Allen

A libel having been filed by the government to forfeit the American gas screw vessel Mariam, which is under 200 tons burden, the claimant, W. C. Allen, filed an answer to said libel alleging that he held a bona fide chattel mortgage executed February 21, 1930, by A. F. Wright, the registered owner of said vessel, and that the claimant had no knowledge at the date of tho said mortgage that said Wright was not the sole and only owner of said vessel, if such were the case. The chattel mortgage was to secure the sum of $5,000 and was recorded February 25, 1930, at 9:30 o’clock a. m. in liber 1351/2 of mortgages, folio 56, in the office of the collector of customs of tho Port of San Diego, Cal. An exception was filed to tho answer of the claimant and appellant on the ground that the facts alleged in the answer of the claimant were insufficient to constitute a defense thereto. The libel is in three counts. The first count is based upon a false oath taken by A. F. Wright to obtain the registration of said ves *900 sel on June 30, 1924, in that at the time said oath was taken by A. E. Wri0ht alleging that he owned the vessel, the vessel was in fact owned by a foreign subject or eitizen of…