Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1883 — Law for Farmrs. [ARTICLE]

Law for Farmrs.

The country is full of adventurers , iilftA PTftT ly. First, those who believe that all newspapers are liars, and second, that class who subscribe for the paper that is sold for the least money without reference to the reading matter it contains. Among the most successful swindlers are those who take a promissory note, for some swindle they have to sell, either drawn in such a manner that it may be altered or separable, or else under the pretense that it will not be presented until the article is tested. A gcod authority says; A prommissory note is a written agreement to pay a certain sum of money at a certain time. It must be definite and unconditional. It is therefore in the nature of money; being negotiable, and where payable to bearer, the property in it’s passes by mere delivery of the paper on which it is written. It is not subject to all the defenses that aregood as against other contracts. For example : It is generally good in the hands of an innocent holder, no matter though the maker of it had lost it, or it had been stolen, or obtained from him by fraud. This may be the case, even though it has been altered or “raised,” as where I give my note- signed in blank to a person, authorizing him to fill in a certain amount as $lO, and he fills in a larger amount, as SIOO, and sells it to an innocent purchaser. I must pay the larger amount, for I it was who enabled the fraud to be committed; and an old maxim of the law holds that where one or two innocent persons must suffer from the wrongful acts of a third, the loss must be borne by the one who enabled such third person to occasion it. The justice of this is obvious, and any sensible man will appreciate the necessity of protecting, in the largest degree, the rights of bona fide holders of negotiable instruments, which form part of the currency of the country, and if subject to all the defenses of ether written contracts, would be deprived of their main value. Our advice is never to give a note unless written in ordinary form, and you should know perfectly the contents thereof. The great number of frauds that have been perpetrated on the fax’mers of Western states and territories by patent right men and worthless agricultural machinery agents, should be a sufficient excuse for you to have nothing to do with men, especially in important transactions, w’lio cannot satisfy your banker, lawyer or merchant that tiiey are all right. Another fraud is that of conveyance. The following-decision is a case in point: Where a party conveys his property to a third party when judgments are outstanding against him, and such conveyance is with the intent to defraud his creditors, and the fraud is participated in by the purchaser, his title will not be protected, even though he paid sufficient consideration. Williams v b.. Nacbenheim, Sup. Court of lowa. So, again, whenever a note is executed by two or more parties, any alteration in it without the consent of all, notwithstanding the alteration was entirely honest and with no fraudulent intent, will be deemed a material one. Craighead vs. McLoney, Sup. Ct. Pa., 39 Leg. Intel. 280. . ' In relation to mortgages there always has and always will be difficulties. A careful man will never mortgage his home except as a last resort to raise money for legitimate purposes. In this connection, a peculiar system of mortgaging farms in Switzerland will be interesting : A farmer may borrow of a do’Zen men successfully, the simple record in an official book showing their order. If he fails to pay, a successor is found foi' him by beginning at the bottom of the list of debtors, and calling on each in his order to assume all the debts and manage the farm, or step aside and lose his claim. —Prairie Farmer.