Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/383

 flOHTINENTAL RAT. BANK V, ELIOT NAT. BANK. 8^1 �of Massachusetts, where both the national banks were situ- ated, and where the transactions took place, were wholly dis- regarded by the majority of the supreme court. The negoti- ability of f oreign scrip in England is not governed by the la w of England, but by the law of the f oreign country, which may be proved by the general usage of brokers and others dealing with such scrip. Goodwin v. Robwrts, 1 App. Cases, 476. The time and mode of attaching property, and its efifect in general, are part of the law of the forum; but its operation upon unrecorded transfers of shares in national banks is reg- ulated by the law which creates the shares and provides for their conveyance and registration. That law is section 5139, Rev. St., which provides that shares may be transferred on the books of the association in such manner as may be pre< scribed by the by-laws or articles of association. Such a lawj in Massachusetts, might possibly mean that creditors could attach the shares as the property of the recorded owner. Blanchard v. Deedham Gas-light Co. 12 Gray, 213. I have already said that I doabt if this is now the law of Massachu- setts, and I shall retum to the subject presently; but that law favors attacbments in certain classes of cases to an unu- Bual estent. �2. It is a general rule that creditors, whether they proceed by an attacbment on meane proeeas, seizure on execution, creditor's bill, or through an assignee in bankruptcy, must take their debtor's property subject to all equitable as well as legal charges, liens, or opposing titles. Willes, J., in giving judgment in the Queen's Bench in 1868, in a case quite anal- ogouB to this, against the right of seizing shares of the appar- rent owner, said that it was a rule applied by that court more than a hnndred years before, in the analogous case of the statutory execution under the bankrupt law, that the cred- itors can have no more than a debtor was entitled to in equity or at law. Pickering v. Ilfracombe Ry.Co. L. R. 3 G. P. 235, 251. �It bas been the law of the lord mayor's court in London, from the time of Richard I., that an equitable assignment of a chose inaction should pfevail against an attachment. West- ��� �