Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/260

 248 FEDERAL REPORTER. �Tho principle may be coasiderel well establisbed that when a !;tatute pronoiinces a gaming or usurious contract absolutely void no recovery can be had thereon. The gaming statuts of Missouri destroys the negotiable character of a note, or other obligation, given for a gaming consideration within the terms of that statute. The doctrine that void transactions cannot acquire validity by transfer of paper obligations based thereon finds f ull sanction not only in author- ities, [aupra,) but in the many bond cases before the United States supreme court. 4 Wall. 463; 102 U. S. 625, 278; 103 U. S. 680; 94U. S. 429. �The broad distinction remains between contracta void ah origine, by force of statutes whereby assignees and indorsees are unprotected, and contracta contra bonos mores, which cannot be enforced between the original parties thereto, but are held enforceable when, being negotiable in form, they have passed to innocent holders for value. �The notes in question were, it must be held for the purposes of this motion, given for balances on an "option deal, " an illegal con- tract ; being, as alleged, a mere betting transaction on future priees, with no purpose of delivering or receiving the articles concerning which the bet was made. If the allegations of the answer are true Alexander could not recover on the notes in suit ; and the court was in doabt whether the position the bank occupies should not be con- sidered as exceptional, and thus open the equities between the origi- nal parties. It is evident that the bank could at divers times have collected Alexander's demand note and turned over to him the col- laterals; and it seemed that defendants' position had great force, viz., that the transfer of Harrison's notes as collateral to the bank under the circumstances was merely for the purpose of excluding the equities between the original parties. Still the stubborn fact re- mained that the bank is a hona fide holder for value within tiie rulea laid down by the United States supreme court in Swift v. Tyson and Goodman v. Simonds, no evidence being given that the bank had notice of the infirmity of the paper. �The court holds that the transaction in question is not within the terms of the gaming laws of Missouri, but if it was an option deal, as charged, would be unenforceable between the original parties, and even in the hands of an innocent indorsee for value. �The distinction is so clearly drawn, and the doctrines so exhaust- ively considered by Judge Thayer, of the St. Louis circuit court, (with whose manuscript opinion in the Tinsley Case I have been ��� �