed eo instanto, on the assignment, to him as assignee.
The special term upheld Mr. Kerr's contentions, the assignee appealed, and the Appellate Division reversed the special term (see Matter of Hurlbert Brothers & Co., 38 App. Div. 323, 57 N. Y. Supp. 28). On appeal to the Court of Appeals Mr. Kerr's contentions were all upheld (see Campbell v. Buckley, 160 N.Y. 9, 17,64 N. E. 571).
Since coming to California Mr. Kerr has done his most important literary work in his Cyclopedic Codes of California, in six large volumes, comprising about 9000 large pages, and in his Consolidated Supplement thereto (now in press) bringing the Cyclopedic Codes down to date, consisting of two volumes of about 1500 pages each. This work is surely the equal, and in many respects the superior, of anything of the kind ever attempted before, and these Cyclopedic Codes, in less than a decade, have taken their position as a "legal classic." Too much praise cannot be bestowed upon this monumental work. Many lawyers find it all-sufficient for a large and varied practice; and all practitioners turn to it first, when a difficult, or new or a novel question confronts them. While prepared primarily for the state of California, this set of Codes — which are in truth what their name would indicate, a veritable cyclopedia of law and practice — circulates as readily and as extensively, and is as helpful and as
