WILLIAMSON v. WILSON. 493

circumstances does it appear, that the estate of a debtor may be
put into the hands of a receiver at the instance of a creditor. In
most cases the application is founded upon the fact, that waste, or
peril has assailed or does then immediately threaten the property
in question. But there are cases in which it may become neces-
sary to interpose for the purpose of keeping the profits of an estate
in litigation apart from those arising from another which is not the
subject of controversy; on the ground, that they are likely to
become so inextricably mingled as to render it extremely difficult
or impossible to make a correct estimate of those of the litigated
estate after the right to it shall have been regularly determined. In
such cases the court will appoint a receiver of the rents and profits
of the litigated property. As where certain wharves were claimed
by the plaintiff in opposition to the city of Baltimore, a receiver
was directed to collect the wharfage of those wharves, the right to
which had been made the subject of litigation, and keep it sepa-
rate from that collected for the use of other wharves under the
authority of the city.(f)

This, however, is not the case of a third person attempting to
stop the course of a firm, or of any one then actually engaged in
trade; but is the case of a partnership where one of the partners
has averred, that their trading has ceased, and that the firm is
utterly insolvent, and thereupon asks for the appointment of a
receiver as the only means of saving him and their creditors from
the fraudulent practices of his co-partners. Now, in cases of part-
nership it must strike every one, that to whatever extent of malig-
nancy, or fraud a partner might be urged or tempted to go in a
condition of actual insolvency; yet, under other circumstances, his
own interest would withhold him from attempting to have this
power of the Court of Chancery applied to an unjust and perni-
cious purpose; for, it is rare that a man coolly indulges his malice
to the ruin of his own interests. And, therefore, it cannot often
happen, that a partner will deliberately abandon a gainful and
prosperous traffic in which he is in the undisturbed participation,
and maliciously endeavour to break it up, by fabricating such a
statement as will induce the Chancellor to order the joint funds into
the hands of a receiver, (g)

But, suppose a partner, in a prosperous and lucrative concern,
to be actuated by such malignant feelings; how far could he carry

(f) The Wharf Case, post, vol. ii,(g) Gow. Partner. 244,