nt's recollection of what is now perhaps the most
familiar of Teutonic saga to the ordinary reader, the text of Wagner's
"Ring of the Nibelung," will give ample evidence of that mental
attitude. But the Oriental mind was far more subtile. To the Jews or
Lombards we owe the discovery of that _bill of exchange_--the first of
negotiable instruments, and the first historically to bring into
our law the legal concept of a symbol of ownership which might be
instantly transferred with an absolute change of title in the property
thereby represented, and this either to a present transferee or to one
far away. Thus, a simple bill of exchange might transfer the ownership
in a pile of gold in a moment from a man in Venice to a man in London,
thereby (if the law-merchant was respected) freeing the treasure
itself from attack at the hands of the Venetian authorities. And not
only was this change of ownership instantaneously effected by the
transfer of some symbol or document representing it, but there also,
and as a necessary part of the invention, grew up the doctrine that
the transferee was relieved of any claims against the property at the
hands of the previous owner. This is what we mean by negotiable;
and it is essential that the precise meaning of the word should be
understood if we are to understand the importance of this legislation.
Even most business men have a very vague understanding of the
difference between _negotiable_ and _assignable_. Substantially
all property and choses in action are assignable, except personal
contracts; and in ordinary business many of them are assumed to
be negotiable, such as bills of lading, warehouse receipts, trust
receipts, or certificates of stock. Most brokers, or even bankers,
assume that when they have a stock certificate duly endorsed to
them by the owner mentioned on its face they have an absolute and
unimpeachable title to the stock therein represented. Such, of course,
is not the case except for recent statutes in a few States. To take a
familiar example, and I can think of none better to show exactly the
difference between a personal contract non-assignable, a document
which is assignable, and one which is negotiable--a Harvard-Yale
foot-ball ticket. If the ticket is issued by the management to a
person under his name, with a condition that it shall be used by no
one else, it is a contract non-assignable. If it is issued to him in
the same manner, but with no provision against assig