Opinion of the Court. lowing nine months, by arduous labor, constant negotiation, and great tact, they accomplished what was desired. The suit to foreclose the mortgage was resisted, and its dismissal obtained. The property was sold for one million of dollars, onethird of which was paid in cash, and the balance secured by mortgage on the property. The existing mortgage was then redeemed, a large reduction from the amount claimed having been first obtained. The taxes and other debts were paid, and the claim of Horne was compromised and settled. A suit commenced pending these proceedings by the trustee of the London stock company to compel a conveyance of the property, was defended and ultimately defeated. It would serve no useful purpose to detail the number of particulars in which the skill and tact of the plaintiffs were exhibited. The claim made by them for compensation was resisted, and this action was thereupon brought. The jury found that it should have been $40,000, and gave their verdict for that amount. Of the justice of this amount we are not to determine. We are called upon only to see whether any error was committed in the manner in which the case was submitted to the jury. We see nothing in the objection that evidence was admitted as to the character of the land sold, or its possible value as a future suburb of Chicago. Its character in this respect might increase or diminish the chances of its sale. The only points which we find in the record calling for examination arose from the hypothetical statements submitted to witnesses, with inquiry as to the value of the services thus supposed to have been rendered. There were such hypothetical statements upon five subjects, which embraced matters that were to be disposed of before the consummation of the contract of sale. They embody with some fulness the matters supposed by the plaintiffs to have been established, and it was only upon that assumption that the opinions of the witnesses as to the value. of the services rendered were given. If the assumption was erroneous, if the matters supposed to be established were not in the judgment of the jury in truth established, the opinions went for nothing; and so the court instructed the jury. Its language was as follows: Opinion of the Court. "As to the questions, you must understand that they are not evidence; they are mere statements to these witnesses, called by the respective parties, of what the party putting these questions claims the proof shows was the nature and amount of plaintiff's services rendered; and, upon the hypothesis or assumption of these questions the witnesses are asked to give their estimate of the value of these services. You must readily see that the value of the answers to these questions depends largely, if not wholly, upon the fact whether the statements made in these questions are sustained by the proof. If the statements in these questions are not supported by the proof, then the answers to the questions are entitled to no weight, because based upon false assumptions or statements of facts." And as to the estimate of the value placed by the witnesses upon the services, the language of the court to the jury was as follows: "You are not bound by the estimate which these witnesses have put upon these services. They are proper to be considered by you, as part of the proof bearing upon the question of value, as the testimony of men experienced in such matters, and whose judgment may aid yours. But it is your duty, after all, to settle and determine this question of value from all the testimony in the case, and to award to the plaintiffs such amount, by your verdict, as the proof satisfies you is a reasonable compensation for the services which, from the proof, you find plaintiff rendered, after deducting the amount the plaintiffs have already received for such services." The length of the hypothetical statements is urged as an objection to them. They were lengthy even without the exhibits, which constituted the larger portion; but the court took especial care to impress upon the jury that they were not to consider the statements as facts in the case, but merely as assumptions of the party propounding the questions. Cowley v. The People, 83 N. Y. 464, 470. The witnesses do not appear to have been confused by their length; they expressed no inability to fully comprehend them. Nor did the court, though complaining of their length, indicate that they were Statement of Facts. unintelligible to the jury, or tended in any way to turn their minds from the points in issue. The length of hypothetical statements presented to a witness to ascertain his opinion upon any matter growing out of the facts supposed, will necessarily depend upon the simple or complicated character of the transactions recited, and the number of particulars which must be considered for the formation of the opinion desired. And this subject, like the extent to which the examination of a witness may be allowed, must, in a great degree, be left to the discretion of the court. We do not see that the rights of the defendants were at all prejudiced by them. The judgment, therefore, must be affirmed; and it is so ordered. Affirmed. HUNTINGTON v. SAUNDERS. APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS. Argued December 22, 1886. - Decided January 17, 1887. While a creditor who finds specific property of his debtor in the hands of the debtor's wife to whom it had been assigned by the debtor before bankruptcy may follow