678 



RECEIVER. 



REFORMED CHURCHES. 



bursements were so mingled together, and the as- 

 sets and income so mixed, that it was found dif- 

 ficult, if not impossible, to analyze the accounts 

 and arrive at correct conclusions. Another evil 

 was that the receiver, ostensibly the officer of 

 the Supreme Court, was practically under the 

 jurisdiction and supervision of that department 

 of the court in which the business of the trust 

 was conducted. Thus there were, in the various 

 judicial departments, conflicting decisions in the 

 receiverships and the questions arising between 

 the receivers and the creditors. These conflicting 

 decisions led to another evil in the form of " in- 

 terveners" bringing suits to determine the 

 rights of creditors as against their trusts, which 

 suits were variously disposed of without any 

 uniformity or exact determination of the rights 

 of the respective parties. 



It was recommended that a department of the 

 State Government should be created to take 

 charge of receiverships. But the Legislature 

 chose rather to pass a law limiting the fees of 

 receivers to 5 per cent, on the first $100,- 

 000 that was received and paid out and 2-J- 

 per cent, upon all sums in excess of that 

 sum. Provision was also made for more fre- 

 quent reports, and for the speedy closing up of 

 all insolvent corporations then in the hands of 

 receivers. It was further provided that the At- 

 torney-General should have the power to ap- 

 point or to remove a receiver, and that copies of 

 all the papers should be left with that officer. 

 Two years later the Legislature amended this 

 law so as to require the receiver of any kind of 

 corporation to report once in six months to the 

 Supreme Court as to the progress of his work ; 

 and to send duplicates to the Attorney-General 

 and to whatever department of the State Gov- 

 ernment was interested in his particular corpo- 

 ration. Another provision forbade any receiver 

 to pay counsel until he had reported the amounts 

 to the court as expenses actually incurred ; and, 

 even then, the court must give its approval be- 

 fore they were paid. A general law was passed 

 in 1886 for the dissolving of corporations already 

 dissolved by acts of the Legislature. This ap- 

 plied particularly to the charter of the Broad- 

 way Street Railway Company in the city of 

 New York. A law was passed in 1887 providing 

 that no receiver shall be appointed for a life in- 

 surance company if it can show actual funds in- 

 vested of a net cash value equal to its liabilities, 

 and a proper reserve fund on unmatured policies 

 and claims. In 1889 the code of civil procedure 

 was amended so that if it shall be made evident 

 to the court that a corporation is insolvent, the 

 court may, at any stage of the proceeding before 

 final order, on motion of the petitioners on no- 

 tice to the Attorney-General, or on motion of the 

 Attorney-General on notice to the corporation, 

 appoint a temporary receiver of the property of 

 the corporation, which receiver shall have all 

 the powers and be subject to all the duties that 

 are defined as belonging to temporary receivers 

 appointed in an action. The court may also, in 

 its discretion, at any stage in the proceeding 

 after such appointment, on like motion and no- 

 tice, confer upon such temporary receiver the 

 powers and authority, and subject him to the 

 duties and liabilities of a permanent receiver, or 

 as much thereof as it thinks proper, except that 



he shall not make any final distribution among 

 the creditors and stock-holders before final or- 

 der in the proceedings, unless he is specially di- 

 rected so to do by the court. If such receiver 

 be appointed, the court may in its discretion, on 

 like motion and notice, with or without secur- 

 ity, at any stage of the proceeding before final 

 order, grant an injunction restraining the cred- 

 itors of the corporation from bringing any ac- 

 tion against the corporation for the recovery of 

 a sum of money, or from taking any further pro- 

 ceedings in such an action theretofore begun. 

 Such injunction shall have the same effect and 

 be subject to the same provisions of law as if 

 each creditor upon whom it is served were named 

 therein. It was also enacted, in 1889, that any 

 receiver of an insolvent estate, corporation, or 

 individual might treat as void all transfers made 

 in fraud of the rights of creditors. 



REFORMED CHURCHES. I. Reformed 

 Church in America. The following is a sum- 

 mary of the statistics of this Church as they 

 were reported to the General Synod in June, 

 1892: Number of classes, 34; of churches, 590; 

 of ministers, 592, with 15 licentiates; of fami- 

 lies, 54,132 ; of communicants, 95,963 ; of per- 

 sons received during the year on confession, 

 5.089; of baptisms, 5,776 of infants and 1,214 of 

 adults; of baptized noncommunicants, 46,646; 

 of catechumens, 33,917 ; of Sunday schools, 837, 

 with an enrollment of 107,538 members. Amount 

 of contributions: For denominational benevo- 

 lent objects, $206,634 ; for other benevolent ob- 

 jects, $85,697 ; for congregational purposes, $1,- 

 068.083. 



The Board of Education had received $59,- 

 341, and had 103 names on its roll of benefi- 

 ciaries. 



The receipts of the Board of Domestic Mis- 

 sions from all sources had been $66,247. It had 

 aided 165 churches and missions, with which 

 6,804 families and 9,747 communicants were 

 connected, with 12,837 members of Sunday 

 schools, and which returned for the year 728 

 additions on confession. The total receipts of 

 the Board of Foreign Missions, exclusive of 

 what had been given in response to a recent ap- 

 peal for contributions toward the payment of the 

 debt, had been $112,163. Of this amount, $2,617 

 were designated as for sufferers by famine in 

 India, and $10,192 had been derived from lega- 

 cies. The expenditures had been $116,225. 

 From the mission fields in China, India, and 

 Japan were returned 15 stations, 178 out-sta- 

 tions, 24 ordained and 3 unordained missionaries, 

 39 assistant missionaries, 37 native ordained 

 ministers, 282 native helpers, 53 churches, 5,559 

 communicants, 498 received on confession during 

 the year, 14 seminaries with 636 pupils, 4 theo- 

 logical schools with 57 students, 128 day schools 

 with 3.848 pupils, and 2 hospitals in which 10,- 

 442 patients had been treated ; amount of native 

 contributions, $8,032. 



The General Synod met in Asbury Park, N. J., 

 June 1. The Rev. F. S. Schenck, D. D., was 

 chosen president. The most important busi- 

 ness transacted related to the question of fed- 

 eral union with the Reformed Church in the 

 United States. The basis of federation agreed 

 upon by the committees, -and approved by the 

 General Synods of the two bodies in the previous 



