utory law of Ohio. The part in § 6343 which enables the court to appoint a receiver to take charge of all the assets of the debtor or debtors, including the property conveyed, and administer the same for the equal benefit of creditors, is the new feature of the law.

It is apparent that this section intends to permit the appointment of a receiver to take charge of all the assets of the debtor when the provisions of the statute apply as to the debtor and his transferee, and the latter is required to know of the fraudulent intent on the part of the debtor.

Creditors are not thereby deprived of rights, but in case of bankruptcy proceedings within four months of a general assignment for creditors as was the case here, the property may be brought into the bankruptcy court, or, as in this case, may be in its possession and be retained in that court to be administered for the benefit of general creditors. This state statute is not opposed to the policy of the bankruptcy law or in contravention of the rules and principles established by it with a view to the fair distribution of the assets of the insolvent. It is only state laws which conflict with the bankruptcy laws of Congress that are suspended; those which are in aid of the Bankruptcy Act can stand. Miller v. New Orleans Fertilizer Co., 211 U. S. 496.

This view of the sections in question was taken by the Circuit Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit, in In re Farrell, 176 Fed. Rep. 505, 509, 510, wherein in the opinion it was said that the changes made by the new statutes were in harmony with the policy of the Bankruptcy Act and in aid of its purposes.

There is much discussion in the books as to what constitutes a bankruptcy act as distinguished from an insolvency law. It is settled that a State may not pass an insolvency law which provides for a discharge of the debtor from his obligations, which shall have the effect of a bankruptcy discharge as to creditors in other States, and this although no general federal bankruptcy act is in effect.

Opinion of the Court.

245 U. S.

And while it is not necessary to decide that there may not be state insolvent laws which are suspended although not providing for a discharge of indebtedness, all the cases lay stress upon the fact that one of the principal requisites of a true bankruptcy law is for the benefit of the debtor in that it discharges his future acquired property from the obligation of existing debts.

In the case of Mayer v. Hellman, 91 U. S. 496, this court had before it, while the Bankruptcy Act of 1867 was in force, the question of the validity of the assignment of an insolvent, in Ohio, to trustees for the benefit of all his creditors executed six months before the proceedings in bankruptcy had been taken, and it was held that the assignment was good and the assignees in bankruptcy not entitled to the possession of the property. Mr. Justice Field, in delivering the opinion of the court, said:

"In the argument of the counsel of the defendant in error, the position is taken that the Bankrupt Act suspends the operation of the act of Ohio regulating the mode of administering assignments for the benefit of creditors, treating the latter as an insolvent law of the State. The answer is, that the statute of Ohio is not an insolvent law in any proper sense of the term. It does not compel, or in terms even authorize, assignments: it assumes that such instruments were conveyances previously known, and only prescribes a mode by which the trust created shall be enforced. It provides for the security of the creditors by exacting a bond from the trustees for the discharge of their duties; it requires them to file statements showing what they have done with the property; and affords in various ways the means of compelling them to carry out the purposes of the conveyance. There is nothing in the act resembling an insolvent law. It does not discharge the insolvent from arrest or imprisonment: it leaves his after-acquired property liable to his creditors precisely as though no assignment had been made. The provisions

for enforcing a trust are substantially such as a court of chancery would apply in the absence of any statutory provision. The assignment in this case must, therefore, be regarded as though the statute of Ohio, to which reference is made, had no existence. There is an insolvent law in that State; but the assignment in question was not made in pursuance of any of its provisions. The position, therefore, of counsel, that the Bankrupt Law of Congress suspends all proceedings under the Insolvent Law of the State, has no application."

The federal system of bankruptcy is designed not only to distribute the property of the debtor, not by law exempted, fairly and equally among his creditors, but as a main purpose of the act, intends to aid the unfortunate debtor by giving him a fresh start in life, free from debts, except of a certain character, after the property which he owned at the time of bankruptcy has been administered for the benefit of creditors. Our decisions lay great stress upon this feature of the law-as one not only of private but of great public interest in that it secures to the unfortunate debtor, who surrenders his property for distribution, a new opportunity in life. Neal v. Clark, 95 U. S. 704, 709; Traer v. Clews, 115 U. S. 528, 541; Hanover National Bank v. Moyses, 186 U. S. 181, 192; Wetmore v. Markoe, 196 U. S. 68, 77; Burlingham v. Crouse, 228 U. S. 459, 473.

This feature of a bankruptcy law is wholly wanting in the Ohio statutes under consideration. Indeed, there is not now, any more than when Mayer v. Hellman, supra, was decided, any attempt in the Ohio laws to provide for the discharge of the debtor from his existing debts.

If the Ohio statutes in the feature now under consideration be suspended, it would follow that a person in Ohio might successfully claim a part of the estate which is being administered in bankruptcy, although the conveyance under which the property is claimed is voidable under the laws of the State where it was made and the alleged right

in the property secured. We think that Congress in the Bankruptcy Act did not intend any such result, but meant to permit the trustee in bankruptcy to have the benefit of state laws of this character which do not conflict with the aims and purposes of the federal law. And certainly, in view of the provisions of § 70e of the Bankruptcy Act, Congress did not intend to permit a conveyance such as is here involved to stand which creditors might attack and avoid under the state law for the benefit of general creditors of the estate.

From what we have said it follows that Questions A and B should be answered in the negative, and it is unnecessary to answer Question C.

So ordered.

WEEKS, DOING BUSINESS UNDER THE NAME OF O. J. WEEKS & COMPANY, v. UNITED STATES.

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT.

No. 109. Submitted January 2, 1918.-Decided February 4, 1918.

The Food and Drugs Act of June 30, 1906, c. 3915, § 8, 34 Stat. 768, specifies and defines at least two kinds of "misbranding"-one where the article bears a false or misleading label, and the other where it is offered for sale under the distinctive name of another article.

In either case, it is not the misbranding that is made unlawful, but the shipment or delivery for shipment from one State to another, of the misbranded article.

That this is a legitimate exertion of the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce is settled by previous decisions.

It is also settled that the negotiation of sales of goods which are in

another State, for the purpose of introducing them into the State in which the negotiation is made, is interstate commerce. Upon a charge of misbranding by offering for sale under the distinctive name of another article, held, that the trial court properly received evidence that the shipment was made to fill an order obtained by the defendant's agent by so misrepresenting the article, and properly declined to confine the jury's attention to the label borne by the article when it was shipped. Whether the court below was correct in viewing intent as not an element in such a case and so in holding that sanction by defendant of his agent's misrepresentations was immaterial, this court need not determine, since the trial court instructed the jury that such authority must appear beyond reasonable doubt, and, as the record neither shows that defendant objected to this mode of submitting the question nor purports to contain all the evidence, the verdict of guilty must be taken as determining conclusively that he sanctioned the representations.

224 Fed. Rep. 64, affirmed.

THE case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. Walter Jeffreys Carlin for petitioner.

The Solicitor General and Mr. Assistant Attorney General Frierson for the United States.

MR. JUSTICE VAN DEVANTER delivered the opinion of the court.

This was a prosecution under the Act of June 30, 1906, c. 3915, 34 Stat. 768, upon a charge of shipping an article of food in interstate commerce in circumstances making the shipment a violation of the act. The information contained two counts, both charging that the article was misbranded, one because it bore a false and misleading label, and the other because it was offered for sale as lemon oil when in truth it was an imitation thereof containing alcohol and citral derived from lemon grass. In the District Court there was a conviction upon both counts, and the Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the conviction as