Cases argued and decided in the Supreme Court of the State of Texas, during the latter part of the Austin term, 1884, and the Tyler term, 1884. Volume 62. Page: 437

                                
1884]        PEABRE & Co. v. I AWKIN.               437
Opinion of the court.
It may have been thought by the legislature that the word
"transfer" could be applied only to " an act or transaction by which
the property of one person is by him vested in another." This, without
the use of some qualifying word, is the legal meaning of the
term. Abbott's Dictionary; Bouvier's Dictionary; Webster.
It ?may have been thought necessary to use a word of broader
signification, in order to embrace every conceivable form of appro,priation
of property in actual ownership or otherwise to another
by a debtor, with intent to defraud creditors, by an act which gives
or purports to give to another a general or qualified ownership, or
right in or to the thing in question.
The word "dispose" is thus defined by Mr. Abbott: "To dispose
of property is to alienate it; assign it to a use; bestow it; direct its
ownership."
Mr. Webster defines the primary meaning of the words, "To dispose
of," as follows: "To part with; to sell; to alienate; as, the
man has disposed of his house."
- We have no doubt that these definitions embrace both the popular
and legal significations of the word "dispose," when used in
connection with property, as it is in the attachment law.
If the word is used in the statute in any of these senses, it gives
to the clause of the statute in which it is found a meaning inconsistent
with that in which the word " secrete" is found; they do
not present phases of the same fact or act; nor is the existence of
the one ground compatible with the existence of the other. If the
debtor has disposed of his property, he has nothing which he can
secrete and thereby defraud his creditor.
If he has only secreted his property he has not disposed of it.
That a person may, by a fraudulent conveyance, becloud the title
to his property as affects creditors, and thereby, in a certain sense,
secrete it, is true; but that would be to secrete the title or render
uncertain the ownership, and not to secrete the property, and would
be, within the meaning of the law, to dispose of his property.
We are of the opinion that the court below did not err in holding
-chat ft- two grounds for attachment set out in the affidavit were
t- I ent, and that this rendered the application so uncertain as
-to- rexq-re the writ to be quashed.
The judgment is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
[Opinion delivered November 18, 1884.]