642 
THE TROPICAL ACRiCULtUftlSt. 
[March 2 , i8qi 
Bellers’ brokers, with an undisclosed principal ; and, 
although they coll themselves brokers, it would be 
more correct to describe them as factors. And the 
transaction, notwithstanding the bought-note, was, 
in my opinion, one of sale and purchase between the 
plaintiffs, who had possession of the goods, and the 
defendants; and the defendants, after having re 
ceivfd the bought-note, took the same view, for 
they tendered the 22f. 4s. lOd. I think, therefore, 
that the plaintiffs are not precluded on this ground 
from recovering . — Chemist and Druggist. 
^ 
THE BUSINESS OF BROKEllS. 
Litigiousness is not the prominent ctiaractoristic 
of the fraternity of brokers of our day — at least, 
not of those whose dealings are chiefly in drugs. 
Very rarely do we have the opportunity of learning 
anything about the law which governs their trans- 
actions from the conclusive test of a contest in the 
courts. The case tried before the County Court 
judge at Liverpool, the report of which we 
give above, seemed at one time likely to afford 
an opportunity for a display of ingenious legal lore, 
and we are a little disappointed that his Honour 
of that court should have contented himself with so 
ingeniously gliding round the difficulty which had 
been raised, in the somewhat uninteresting judgment 
which we have to record. Whether the sellers and 
the buyers of the kola nuts in question are equally 
satisfied, or equally dissatisfied, we do not know ; 
their dispute was not a very imposing one, and 
onlookers are likely to come to the conclusion that 
the decision is a practically just one. But, out of 
curiosity, we should have been pleased to have 
had a judicial essay on the interesting point sub- 
mitted to the court whether the brokers, taking as 
they did, and as is usual in their business a 
commission from both buyer and seller, were in a 
position to sue one of the parties as if they were 
principals. We suppose the custom of the double 
percentage is so well established, and so universally 
understood, that there can be no question of its 
legality for brokers; but there are, plenty of oases 
from which it may be gathered that such a system 
is scarcely permissible to other persons acting in a 
fiduciary capacity. 
In Judge Collier’s view, the plantifl's in the case 
reported were to be regarded rather as factors than 
as brokers. If they were such, they had an un- 
doubted right to sue. But the bought note, in 
which they expressly held themselves out as the 
agents, for the buyers, was inconsistent with tbeir 
legal standing as factors, and had to be r garded 
with amiable charity by the learned judge. The 
truth is that the broker’s business, as it is now 
conducted, is not very clearly defined. To a con- 
siderable extent it is governed by the Factors Act, 
1889, but the generally-understood distinction be- 
tween factors and brokers is, that factors have 
possession of the goods they sell, and that brokers 
have not. When they are not factors in the legal 
sense, they are simply meroantile agents, and are 
subject to the ordinary laws, even if these should 
clash with their own carefully-devised rules and 
conditions. Until the Act of 14, brokers in the 
City of London were under the control of the 
Corporation, and were liable to a penalty if they 
assumed the title. They bound themselves by oath 
to a certain course of conduct, one stipulation 
being that they should not buy and sell merchandise 
on their own account. The Corporation did not 
rigidly t-nforoo ils rights, took fees from those 
willing to pay them, and generally left others alone. 
The Brokers Act of 1884, by abolishing the control 
of the City authorities, removed the restrictions on 
the business as well as on the title, 
Brokers have a rather mixed record in our history. 
The name seems to have come into rise in England 
first in the fourteenth century, and from then on to 
the sixteenth century the middlemen in trade were 
called brokers, broggers, and brocars promiscuously. 
Broggers are mentioned in a statue of Richard II,, 
which requires that they shall not practise as such 
in any mystery except they be chosen by such 
mystery. The name is said to have descendend from 
the Norman-French “ brokier," and that from the 
old French “ br, chier,” which meant one who 
tapped or broached wine. The modern dealers in 
'“wine from the wood” are the original and most 
genuine of brokers. But as foreign trade grew, and 
imports from foreign countries became more abun- 
dant, the men who found customers for the cargoes 
reaching our ports became by far tne richest and 
most highly-esteemed of the various kinds of brokers. 
The business was a very important one in the 
early part of the seventeenth century, and great 
was the jealousy between the English brokers and 
the ” sonnes of Aliena” who competed with (hem. 
In the Guildhall Library there is preserved a curious 
" petition of English brokers lawfully admitted todeale 
betweene marchants in London ” to the House of 
Commons of the year 1620. It humbly shewelh 
“Thit for mar y ages past it was the use and 
custome of the Untie of London that none but 
freemen of the Cittie being Englishmen borne and 
householders should be admitted to exercise the 
trade of a Broker between Marchant and Marchant, 
whereby great commodity did arise to the common 
wealth for many years together.” But now “in 
these dayes many strangers borne and the sonnes 
of aliens and others not lawfully admitted doe use 
and exercise Brocage between Marchants, by which 
means many intolerable and insupportable mischiefs 
do daylie happe unto this Kingdom and State.” 
Among the inconveniences enumerated from the 
conduct of these strangers and sonnes of aliens 
were that not only in London, but also “ in Ex- 
eter, Norwich, Colchester, Canterbury, Sandwich, 
and many other places,” they were buying and 
selling “ both in grosse and by retail?, . . . driving 
a wonderfull home trade in this realms, to their 
private inriching and impoverishment of the English 
borne subjects.” They were said to seek only “ the 
profit of the Marchant strangers, and how to sell his 
commodities at the uttermost price.” Thus they 
“inhaunced” the value of commodities. Other 
reasons given to their discredit were that they 
probably melted down the bullion they obtained and 
sent it abroad, and that through them the dealings 
of the Eoglishe could not bo kept secret. 
“The Act against Brokers” passed in the reign 
of James I., and still in force, reflects in its 
curious phraseology another grievance which the 
artistocratic brokers seem to have entertained. They 
evidently did not approve of Dick, Tom, and 
Harry calling themselves by the title which they 
had made honourable. “ For as much as,” declares 
this statute, “ of long and ancient Time, by the 
divers hundred years there have been used within 
the city of London and Liberties thereof, certain 
Freemen of the City, selected out of the Companies 
and Mysteries whereof they are free and members 
and the same persons to be presented by at least 
six approved and known Honest persons of the 
same Mystery to the Lord Mayor of London for 
the Time being, and to the Aldermen his brethren, 
and to be recommended by such Presenters to be 
persons for their known Honesty, Integrity, and 
Faithfulness, Persons meet for to be Broker or 
Brokers.” These “ having taken their corporal Oaths 
before the said Lord Mayor and Aldermen to use 
and deme»n themselves uprightly and faithfully 
between Merchant English and Merohaot Strangers 
