Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/583

 BTEiaES V. THIRD NAT. BANK. 571 �The iecoM defence raises the question -whether a party leceiving an assignment of a -warehouse receipt, believing the assigner to be the owner of the property, cannot hold the same against the real owner for the amount loaned on the ifaith thereof, irrespective of the state of the, accounts between coneignor and consignee. �A f uU review of the subject ■would be advisable, if time per- mitted, requiring an analysis of the varions decisions and the statutes under which they were made ; but such a review wonld compel a consideration, not of elemental principles alone, but of their modifications through English and Amer- ican statutes, in the light of judicial interpretatiori of the respective statutes ; such a review looking to the true inter- pretation, persuasively, of the Missouri Statutes. �In 18 Missouri, 147, 191, the true doctrine of the common iaw was stated and enforced, to-wit, that a factor could not pledge his principal's -goods. Prior to that time, both in England and in some of the American states, the rigorous and just rule at common Iaw had been modified to a greater or less extent. �The Missouri Statutes of 1868, 1869, and 1874 are in accord. Thus the act of 1868 authorized the transfer of a warehouse receipt by indorsement thereon, whereby the trans- feree is to be deemed the owner of the goods, "sofar as to give validity to any pledge, lien, or transfer made," etc.: provided, that if the words "non-negotiable" were written or stamped on said warehouse receipts, etc., the act would not apply. This statute, with the exception in the proviso mentioned, per- mitted a transfer by indorsement of a warehouse receipt, so far as to give validity to the pledge, lien, and transfer. Prior to that act, a-s had been decided by the Missouri supreme court in the two cases supra, no such pledge could be made. The act of 1868 authorized the pledge in the manner stated to the extent of the factor's lien. Section 6, Act of March 13, 1868. �But it is contended that section 10 of said act gives a broader effect to such transfers, for it provides that ware- ��� �