MARKET NAT. BANK v. HOFHEIMEB. 17
fide debts which it secures, and void as to fraudulent debts. See
Billaps v. Sears, 5 Grat. 31, decided in 1848. See, also, as to other
states, Harris v. De Grajenreid, 11 Ired. 89; Anderson v. Hooks, 9
Ala. 704; Troustine v. Lusk, 4 Baxt. (Tenn.) 162.
Much learning and ability were displayed at bar in discussing this
feature in the deed of Hofheimer, Son & Co. Many collateral prin-
ciples of law incidentally relating to this feature have been ably
presented and elucidated. I do not feel called upon to review these
arguments, and the authorities cited in support of them, by learned
counsel. This deed conveyed specific property, for the payment of
several debts particularly described, in equal ratio. It provides that
the amounts "set down opposite the several names in said Schedule
A are to be paid equally and in full, without priority one above the
other." Some of the debts were fictitious; and, as already said, the
deed made no provision for the fund released from the payment of
them. Does it require reasoning or authority to prove that the deed
failed to make conveyance at all of that fund? We cannot interpo-
late omitted clauses in a deed, to suit the developments of a transac-
tion like that of this defendant firm. Deeds of preference are to be
construed strictly. They are in conflict with that prime and favorite
maxim of chancery courts that “equality is equity.” When they
fail to make conveyance of property to creditors intended to be pre-
ferred over others, it is neither the duty nor disposition of the courts
to supply, by construction, phrases necessary to effect their purpose.
If express and appropriate language is wanting in them for such pur-
pose, then the grant fails and falls.
Authority is not wanting for the propositions of law thus announced.
See Smith v. Post, 3 Thomp. & C. (Sup. Ct. N. Y.) 647; Prince v.
Shepard, 9 Pick. 184; Green v. Morse, 4 Barb. (Sup. Ct. N. Y.) 344,
345; Tate v. Liggat, 2 Leigh, 106. In the case of Prince v. Shep-
ard, Chief Justice PARKER said: "We also consider this deed as ca-
pable of being construed as a several conveyance to each of the
grantees in proportion to his debt." The learned judge was com-
menting on a deed in which the Princes had, by deed of assignment,
secured a debt which was bona fide, and had also secured a debt to _
one Hodges, which was fictitious and fraudulent, as in the case at bar.
The chief justice continued: "The attaching ofdcer had a right to at- V
tach, as belonging to the debtors, so much of the property as was
fraudulently assigned to Hodges, that being still, in regard to the cred-
itors, left in the Princes," etc. As showing that in the event of a
grant in favor of a fraudulent and fictitious claim being embodied in
a deed it is no grant at all, the property pretended to be conveyed re-
maining in the grantor as absolutely as if no deed had been made,
see Prince v. Shepcircl, supra; Shipe v. Repass, 28 Grt. 729; Boyn-
ton v. McNeal, 31 Grat. 462; Cox v. Wilder, 2 Dill. 45.
It being clear that the quotas of the fund in the hands of the
trustee dedicated to fictitious debts were not assigned at all as against
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