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(The Court ordered the following state of the question betwixt these parties, with their judgment upon it, to be inserted in the books of sederunt.)
“In a competition among the arresting creditors of a bankrupt tenant, upon the price of his effects, which had been sold by authority of the Sheriff, a question having occurred, How far the wages due to the farm-servants of a bankrupt tenant, for the term current at the bankruptcy, were to be considered as privileged debts, and preferable to arresters? The Lords, before answer, ordained an enquiry to be made into the practice of the Sheriffs of the different counties of Scotland as to that point. And reports having been accordingly received of said practice, from the Sheriffs of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Perth, Ayr, Aberdeen, Lanark, Roxburgh, Renfrew, Dumbarton, Dumfries, Selkirk, Ross, and Kincardine, the Lords yesterday proceeded to take the same into consideration, and thereafter pronounced an interlocutor, Finding, that the wages due to the servants of a bankrupt tenant, that is, to the servants kept for the purposes of the farm, are privileged debts on the price of the bankrupt's effects, and are preferable to arresters.”
