ed the assignment
is for a sufficient consideration. A debtor may directly assign or
transfer all his property to a single creditor, and the assignment be
valid; but if the value of the property is manifestly excessive, and
disproportionate to the debt which it is intended to cover, the other
creditors have a right to the surplus.

Sec.9. When an embarrassed debtor agrees to pay his creditors a certain
proportion of their claims in consideration of a discharge of their
demands, if he privately agrees to give a better or further security to
one than to others, the contract is void; because the condition upon
which they agree to discharge the debtor is, that they shall share
equally.

Sec.10. A gift, or conveyance founded merely upon a consideration of
affection, or blood, or consanguinity, may be set aside by creditors, if
the grantor was in embarrassed circumstances when he made it; for a man
is bound, both legally and morally, to pay his debts before giving away
his property. But if he is indebted to only a small amount in proportion
to the value of his property, and wholly unembarrassed, the gift is not
rendered voidable by his indebtedness, even though he should afterwards
become insolvent.

Chapter LVII.

Bailment.

Sec.1. The word _bailment_ is from _bail_, French, to deliver. (Chap.
XVIII, Sec.14.) Bailment, in law, is a delivery of goods, in trust, upon
agreement that the trust shall be executed, and the goods restored by
the bailee, when the purpose of the bailment shall have been, answered.

Sec.2. A person who receives goods to be kept and returned without reward,
must keep them with reasonable care, or, if they receive injury, he will
be liable for the damage: in other words, he is responsible only for
gross neglect. Gross neglect is a want of that care which every man of
common sense takes of his own property. A _depositary_, who is a person
with whom goods are deposited, has no right to use the goods intrusted
to him.

Sec.3. A _mandatary_, or one who undertakes to do an act for another
without recompense, in respect to the thing bailed to him, is
responsible for gross neglect, if he undertakes and does the work amiss;
but it is thought that for agreeing to do, and not undertaking or doing
at all, he is not liable for damage.

Sec.4. The borrower of an article, as a horse, carriage, or book, without
reward, is liable for damage in case of slight neglect. But if the
article is applied on