Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/584

 572 FSD£BA.I< BEPOBTSB. �house receipts, etc., "shall be negotiable in blauk, or by spe- cial indorsemeut, in the saine manner and to the same estent as bills of exchange and promissory notes now are." Was this section designed to eut off ail equities between con- signor and consignee, when a transfer of the receipt had been made to an innocent transferee for value ? If so, were demand on the principal and notice to the indorser required to hold the parties to said receipt personally liable for property for an undetermined value, not like bills of exchange, etc. ? Or was it designed to effect merely a valid pledge of the property, through indorsement of the receipt, without a personal liabil- ity on the part of the warehouseman for more than the spe- cifie property ? �It is obvious that if the warehouse receipt was to operate as a bill of exchange the primary element of such a bill would be eliminated, viz., a sum certain; and also demand on the warehouseman at maturity would be required, with due notice, as by the law merchant. But the warehouse receipt may not fix a day certain on which delivery is to be made, nor does it contain any other of the essential requisites of a bill of exchange, whereby the law merchant can fasten on the par- ties to the paper their respective liabilities. The original contract was between consignor and consignee. The latter received the goods to sell for the benefit of the consignor. Could he, without consent of the consignor, place the same in a warehouse, and then turn over the warehouse receipt to some other person, and thus couvert a contract resting in personal confidence and trust for the sale of the property into a general authority to any and every one to whom the receipt might be pledged, or who thus gets manual or symbolical possession of the property, to sell the same, with or without accounting to the consignor for the proceeds thereof ? To so hold would be subversive, not only of ail rights of property, but of ail laws of contract between consignor and consignee. Does, then, the clause in the statute as to negotiability imply or require any such overturn of elemental principles ? Was the cohtract between consignor and consignee assigned, as well ��� �