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* FACTOR. 416 FACTORIES. goods of his principal, and is empowered to de- liver them to the purchaser as if they were his own. He often buys and sells in his own name, so that those dealing with him may not know whether he is owner or factor. Under some limitations for self-protection, he is bound by the instructions of his principal and responsible for damages arising from a violation thereof. As a rule he must obey special instructions, and if none are given, he is bound to use all reasonable (are ill the management of the property com- mitted to his charge, to employ the usual meth- ods of business, and to have due regard to the interests and welfare of his employer. Other- wise he is not entitled to his commissions, and for injurious neglect of duty may even be sued by his principal. He cannot delegate his au- thority without express permission of his prin- cipal unless such delegation is justified by gen- eral usage or by stress of peculiar circumstances. He cannot sell goods at a sacrifice for the pur- pose of obtaining his commission and advances. h is generally held that a factor who has made advances upon goods acquires such an interest in them that the principal cannot take them out of his possession by a revocation of his authority. The factor can sell enough of them to reimburse himself if the principal unreasonably neglects or refuses to pay him. Sometimes, in consideration of an increased commission, he guarantees to the principal payment for the goods which have been sold. In that ease he acts under a del credere, or guaranty, commission, and is in general subject to most of the obligations of a surety. It was formerly held that a factor whose principal re- sides in a foreign country is personally liable to the other party, even though the foreign prin- cipal was disclosed. The modern view is, how- ever, that a factor who names his principal is not personally liable on contracts made for his prin- cipal, whether foreign or domestic, provided they are within the factor's authority and do not pro- fess tn bind him personally. See Agent. Consult: Meehem, Treatise on the Law of Agency (Ou- tgo, 1889) : Evans, Treatise on the haw of t'rin- • ipal and Igent (New York and Albany, 1S91). FACTOR ACTS. The legal designation of a series of modern statutes in England and Amer- ica, conferring upon agents who are intrusted with the possession of goods the authority to vest a good title thereto in an innocent purchaser. At common law a factor (q.v.) had no implied authority to pledge or barter his principal's goods. Even when they were shipped to him. and their possession as well as the bill of lading or other document of title intrusted to him, he had not the legal power to pledge or barter them. The common-law doctrine, thai a person cannot give a better title than he possesses, enabled the principal to recovei his property from a pledgee, although the latter had advanced monej to the D. the bonesi belief that he was the true owner. The inconveniences resulting from this principle, with the opportunities for fraud which it permitl d led the mercantile and banking community to demand thai a person into whose possi I i documents of title were out by the true owner be treated a- having unquali- fied power to dispose of them. Partial oll'ref • to this view in England by the Factors i .., iv. c. mi i. and in a few of our Stal n fashioned after thai stat- ute facl agents of a similar character, who are intrusted with the possession of goods or the documents of title thereto for the purpose of sale, are to be deemed the true owners, so far as to give validity to any sale or pledge made by them to an innocent pur- chaser or pledgee for value. In England the new doctrine has been carried even further than this The courts there, as here, having construed the earlier acts very strictly, the mercantile com- munity has insisted upon their repeated revision; each new statute going further than its pi. sor toward the substitution for the common-law rule, stated above, of the doctrine which prevails upon the Continent of Europe, that any one in the possession of goods, with the consent of the owner, whether a factor or not, shall be able to give a perfect title thereto to an innocent pur- chaser for value from him. This legislation, taken with that upon conditional sales, has prac- tically abrogated, so far as personal property is concerned, the former doctrine of the common law that the purchaser of property buys it at his ]» i il. and gets only such title as his vendor has to give. See Caveat Emptor. Consult : Chambers, Hale of Goods Act (London, 1899) ; Kerr Pearson- Gee, Commentary on the Hale of Goods Act (Lon- don, 1893) ; Burdiek, The Law of Sales of Per- sonal Property (Boston, 1901) ; Benjamin. Trea- tise on the Law of the Hale of Personal Property (London, 1900). See Strength of FACTOR OF SAFETY. Materials. FACTORIES AND THE FACTORY SYS- TEM. A factory may be defined as an establish- ment where a number of persons cooperate by consecutive processes in the production of some article of consumption. Carroll D. Wright, in his report on the factory system for the Tenth United States Census, uses the following defini- tion, which he borrows from Taylor's Factories and the Factory System, published in London in 1.S44: "A factory is an establishment where several workmen are collected for the purpose ol obtaining greater and cheaper conveniences for labor than they could procure individually at their own homes; for producing results by their combined efforts which they could not accomplish separately; and for preventing the loss occa- sioned by carrying articles from place to place during the several processes necessary to com- plete their manufacture." Historical Development. As is the case with most other great industrial movements, it would be difficult to assign to the origin of the factory system an exact place or date. The system orig- inated in England in textile manufacture, din- ing the latter half of the eighteenth century, but its germ already existed in the carding and full- ing mills which had been common for many years previous. During the eighteenth century, how ever, a remarkable series of inventions was made, by which automatic machinery was inlro diieed as a substitute for, or at least a supple- ment to, hand labor in the manufacture of cot ton and woolen cloth. The history of these inventions, among the most important of which ■ ne those of Arkwright, Hargraves, Cartwright, and Crompton, is given elsewhere in the biograph- ical skctelies of their inventors and in the gen era! articles on Spinning and Weaving. The importance of these invent ions, n,,| only indus trially. but economically, can scarcely be over