The Lawyer's Dream tion to insurance is overturning the settled purpose of the legislatures, except in instances where by great good fortune the insured has obtained a policy so prepared in its wording as to steer a successful course among the many diffi culties presented by the decisions. If we are to accept the purpose of the state exemptions as standing for the best good of the community as a whole, then every policy of whatever kind if payable to a specified beneficiary should be held free from the trustee except where there is fraud on creditors and excepting those instances where the in surance is payable to the bankrupt him self or to his estate or personal repre sentatives and where the designation of a beneficiary is made in contemplation of bankruptcy. The reservation of a power to change the beneficiary should not affect the rule, the presence or absence of a cash surrender value ought
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not to qualify it and the kind of insur ance should not be a factor in deter mining whether or not the policy passed to the trustee. Such a rule would be simple, equitable, easily understood and more in harmony with the principles of insurance and the United States Supreme Court's affirmance of them than the inconsistent and illogical rules now pre vailing. By way of suggestion, this result may be reached by substituting for the pres ent "proviso" in section 70a of the Bankruptcy Act, the following: — Provided, that when any bankrupt shall have an insurance policy in any way payable to or assigned to a beneficiary other than himself, his estate or his personal representatives, such policy shall not pass to the trustee as assets, unless it was originally made payable to the bankrupt, his estate or his personal representa tives, and was by him assigned to another in fraud of creditors within four months of his adjudication as a bankrupt.
The Lawyer's Dream BY F. F. PERRY ALAWYER, one night (so the story doth run), As lawyers do everywhere under the sun, Retired to his couch at the hour of ten, In search of escape from the trials of men. Too often convictions where he has defended, The stern hand of Justice no mercy extended; The ghosts of his clients about him appear And the lawyer is worried and quaking with fear. With musings like these on his poor throbbing brain, Sweet Nature's Restorer he courted in vain, When at length came that boon every creature esteems, His slumbers were haunted by visions and dreams. He dreamed that this life, with its burdens, was o'er, His naked soul stood by Eternity's shore; Before him the beauty of Heaven appears, Behind him, the World in its darkness and tears.
