There remains for consideration a ground not taken before his Honour, namely, the contention that the transaction impeached is protected by the rule in Ex parte James; Re Condon [3] . In that case the proceeds of an execution had been paid by the execution creditor to the trustee in bankruptcy under the mistaken belief that the trustee was legally entitled to the moneys. It was held that the Court had jurisdiction to relieve against the mistake of law and to order the trustee to repay the moneys to the execution creditor. James L.J. said: "I am of opinion that a trustee in bankruptcy is an officer of the Court. He has inquisitorial powers given him by the Court, and the Court regards him as its officer, and he is to hold money in his hands upon trust for its equitable distribution among the creditors. The Court, then, finding that he has in his hands money which in equity belongs to some one else, ought to set an example to the world by paying it to the person really entitled to it. In my opinion the Court of Bankruptcy ought to be as honest as other people" [1] . The rule in Ex parte James [2] has been invoked in many subsequent cases, on some occasions with, but more often without, success. In In re Tyler [3] , Farwell L.J. said that the rule applied to the administration of all estates, whether in Chancery, Bankruptcy, or the winding up of companies where the Court itself by its officer often found itself in the position of a quasi litigant. In the same case Buckley L.J. said that in Ex parte James [1] , James L.J., when he spoke of money which in equity belonged to some one else, meant money "which in point of moral justice and honest dealing belongs to some one else. He was using the words in a popular sense, and not in the sense of money which in a Court of Equity would belong to some one else assuming that he (the officer) has a right enforceable in a Court of Justice, the Court of Bankruptcy or the Court for the administration of estates in Chancery will not take advantage of that right if to do so would be inconsistent with natural justice and that which an honest man would do" [4] . These words of Buckley L.J. were approved by Atkin L.J. in In re Thellusson [5] . In Re Gozzett [6] , Romer L.J. said that the principle is applicable only when an officer of the Court, if he acted in strict accordance with his legal rights, would be doing something dishonourable. There is a useful collection of the cases up to 1922 in the report of Scranton's Trustee v. Pearse [7] . The scope of the rule is discussed in the judgments of the Court of Appeal in that case and Williams on Bankruptcy 15th ed. (1937), pp. 239 et seq. Since Scranton's Case [8] the rule has again been before the Court of Appeal in Re Gozzett [9] . In In re Thellusson, Atkin L.J. said that "it can make no difference whether the trustee himself has acquired the property by unworthy means, or whether there is vested in him by operation of law property which has been acquired by the debtor by unworthy means. If it would be dishonourable of the debtor to use the money to pay his creditors, it is equally dishonourable for the officer of the Court, knowing the full facts, to use the money to pay his creditors" [10] . But the cases as a whole appear to show that it is only in exceptional cases that the rule would be applied where the officer or his predecessor in office has not been personally concerned in the transaction. In re Thellusson [11] is an exceptional case. There a creditor who had agreed to lend the debtor money to pay a pressing debt paid the money into the bank account of the debtor in ignorance of the fact that a receiving order had been made against him. Out of the money paid in, the bank recouped itself for the amount of an overdraft leaving a balance in the account. The balance vested in the Official Receiver by operation of law. The money was paid into a bank account over which the Official Receiver had control, so that the payment was very much akin to a payment to him personally. In Re Gozzett [1] , Lord Wright M.R. said that the payment was very analogous to a payment under mistake of fact and it was not therefore a matter of astonishment that the Court held that the rule should apply. In his judgment in In re Wigzell [2] , Younger L.J. set out the exceptional circumstances that existed in In re Thellusson [3] . He referred to the essential difference between applying the rule to "a transaction initiated by the bankrupt himself, not presumably in every case a person of the highest commercial morality, and a transaction initiated either by the trustee or the Court" [4] . He pointed out that in the case of transactions initiated by the bankrupt himself "it is not obvious that a creditor with whom that transaction has been carried out and is complete, even one who in relation to it may have been tricked by the bankrupt, has any equity at all as against the other creditors of the same bankrupt, who may all have been equally tricked, merely because in his case the proceeds of the transaction can be traced amongst the bankrupt's assets, and in the other cases they cannot" [5] .