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 Liverpool Cotton Association is to make those rules binding upon the principal, and if he employs his broker upon the basis of the printed form, he does bind himself to any modification of the relations between himself and his broker which those rules may effect. The object of the principal clause in the above and similar printed forms is apparently to entitle the broker to sell to or buy from his principal on his own account and not as agent at all, thus disregarding the duty incumbent upon him as broker of making for his principal a contract with a third party.

It is not possible, except very generally, to state how far exchanges have succeeded in imposing their own rules and usages on non-members, but it is probably correct to say that in most cases if the question came before the courts, the outside client would be held to have accepted the rules of the exchange so far as they did not alter the fundamental duties to him of his broker. On the other hand, provisions purporting to entitle the broker in disregard of his duties as broker himself to act as principal, would be rejected by the courts as radically inconsistent with the primary object of the contract of brokerage and, therefore, meaningless. But it is undoubtedly too often the practice of brokers who are members of exchanges to consider themselves entitled to act as principals and sell on their own account to their own clients, particularly in futures. The causes of this opinion, erroneously, though quite honestly held, are probably to be looked for partly in the habit of acting as principal on the market in accordance with the rules, partly in the forms of contract notes containing “principal clauses” which they send to their clients, and perhaps, also, in the occasional difficulty of effecting actual contracts on the market at the time when they are instructed so to do.

BROMBERG, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Posen, 32 m. by rail W.N.W. from the fortress of Thorn, 7 m. W. from the bank of the Vistula, and at the centre of an important network of railways, connecting it with the strategical points on the Prusso-Russian frontier. Pop. (1900) 52,082; (1905) 54,229. Its public buildings comprise two Roman Catholic and three Protestant churches, a Jewish synagogue, a seminary, high grade schools and a theatre. The town also possesses a bronze statue of the emperor William I., a monument of the war of 1870–71, and a statue of Benkenhoff, the constructor of the Bromberg Canal. This engineering work, constructed in 1773–1774, by command of Frederick II., connects the Brahe with the Netze, and thus establishes communication between the Vistula, the Oder and the Elbe. The principal industrial works are iron foundries and machine shops, paper factories and flour mills; the town has, moreover, an active trade in agricultural and other products. In view of its strategical position, a large garrison is concentrated in and about the town. Bromberg is mentioned as early as 1252. It fell soon afterwards into the hands of the Poles, from whom it was taken in 1327 by the Teutonic Order, which held it till 1343, when the Poles recaptured it. Destroyed in the course of these struggles, it was restored by Casimir of Poland in 1346, and down to the close of the 16th century it continued to be a flourishing commercial city. It afterwards suffered so much from war and pestilence that about 1772, when the Prussians took possession, it contained only from five to six hundred inhabitants. By the treaty of Tilsit it was transferred to the duchy of Warsaw; in 1813 it was occupied by the Russians, and in 1815 was restored to Prussia.

BROME, ALEXANDER (1620–1666), English poet, was by profession an attorney, and was the author of many drinking songs and of satirical verses in favour of the Royalists and against the Rump. He published in 1661 Songs and other Poems, containing songs on various subjects, followed by a series of political songs; ballads, epistles, elegies and epitaphs; epigrams and translations. Izaak Walton wrote an introductory eclogue for this volume in praise of the writer, and his gaiety and wit won for him the title of the “English Anacreon” in Edward Phillips’s Theatrum Poetarum. Brome published in 1666 a translation of Horace by himself and others, and was the author of a comedy entitled The Cunning Lovers (1654). He also edited two volumes of Richard Brome’s plays.

BROME, RICHARD (d. 1652), English dramatist, was originally a servant of Ben Jonson, and owed much to his master. The development of his plots, the strongly marked characters and the amount of curious information to be found in his work, all show Jonson’s influence. The relation of master and servant developed into friendship, and our knowledge of Brome’s personal character is chiefly drawn from Ben Jonson’s lines to him, prefixed to The Northern Lasse (1632), the play which made Brome’s reputation. Brome’s genius lay entirely in comedy. He has left fifteen pieces. Five New Playes (ed. by Alex. Brome, 1652?) contained Madd Couple Well Matcht (acted 1639?);