it and have it appropriated to the payment of his debt, a judgment in personam for its value cannot be taken against her in case the property itself cannot be found. Phipps v. Sedgwick, 95 U. S. 3, and Trust Co. v. Sedgwick, 97 U. S, 304, affirmed. A bill in equity against husband and wife by the assignees in bankruptcy of the husband, which alleges that the husband before the bankruptcy transferred a large amount of personal property in the form of bonds, stocks, &c., to the wife for the purpose of concealing the same from his creditors, and delaying, hindering, and defrauding them, and in contemplation of bankruptcy, and which does not describe the property, but avers inability to do so, and which waives answer under oath and asks as relief for a transfer to the assignees of the property in whatever form it may exist, as assets of the bankrupt, sets forth no case for relief in equity, and should be dismissed on demurrer. THIS was a bill in equity, which was dismissed on demurrer. The case is stated in the opinion of the court. Opinion of the Court. Mr. George W. Parke for appellants. Mr. Henry C. Hutchins and Mr. James H. Young filed a brief for appellees; but the court declined to hear argument. MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the court. This is an appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts. It was decided in that court upon a demurrer to the bill of complaint, the demurrer being sustained and the bill dismissed. The bill was brought by the present appellants, as assignees in bankruptcy of William A. Saunders, against said William A. Saunders and Mary P. Saunders, his wife, and, after alleging that, by due course of proceeding, William A. Saunders had been adjudged a bankrupt and the plaintiffs appointed assignees of his estate, it proceeds to say that they have discovered, within one year, "and been first informed of facts and circumstances upon which they believe, and therefore aver, that the said bankrupt, without consideration, transferred to and placed in the hands of his wife, the said Mary P. Saunders, a large amount of personal property in the form of money, bonds, stocks, and other securities, none of which can your orators more particularly describe, because all particular information is refused by the bankrupt and his wife and the persons managing the property for them, and because the same has been invested for income, and often changed in form by reinvestment and in pursuance of devices for more effectual concealment." Then it is further averred, that "said property is of the value of about forty thousand dollars, and was so transferred by said bankrupt to his said wife for the purpose of concealing the same from his creditors and from these assignees, and to delay, hinder, and defraud his creditors, he being then deeply indebted, and to an amount wholly beyond his means and ability to liquidate and pay, so that he was hopelessly insolvent and in contemplation of bankruptcy." The prayer of the bill is "that said Mary P. Saunders, the respondent, may fully, truly, and particularly answer this bill, but not under oath, which is hereby waived," and for a decree that Opinion of the Court. said property may be held to belong to the assets of said William A. Saunders in bankruptcy, and the respondent compelled to transfer and deliver the property, or the proceeds thereof, in whatever form existing, to the plaintiffs, as assets of the bankrupt, and for further and other relief. The imperfections of this bill are very obvious. Counsel for appellants, conceding the doctrine of Phipps v. Sedgwick, 95 U. S. 3, and Trust Co. v. Sedgwick, 97 U. S. 304, that a wife cannot be held liable to a personal judgment for money received of her husband during the marital relation, argues that this bill is an attempt to proceed against a fund in her hands; but as no particular fund is named, as no particular set of securities or description of them is given in the bill, as no place is named where they are deposited, nor any person, even the wife, as holding them, as no real estate is mentioned as belonging to this fund, as the nature and character of the conversion made of the fund after it came to the hands of the wife is not set forth, it seems impossible to maintain such a bill as seeking to lay hold of and appropriate a particular fund coming from the bankrupt himself, or even the proceeds of such a fund. As was very pertinently asked by the circuit judge in his opinion sustaining the demurrer, what relief could be given by the court, or what decree could be granted on this bill, if it were taken pro confesso, no opposition being made to it? 14 Fed. Rep. 907. It is not possible to see what decree could be made or what relief could be given. It is not a bill of discovery, because the answer under oath of the defendant is expressly waived. No interrogatories are propounded to either of the defendants; no effort made to obtain from them, or either of them, by way of sworn answer, anything which could be used as evidence in the case. An issue of a general denial of the truth of the bill would leave nothing on which evidence could be introduced. It is in fact what is familiarly known as a fishing bill. The plaintiff's allege no distinct fact which the defendants or either of them can be called upon to deny. The plaintiffs do not say positively that any of the allegations of the bill are true, but the substance of what they say is, that they have received certain information which |