MEDIEVAL AND MODERN PRODUCE MARKETS 841 



affords a more natural explanation of the relative importance of 

 the progress of the technique of trading at this time. 



The general similarity of warrants and bills of lading and the 

 frequent association of both types of instrument under the general 

 term " document of title " has led some German writers to sup- 

 pose that the legal properties of the instruments are the same. 

 The neglect of case law is unfortunate. Both warrants and 

 delivery orders are to be distinguished from bills of lading with 

 respect to the legal meaning of negotiability, and the warrants 

 and delivery orders differ from each other. 



" Goods in stores, free or bonded, can be made the subjects of 

 security, or transfer on sales, by means of delivery orders. . . . 

 A delivery order, like a cheque, assumes three parties. . . . The 

 usual terms of the order are simple enough. It is, ' Deliver to 

 A.B., or his order, so many goods, identified by marks and num- 

 bers, or so many bushels of grain from a particular lot lying in 

 your store.' It is signed by the owner, and is in favor of the 

 particular party therein named. That order is not of the least 

 use to the grantee until he has gone with it to the storekeeper, 

 and has got the storekeeper to transfer the goods to the grantee's 

 name. . . . 



"A delivery order very often is transferred from hand to hand. 

 The original grantee indorses it ' Deliver to so and so,' and 

 it may be indorsed twice or thrice over. It would be a mistake, 

 however, to imagine that the delivery order, though capable of 

 indorsation, is a negotiable instrument. ... If you are the in- 

 dorsee of a delivery order, you are not in the position of the 

 holder of a negotiable instrument like a bill ; because, in the case 

 of the delivery order, you are subject to all the exceptions aris- 

 ing out of the real contract between the original grantor and the 

 original grantee. One important consequence is that the original 

 grantor of the delivery order can hold the goods for the unpaid 

 price against any indorsee whatever, even against a bona fide 

 indorsee for full value given." 



The Scotch iron warrants are issued by iron masters and 

 couched in approximately these terms, " I will deliver so many 



